House of Lords Bill [HL]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity that my noble friend’s Bill gives us all to keep up the pressure for what was known when the House of Lords Act 1999 was debated here as the stage 2 reform. Some may say that the Bill is a device for delay, but that is not my noble friend’s intention. Indeed, he voted for 100 per cent elected membership of this House and not for the 80 per cent compromise. So he is even more hardline than I am on that matter, and that is quite difficult. The provisions of the Bill are, in my view, a stepping stone to more radical reform. The Bill is not a desert island on which we should now sit in a state of complacency. I, too, believe in evolution. After all, real reform is now the settled will of a formidable trio: the public, a majority in the House of Commons and government policy. This is a very good moment to flush out the Conservative position. There were occasions during previous debates when, for example, the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, said, ""this House will suffer if the hereditary Peers are taken out".—[Official Report, 29/3/1999; col. 104.]" He has explained his point more fully and I think it is very valid. But it is quite a long way from what the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, told the readers of the Guardian on 15 July 2008: ""Labour are edging closer to established Conservative proposals for a largely elected Senate"." The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is wonderful in his escapology—he is, indeed, the Houdini of this House, so I await his speech with interest. It may be that in your Lordships’ House not all that many people agree with the Liberal Democrats’ position, but it is at least clear. Not only did we have a unanimous view in the House of Commons, we had a substantial majority in this House too. We believe that the House has improved in terms of both its assertive nature and its deliberative nature since 1999. It has become more assertive because Peers appointed here have been more likely to attend and take an active part in proceedings than those who simply landed here as an accident of birth. It has become more deliberative because, as has been said several times this morning, no one party has a majority. I believe that to be a good thing. But what the House has gained in assertiveness, unfortunately, it has not gained in increased democratic legitimacy. Given the recent events that have concentrated on specific cases, we may be forgetting the previous concerns about loans for Lords; cash for amendments may have taken up too much of the media’s attention. It is very important to look back at that as well because the way in which people come here is clearly a matter of public concern, not just of housekeeping in your Lordships' House. In that context, we should look again at the report of the Public Administration Committee at the other end of the building. At the end of 2007, it reported: ""A peerage is more than just an honour … an honour is a reflection of past achievement, whereas a peerage ought to be an appointment for future service"." Amen to that, as I am sure Members of your Lordships' House would say. That is surely sage advice. I hope we will get an opportunity to divorce once and for all membership of Parliament from the honours system. On a separate point, which has been touched on repeatedly by a number of your Lordships, I sat 10 years ago on the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege. We concluded: ""The House of Commons has power to suspend its Members, and it would be anomalous and undesirable if this were not the position in the House of Lords"." "Anomalous and undesirable"—those are not sufficient for the present situation. I am not clear, with all respect to my noble friend, whether Part 4 is really adequate to deal with that question, as my noble friend Lord Goodhart said. When the Minister responds, I hope that he will say whether he, too, thinks that this Bill is a stepping stone towards the Government’s past commitments. I recall that my noble friend Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank said, back in 1999, ""if I were a betting man I would lay long odds that … there will still be hereditary Peers in this House in 10 years' time and possibly for much longer".—[Official Report, 11/5/1999; col. 1100.]" I do not know whether he has been able to cash in, but he ought to. We were not party to the agreement in 1999 about the hereditaries and the by-elections, but I recall that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, who is not longer in his seat, said very firmly: ""It really is to stand logic and experience on its head to imagine that this Government, with their great popular majority and their manifesto pledge, would tolerate 10 per cent of the hereditary peerage remaining for long. The 10 per cent will go when stage two has taken place and their presence is a guarantee that stage two will take place".—[Official Report, 11/5/1999; col. 1092.]" Well, perhaps the Minister could tell us where stage 2 is. One thing is quite clear: this Bill may be stage one and a half—and a very useful stage one and a half—but it is not stage 2, as it was in the minds of all the participants in the debates of 1999. We have had umpteen reports, and I have contributed to some myself, but really we have to move on. No more reports, no more deliberating and no more pausing for reflection will change the basic truth that was so clearly elucidated in one very serious broadsheet earlier this month: ""Peers are unaccountable, unelected and unsackable"." That is the problem we face. Although my noble friend’s Bill makes some very welcome modifications to the present arrangements, the reputation of this House and of Parliament will not be saved by tinkering. The Government’s White Paper makes proposals which I believe form the basis for a serious move forwards. They are now fully formed proposals; they are on the table and are being carefully looked at by a large number of Members of your Lordships' House as well as those in the other place. My noble friend is the first to accept that limited changes in his Bill cannot substitute for more comprehensive reform—for the completion of the process, which has been referred to again this morning. Yes, they have been carefully agreed across the parties and from both Houses, and they fulfil the promises of 1999 and the votes of the Commons. Today I have heard the echo that we still surely believe that the House of Commons has primacy in this Parliament. I do not believe that we can leave things as they are. This Bill is helpful, and I support it, as I know my noble friends do as well. But it does not add up to stage 2, to complete reform; it will not remove the toxic sense of patronage, jobs for the boys and peerages for the donors. We cannot leave things as they are. Any Member of your Lordships' House who thinks otherwise is surely living in a fool’s paradise.