House of Lords Bill [HL]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, has been holding this great day over us for a long time. The long list of speakers confirms our long experience that nothing provokes your Lordships more than a debate on the future of the House. The future of our House remains uncertain still, though we can be proud of our performance in recent years. One has only to look at a whole range of issues on which this House has operated in these past few years—defending the right to vote by secret ballot, regional assemblies, closed lists, licensing, jury trial, detention without trial, gambling, compulsory ID cards—to realise that time will show that your Lordships’ House has been right and the other place wrong on many occasions. So when it comes to reforming Parliament, I do not think that reform should begin and end in your Lordships’ House; indeed, I do not think it need necessarily begin here at all. But we have what the Government call ““unfinished business”” and the noble Lord, Lord Steel, offers us a way, he hopes, to finish it. Let us set aside for a moment that an appointed House is precisely what the other place recently voted against and the question of whether this is, therefore, the right Bill at the right time. I welcome the Bill and I welcome the debate. The reason that I welcome the Bill is that in the working group meeting last year I favoured working out in detail models for an appointed and an elected alternative for your Lordships’ House so that the debates in both Houses would move away from the rather sterile 80:20 or 100 per cent or 50:50 discussions and we could see exactly what we would be faced with. That work still needs to be done, and this Bill is part of that process. Let us also set aside the fact that had Part 2 of the Bill been in effect since 1999, we would have 10 fewer colleagues in the House, with the biggest relative gainers being Labour and the Liberal Democrats and the biggest relative losers being the Conservatives and the Cross-Benchers. I would be failing in my duty to those Peers who voted for and accepted their own removal in 1999 if I did not remind the House, if it needed reminding, that the undertakings given in 1999 remain, in the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, ““binding in honour”” on all, including the overwhelming majority here who came to give it their assent. The noble and learned Lord was equally quite right to say that stage 2 need not be an appointed House or an elected House or a ““hybrid”” one; but it has to be a stage 2 that is satisfactory to both Houses and which takes the views and interests of both Houses into account. If it does not, it cannot carry the consent or convey the stability that is required. It has to be a stage 2 which strengthens the ability of Parliament to control and scrutinise the Executive; it also has to uphold the independence of your Lordships’ House, secures that independence and sustains its powers and its confidence in using them. The Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, offers architecture towards an alternative solution: an all-appointed House. It covers a number of the issues that would need to be addressed, but it leaves uncovered substances of great issue—powers, role, conventions, pay and retirement provisions among others. It offers a sketch of a solution to the extremely complex question of reconciling a cap on the size of the House, securing party balance and reducing the size of the House while retaining its essentially ““amateur”” status—and I use that word with the affection that it currently holds in the House. But the Bill does not solve any of those problems. For example, in Clause 8(2), how does one define ““party affiliation””? How would one treat those noble Lords who go to the Cross Benches while they hold quango appointments but still vote for the party line? In working for party balance the Bill offers broad parameters, but on what basis does the commission decide how many seats each opposition party will get? Are election results taken into account, the number of votes cast or what? I have no doubt the noble Lord has considered these issues and may well have the answers, but should all this be left up to nine wise men, even if four of them are privy counsellors? Should this House not define that in a Bill? Has the existing commission not worked so well that we are sure that nine wise men should determine the make-up of half of Parliament? Questions need to be asked that will probe far more carefully than has been possible today. I have a final reflection. Surely we all share one unswerving purpose: that we should have a strong and independent second Chamber capable of calling upon the House of Commons to do its work. In the Bill, however, who chooses the nine wise men who will populate this House? The Speaker of the House of Commons. My respect for Mr Speaker Martin is unbounded, but what qualifies him to take on that role and what does that mean for the independence of this House? Can we conceive that the other place would accord sole responsibility for determining anything affecting that House to a Member of this one? Who decides the criteria under which the commission will choose Members of this House? The House of Commons. Who determines the guidelines by which the commission must act? The House of Commons. Who can change those criteria and guidelines? Yet again, it is the House of Commons; an unreformed Commons in which all decisions are made by whipped government majority. The noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, has pointed a way but, with the greatest respect, this is still work in progress, not stage 2. The Government have set up a working group process that, as yesterday’s Statement made clear, will lead in due course to a White Paper or possibly even a Green Paper that will be debated and voted on by both Houses. Since then the noble Baroness the Leader of the House has asked for suggestions on a process to include the wider range of opinions represented in this House. I welcome that.