Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I am sorry I was called away earlier and so was absent from the Chamber, Mrs. Heal. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) has been characteristically blunt and expressed the point of a view of a good number of Opposition Members. Let me say that the official position of the official Opposition is that they want a fully elected second Chamber, but they know, as everybody in this House knows, that had it not been for the Labour victory in 1997, there would have been no change in the composition of the House of Lords, which would have remained a largely hereditary second Chamber. Of course, the hon. Gentleman would have liked that to be retained. He spoke about the hereditary principle, but word for word, he gave the reasons that were given in the years prior to 1997. The arguments for continuing with hereditary peers were put as strongly before 1997 as he put them today. As I said in an intervention, because of the Labour Government, 90 per cent. of the hereditaries went. It is true that there was a prior attempt at reform—I was here at the time—but that was in a very different Bill. Perfectly understandably, there was a cross-party alliance between Enoch Powell and Michael Foot. As far as I was concerned, they were right to do what they did, because that measure would not have resulted in the outcome that many Labour Members wished to see. The by-elections are indefensible. The right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), who used to represent Grantham, said that he was not in a position to go anywhere publicly and defend them, but if they are indefensible, why should they not be changed? I am in favour of the Government's proposals, because having an electorate of four or five is farcical. It reminds me of the situation before the Great Reform Act, when at least some constituencies had only 20 or so electors. Anything that is so indefensible and, frankly, farcical should not be retained. I do not happen to belong to the group—there are some Labour Members in it—who say that the real solution is the abolition of the House of Lords. I do not take that view, because, as in most democracies, there is a strong case for having two Houses. One thing is certain: if we had only the House of Commons, all the blame would be attached to it. Any measure that was shown to be faulty would be blamed on the House of Commons, because we would have responsibility for everything. Having a revising Chamber is right and proper, but I do not want a change that results in increased powers for the House of Lords. Some say that the powers should be equal, but I certainly do not belong to that school of thought. I want the House of Commons to be dominant. I would strenuously oppose, as I hope the majority in the House would, any change that would give added powers to the House of Lords. I am certainly in favour of a revising Chamber with no hereditary peers, but I must concede some of the arguments against a fully elected Chamber. Very recently, the House of Commons unfortunately passed, by nine votes—we know how those nine votes were gathered—for 42 days pre-charge detention. I have no hesitation in saying that it gave me a good deal of pleasure that that was rejected by the Lords. I was so pleased that I wrote a letter to The Times to congratulate the Lords. I doubt whether the measure would have been rejected if there had been a fully hereditary House. It might have been rejected, but if a Conservative Government had been pushing for it in a hereditary House, it would not. I accept that a fully elected House of Lords could, to some extent, be a duplicate, whatever the election arrangements. Nothing is perfect, and I accept that there are weaknesses. At the end of the day, a fully elected House of Lords may not be as independent or different from the House of Commons as I would like. That is one of the drawbacks, but all in all, what cannot possibly be defended and justified is for 92 peers to sit in a 21st-century legitimate Parliament simply because their ancestors were given a peerage in the 13th, 15th, 17th or 18th centuries. Surely that is as indefensible as the by-elections that happen when a hereditary peer happens to die. That is why I hope, having done what no other Government have done by ending at least 90 per cent. of the hereditaries, we go further, and end the situation in which 92 hereditaries continue to sit, for the reasons that I have stated. That is indefensible. Any step that can be taken by a future Government to end that would certainly have my support.