House of Lords Reform

I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in the debate and to follow the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh). One of the constitutional innovations of the new Labour Government was to allow ordinary people to give evidence to royal commissions. I was the first so-called ordinary person to give evidence to the Wakeham commission on reform of the House of Lords in 1999. I am glad to say that arriving here has not changed my fundamental attitude to the way in which the upper House should be composed. As other hon. Members have said, Britain is an unusual country. It is a multinational state built up over 500 years from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and, in the past 50 years, it has become a multi-ethnic country. At the moment, 5 per cent. of the population belongs to a non-white minority community, and the proportion is much higher among young people. Yet this diversity is hardly reflected in the House of Lords. Why is it that only one parliamentarian in five is a woman? Is it right that ethnic minorities are under-represented? Is it right that 26 places are reserved for Anglican bishops and that we retain 92 hereditaries? As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, the average age of a peer is rising 70. Although we have no bishops and peers, the position in this Chamber is not much better. So, with institutions that look like this, is it any wonder that only 37 per cent. of young people voted in the last general election? These inadequacies in our reflectiveness of the general population represent a deeper problem—an inability so far to make sense of our new British identity. To do this, we need not only laws relating to individual citizenship, rights and responsibilities; we need institutions that reflect our diversity. Unless we happen to be a bishop or an hereditary peer, the only part of our identity that counts for political purposes in this country is the geographical constituency within which we live. The House of Commons represents us by providing representation for the community in which we live—rural, urban, industrial or by the sea. But for most people, that is only part of their definition of themselves. Other aspects of our lives such as gender and race matter too. Arguably, economic and social changes mean that the geographical communities are becoming less significant over time. I believe that House of Lords reform represents an opportunity to right some of these wrongs. We could establish a second Chamber that complements the Commons and the make-up of which suits its revising functions and focus on individual rights. I am therefore sympathetic to those who argue for option 1—a reformed appointed Chamber which represents all regions, classes, faith communities, the voluntary sector, ethnic minorities, gender balance and, I would add, young people. However, I cannot agree that the Members should be appointed. It is a basic principle in a country that claims to be democratic that those who legislate should be elected by those for whom they legislate. That consideration overrides all others. My preference, therefore, would be for elections by colleges and to allow people to choose for themselves which they belong to, in a similar way to the system in the United States, where people can register as a Republican or a Democrat. So if a large number of people wished to define themselves as women, they could vote in that college, whereas if they wanted to represent themselves as members of the Church of England, they could vote in that college. So I was disappointed when I read the White Paper and saw in section 7 the brief dismissal of what have been called indirect elections. I do not believe that they are as impractical as has been suggested. It is the system, roughly speaking, that is used for the Irish Senate. As far as I understand it, it is a system that we designed and that the Irish have used for 90 years. However, it is not on the agenda today. If nothing succeeds in getting through, I hope that we can look again at so-called indirect elections. As that option is not on the table, therefore, I shall vote for a predominantly elected Chamber—options 4, 5 and 6; 50 per cent. elected, 60 per cent. elected and 80 per cent. elected. I shall not vote for 100 per cent. elected because I am not confident that the system of elections or the political parties will be capable of producing the diversity that we need in our legislature. Appointments are needed to make up the deficits. I also agree with the amendment that the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) tabled, which unfortunately we will not be voting on. It suggests that either none or all the major belief systems should be represented. For example, if we went down the route of electing 80 per cent. of the Members, the Anglican bishops would take a fifth of the share of appointments. I do not think that it is right, as some people have suggested, to say that no longer reserving 26 places for the Anglican bishops necessarily means the disestablishment of the Church of England. Most of the bishops to whom I have spoken admit that they do not have time to do justice to the role. It is objectionable to many of us, and even to many who belong to the Church of England, that the sexism in the Church is brought into the legislative process here for the whole nation. It would be perfectly reasonable for us to require the Church of England to elect its representatives as well and for us to look more widely at the other faith communities having elections. Notwithstanding the fact that we are not going to vote on that, I hope that the Leader of the House will ask the faith communities to consider that now, so that we have some proper preparations and when we come to legislation the problem will have been addressed.