Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I wish today to address the proposals in the Bill to remove the hereditary principle of the House of Lords. The wish to remove peers is based on the seemingly arbitrary principle of how they were ennobled. That is a worrying portent for the future. It takes another step towards the Government's stated goal of a democratic second Chamber, and it is another example of the Government's scattergun approach to Lords reform. What is one day deemed valid is the next day cast aside. Though the remaining hereditary peers were retained in 1999, the Government now wield grand claims of democracy to advance the case for their removal. The argument over the future of the second Chamber is composition versus effectiveness. That is certainly the correct way to address this. However, viewed from the House of Commons, the wrong question is presented—the question of popular accountability. The House of Lords is built not upon the legitimacy of election, but the legitimacy of knowledge. The level of experience and expert opinion in the Lords cannot easily be reproduced through election. However keen the minds of those in this Chamber, few of us are held to be leading authorities or globally recognised figures on even the subjects that we hold dear. The experience of decades of work cannot be picked up from simply studying an issue—it must be lived. Peers contribute to a body of knowledge unique in the world. Therefore, the removal of the House of Lords would damage both the quality of legislation and the quality of government. The rush of legislation through this Chamber already leaves a mountain of details to be amended by the Lords. Without the revision that the Lords provides, we have a choice between significantly reforming this Chamber, and allowing the quality of legislation to diminish rapidly. The second part of this point is that the creation of an elected second Chamber would also undermine the quality of government. Many members of the other place have served with distinction. Ridding ourselves of such a pool to satisfy the demands of democracy is one thing, but ridding ourselves of individuals is utterly self-defeating. I think of the Marquess of Salisbury, the first Prime Minister of the 20th century. His Government passed, for example, the Naval Defence Act 1889, which ensured the Royal Navy's pre-eminence. I think of Lord Carrington and his integrity. He ended a lifetime of service by resigning on a point of responsibility which, sadly, does not echo as often as it should. I also refer to Lord Mandelson, who has sought so animatedly to reinvigorate this Government. Indeed, it is the appointment of Lord Mandelson and others that betrays the inconsistency at the heart of the Government's approach. They cannot, on the one hand, endow an unelected person with a senior position in the Government, and on the other, decry the same system that allowed them to do so. They cannot have it both ways. Is it not contrary to use such a wonderful resource while seeking to do away with it for future Governments? Does the willingness of this Government to use the Lords not legitimise its existence—an existence that the Labour party has lived with for 12 years now? As the Government are keen to point out, peers may not be accountable to the nation. But they are free from the concerns of keeping their seat. This independence would not be retained with an elected membership. Such a Chamber would simply end up mirroring the arrangements and partisanship of the Commons. Two Chambers, in which a Member's allegiance is as much to his party as to his conscience, would not be conducive to reasoned debate. Two Chambers, in which the Government command the majority and the timetable, would certainly not be conducive to effective scrutiny. Hereditary peers are, if anything, the epitome of independence. They carry with them a duty and a sense of loyalty that exists outside politics. I am very sad that the majority of hereditary peers have gone, but gone they mostly have. This Government, and Tony Blair's before them, have sought to end generations of successive service and instead replaced it with partisan appointment as and when they saw fit. To say one type of patronage is wrong, while promoting another, is nonsensical. More than 600 hereditary peers were removed because of their perceived lack of democratic credentials, but almost 400 life peers have been created since 1997, with the same apparent deficit. The proposals for an elected House simply advance this contradiction. Holding elections once every 15 years would simply create life peers who are willing to stand—once—for election. These people are likely to be picked or at least pushed by parties. If that were the case, all that the Government would have accomplished would be to create a new system of patronage after they had abolished the present one. Furthermore, I fail to understand how an individual's actions can be held to account if they serve only one term. How is a term of such length any more responsive to the will of voters than the lifelong terms at present? Ending the by-election of hereditary peers and beginning the sapping of their number represents a step toward an unknown constitutional settlement. I believe that it would insert more uncertainties and undesirables into the constitution than it could ever hope to remove. What is needed is not rapid change, but simply a limit on the size of the Lords, perhaps no larger than at the present level. That would curtail the power of patronage over successive Governments, with peers replaced as and when necessary. As Lord Hugh Cecil MP said, in early 20th century, on the subject of Lords reform:""Why rush into danger instead of staying in safety?"" Finally, I would like to draw attention to the title of this Bill—the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. It contains very few provisions for the administration of this House. I question whether the Government are simply trying to win a symbolic victory outside this Chamber, when what is required is a substantive reassessment of what goes on inside it.