Parliament (Participation of Members of the House of Commons) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am sure that we would at least thank the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, for giving us this opportunity to have what is proving to be a very thoughtful and interesting debate. At the outset of my remarks, I also take this opportunity to pay a warm tribute to my noble friend Lady Adams of Craigielea for a very forthright and honest speech that was absolutely characteristic of Scottish culture at its best. I shall make just one observation on the last exchange. As a former Defence Minister, I can say that defence is not a devolved issue, so far as I am aware. It is very possible that English MPs would vote on a defence policy that had immense implications for the social and economic life of the Scottish people. To say    that there is a clear-cut division is an oversimplification. I hope that the noble Lord would agree that there must be a certain sensitivity when an unelected House such as ours, which does not hesitate to put its views forward or indeed to vote on what the elected House wants to do, decides that it is up to it to start telling the elected House how it ought to make its affairs more democratic and more transparently so. I am slightly uneasy about credibility in that context. Having said that, I think that we all recognise that the noble Lord has focused on a real issue, but if we are going to deal with that issue, it is important to have a little perspective. I had a Scottish mother and an English father. I am very close to my Scottish family. I grew up in a family in which one of the anecdotes that was repeatedly told was of the Scottish businessman who was building his business with some success and managed to resolve all the problems that arose at St Andrew’s House. However, finally a problem arose that made it necessary to go to see people in government in London. His family was rather anxious about it. When he returned they gathered around and asked how it went. He said, ““It went fine. Why? What’s the problem?””. They said, ““But how did you get on with all those Sassenachs?””. He said, ““Sassenachs? I didnae meet any Sassenachs; I only met the heads of department””. When I had my first tentative job on the fringes of government, I was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Housing and Local Government. That was a very big department, with tremendous responsibilities in England and Wales. Every Monday morning I used to perch right at the end of a very long table. Down one side were ranged what always seemed quite a large number of Ministers in the department, carrying one responsibility or another; on the other side were the senior civil servants. I intend no disloyalty to my Secretary of State whom I love personally and whom I was glad to speak for, but the person who in many ways physically, let alone intellectually, dominated the occasion was the permanent secretary, a big Scot of immense intellect and authority. Here was this Scot leading this department which had extensive responsibilities in England and Wales. There is some perspective to be examined here. The noble Lord made a point to which I related very warmly: he said that he was strongly a unionist but that he believed that unionism—and successful unionism—was directly related to the success of devolution. I totally agree with his argument but it leaves unresolved the issue of English identity and means that at some point the question of an English Parliament may have to be examined. The evolutionary approach to constitutional reform clearly presents new challenges. Apart from the West Lothian question, we have the issue of regional government without matching regional democratic institutions. In Cumbria, where I live, more and more the key strategic issues relate to regional administration. I hope that the setback of the referendum in the north-east will not be allowed to become terminal, because I believe that that issue will not go away. Then there is the issue of how, increasingly, matters that affect the people of the United Kingdom as a whole are decided at European or international level. Quite how do English parliamentary institutions relate effectively to that new dimension? Then, of course, there is still the unresolved future of the second Chamber. There is also the issue of the electoral system itself. Why is one form of electing representatives appropriate in one part of the country and not in another? We have diversity here; what are the implications? What are we learning from this experience? There is a need for a comprehensive review and a road map identifying our destination and how we can best reach it. I am becoming convinced that tactical management arrangements are not enough and could even undermine stability and public confidence. We must be able to see the wood, not just the trees. I am uneasy when constitutional policymaking is undertaken within a party-political context. I believe that the constitution belongs to the people and we, the politicians, are practitioners within it. If the constitution is to be effective, the widest possible consensus is needed. That is essential for political stability. I wonder whether the time has come for a classic, old-style royal commission with a comprehensive constitutional remit which can identify the issues and make recommendations on the way forward, but on a comprehensive, holistic basis, not a piecemeal one—a basis on which the interrelationship of the issues could be examined, avoiding what might be described as the ““bubble in the lino”” syndrome, an issue preoccupying us today. The relevance of my suggestions—perhaps its urgency—is underlined by the growing disturbing evidence of public disenchantment, not least among the young, with the political system. There is a massive task to be undertaken to bring British people on board as a whole in the future of our political system and in understanding the underlying strategic issues, and, then, determining how best we can work towards fulfilling those strategic objectives with the practical measures that we may introduce in one context or another. At the moment, too often the tail is wagging the dog.