House of Lords Reform

The basis of all my strong views on the subject is my belief that we need a stronger Parliament, vis-à-vis the Government, than we have at the moment. We all realise that regardless of the party that is in power, the modern Executive and the modern state have a tendency to get ever more powerful and all embracing. Most of the public sense that our parliamentary institutions are no longer powerful enough to make the Executive as accountable as they should be. We need more transparency, more honesty and more democratic accountability, which is why I want a stronger upper House of Parliament. At the moment, we have a Commons that has lost its powers and an upper House that is something of an historical anachronism, which restrains it in exercising its powers. There is nothing wrong with the present powers of the House of Lords and I would prefer to leave them unchanged. I think that we would find that any debate about those powers would lead to a frustrating inability to achieve any consensus on moving in one direction or the other. I would certainly resist any idea of weakening the existing powers of the upper House, so I am glad that the Government have so far been frustrated in their attempts to impose on the upper House the kind of timetabling of legislation that has done much to weaken the legislative process in this House, for example. The right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) does not object to those powers either. He said, as others have done, that those powers are quite right, but he expressed a fear that if the upper House were elected, its powers would, in some extraordinary way, get stronger. I fail to see that. At present, the Parliament Acts ensure that it has only a delaying power, rather than any kind of veto. As far as I am aware, the Parliament Acts secure that the Commons has the monopoly on Supply. It should be made absolutely clear that only the Commons decides matters of taxation and public expenditure, and that should not be changed. If there are hon. Members who fear that there would be pressure to abandon some of the conventions, I would be content to address that through statute. If, when we have the Government’s Bill, someone were to table an amendment to provide that the upper House should not, in any circumstances, be able to pass a vote of censure on the Government, I would support it. There are all kinds of other conventions with which we are familiar, such as the convention that the upper House should in no circumstances refuse to give a Second Reading to a Bill that formed a major part of a manifesto on which a Government were elected. If anyone could produce a satisfactory legal definition of that doctrine, I would support it. However, I do not believe that the Lords, if it becomes more elected, will be able by pressure to move its powers in the way in which the right hon. Gentleman suggests. The next step that we need to get to in the constitution of the United Kingdom is to persuade their lordships to use more effectively the powers that they already have. What could their lordships have done over the past two years? Although I do not want to go into the controversial things that bring about party divisions, some of the legislation that has been introduced on criminal justice, anti-terrorism and human rights has, in the opinion of many people, justified the Lords sticking to its guns and, if nothing else, trying to get the Government and this House to think again and again about where we are going. Although Members of the Lords felt strongly, they did not use all their powers to the full because they felt inhibited by the fact that we were elected and they were not and the feeling that that gave us more legitimacy. I align myself with all those who say that to get the upper House to behave more confidently and to use its powers, we have to give them more legitimacy, which means making sure that they are wholly or largely democratically elected. My preference, which I have expressed on all kinds of bodies over the past few years, including the first Cunningham Committee, is for 100 per cent. election; that is the logic of my position, and I shall vote for that tomorrow. I should add that I long ago accepted that the chances of such a measure being enacted in 2007 are absolutely nil. Reformers of all parties formed a group, which we called Breaking the Deadlock, and we produced the excellent Second Chamber of Parliament Bill of 2005. The group included my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young), the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), the late Robin Cook and the Liberal MP Paul Tyler, now Lord Tyler. We had to compromise, because no agreement could be reached on the details, even between such stout reformers. We came up with a proposal for a 70 per cent. elected Chamber. I hope that that makes the Liberals feel guilty about continuing to stick rigidly to their position. I hope that by tomorrow they will have decided that it might be worth considering at least the 60 per cent. proposal, so that we do not all defeat each other in our anxiety to ensure the perfect reform of the upper House.