House of Lords Reform

The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) mentioned public opinion, but I am not sure that there is a public clamour for a debate on this issue. Therefore, I am not sure that the large numbers of right hon. and hon. Members in the Chamber are reflecting public opinion by having this debate. In 2003, I voted in favour of every option on the Order Paper calling for some or all of the peers to be elected. I wanted to speak in this evening’s debate because, rather like the Leader of the House—I am flattered to find myself in such august company—I have completely changed my mind. The best reason for leaving the upper House largely as it is, is that it serves its purpose as a revising Chamber better than any alternative that we can envisage. It works, and it has patently worked better since 1999. It revises with a measured deference to the elected Chamber, with a thoroughness that we elected politicians seldom demonstrate, with a breadth of expertise that we cannot pretend to emulate, and with a legitimacy that can only exist apart from the daily thrust of party politics. Those qualities would be lost were the peers elected. Moreover, before we substantially alter the composition of the upper House, we should, as many other Members have said, discuss what it should do. That point was reflected in the intervention of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and the speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh). If we want to challenge the authority of this House, we should settle that first. It is not right to let it simply flow from any decision that we make about composition. We are already paying the price for a programme of disjointed constitutional reforms in isolation, such as Scottish devolution and the Human Rights Act, without regard to their wider consequences. The main argument for elected peers that we keep hearing is an argument that I think we should call ““democracy for its own sake””. I heard what was said by the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) about the virtues of accountable democracy, but that is delivered through this House; the other House does not need to be similarly democratic in order to fulfil its functions. The implication of the ““democracy for its own sake”” argument is that an appointed upper House is somehow incompatible with what the White Paper rather fetchingly calls ““a modern democracy””. In an excellent paper entitled ““A House Built of Straw””, Lord Norton of Louth points out that the White Paper offers no definition of democracy, or any distinction between what is democracy and what is a modern democracy. Quite why ““modern””—according to the Leader of the House—means 50 per cent. elected rather than 100 per cent. elected, or 80 per cent. elected as advocated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), is not explained. I believe that a mixed mandate for the upper House reflects mixed motives, and would be the worst option. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack). Either we want a revising Chamber or we want a senate and all that flows from it, but we must make up our minds. If we vote for an elected element, we will end up with senators who claim a democratic mandate. If such senators have single terms once elected, they will hardly be more accountable. Who can foretell how they will behave? I have a vision of not so much a revising Chamber as a rogue Chamber. In the White Paper the Leader of the House says:"““The legitimacy and authority of the second chamber continue to be called into question.””" By whom? By a few Members of this House?