House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, much of the debate implicitly circles around a remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, who is just about to desert us but might stay for a minute. I think I am right in saying that he put up the dichotomy of whether to elect or to appoint by cabal. However, there is a third way, and it is very important that people do not go on repeating the fallacy that there is only this choice. The third way concerns how the statutory Appointments Commission would work. One idea came out of the Labour Group four years ago after Tony Blair had come along and invited us, as it were, to put our ideas on a postcard. We agreed on four points to put to the Prime Minister. These were essentially the same as those in the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel. I drafted a letter, which included ideas about the statutory Appointments Commission, including the fact that it should be responsible for endorsing or at least registering the fact that the party had transparent criteria through which it would bring forward candidates. This would be a total change from leaders' patronage. We drafted a more detailed scheme and put it to the Labour Party general secretary. As noble Lords may know, the Labour Party has a federal constitution. The national executive has sections for trade unions, constituencies and others. Our suggested policy was to select candidates in a transparent trawl once people had put forward their names or those of other people. Clearly, there would then have to be a confidential stage in the process. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Jay, is not here. It would probably be for a committee like his to do this. However, it would be very important that the remit was clear. The present remit for the Appointments Commission for the Cross-Benchers is not clear at all. The ““people's Peers”” are supposed to be representative in some way—that is why they were so called by the tabloids. However, according to the Sutton Trust, 75 per cent of Cross-Benchers went to public schools. Only 7 per cent of pupils in the country go to public schools, but 75 per cent of Members on the Conservative Benches and Cross-Benches went to public schools. The figure for the Lib Dems is somewhat below that, and that for the Labour Party much below. Therefore, people must be careful about the remit of the Appointments Commission. My noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe thought that we were still proposing a cabal. I ask noble Lords to take something on board. My noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and I had about 10 attempts to understand each other on this. He has finally taken on board the fact that there would not just be five people on an Appointments Commission selecting all the party candidates. That has never been part of our scheme. Clearly, the Labour Party would throw out a scheme immediately if it consisted simply of five independent people choosing their preferred candidates. My final point on this matter is that for this reason we cannot have US-style primaries: they would not work within the constitutional set-up of our parties. Secondly, I shall touch on the assertion of my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe that we are ignoring the firm views of our colleagues in the House of Commons. With great respect to all concerned, this is not a hot topic in the House of Commons. For 99 days out of 100, I doubt whether MPs give it a moment’s thought. One of the reasons they do not give it a moment’s thought is that when they knock on doors in the constituencies, no one there is giving it a moment’s thought. It is not a hot topic at all, so the idea that we are contradicting the settled view of the House of Commons has to be very seriously questioned. Thirdly, an elected House would wake up the House of Commons quite considerably in terms of its lessened role. If the new representatives in the second Chamber did not have case work, how would that get them nearer the people than the present arrangements? The reason why we do not have conflicting duties with our colleagues in the Commons is that case work is for them. We deal with broader industrial responsibilities. That has to be thought through. Finally, I shall touch on money Bills. We had an interesting dry run earlier this week on the problem caused by the Speaker’s unilateral decision, in line with 1911 Act, that a Bill was a money Bill. Two questions immediate arise that must be looked into. First, would that survive an elected second Chamber? I would say it clearly would not. I cannot think of any way in which it would. Secondly, we have to be very careful, and it is time to say this clearly. In principle, I cannot see why a Speaker of the House of Commons could not wake up one day, say that MPs do not want the House of Lords to amend the Transport Act, the Energy Act, the Agriculture Act, the Social Security Act or the Health Services Act, and so say that they are money Bills. That is on the agenda, and I do not know how we expect the Bill in the spring—or the summer or the autumn—to handle a very important constitutional issue such as that.