Mr. Robert Marshall-Andrews (Medway) (Lab): I start in a spirit of repentance, as foreshadowed by the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow). In the 1999 debate on this subject, I strongly supported and spoke in favour of the unicameral option. In the 2003 debate, I strongly supported and spoke in favour of a substantially elected second Chamber—“substantially” then being the mot juste. Tonight, I will support the status quo. It will be immediately obvious that I have had a double apostasy, which has been a remarkably painless process. All those who undergo life-changing operations want to speak about it, so that is what I want to do.
Let me offer a mea culpa and explain why I have arrived at this position having traversed the whole breadth of the options that are available to us. When I strongly supported a unicameral Chamber, it was for the simple reason that I believed that the House of Commons should take responsibility for its own actions and its own votes. I was reinforced in that by the fact that immediately beforehand I had been trying to persuade some of my hon. Friends to vote against the Government. Unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), I cannot boast of 37 years of never voting against the party Whip—nor 10 years, for that matter, nor even six months. On that occasion, I was hoping to persuade many of my colleagues to vote against the first Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) Bill, which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House may remember very well. A surprisingly large number of them told me that they were entirely in agreement with my view and were entirely against the Government’s attack on this aspect of civil liberty, but that they would none the less vote with the Government because they knew full well that in due course the House of Lords would do its duty, which it did.

It seemed to me that that in itself was an abnegation of the responsibilities of this House. It also seemed to me at the time that a unicameralist position would do much to reverse that. I have observed what subsequently happened and what has happened to other Bills that have passed into the House of Lords. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) for pointing out that on 400 occasions the House of Lords has reversed serious parts of Government legislation, the majority of which have affected civil liberties in one way or another. On most occasions, the other place sought to affect the civil liberties aspects of Bills that the Government had passed. It is worth reflecting that this Government have passed more Bills affecting civil liberties than were passed in the whole of the 19th and the first part of the 20th century. Such Bills can be passed in this House by a majority of one vote. Bills on constitutional matters can be passed without a two-thirds majority.

As I grew up, I suppose, it seemed to me that the essence of the House of Lords was indeed to object to that type of attack on constitutional issues, so I changed my mind and voted for a largely or substantially elected upper House. The reason I did so was on account of the belief that I have always had that the true curse of the British political system is patronage—patronage in whatever aegis or whatever system it comes. I am talking about patronage in appointments to ministerial office and patronage in appointments to the House of Lords. Because I believed that so strongly, I voted for a wholly or substantially elected second Chamber.
That patronage, however, has been immeasurably increased in the short time that I have been here by the growth of the professional politician. There is nothing wrong with the professional politician. It is an honourable vocation: despite the predations of the fourth estate, we have an honourable vocation. However, it is unanswerable that those who come into politics as their only profession—wishing, of course, to succeed in their only profession—are vulnerable to the powers of patronage to a far greater extent than others. As a result of the catalyst of those two things, patronage has increased immeasurably.

For that reason, I find myself—paradoxically and perversely, in many ways—changing again. I am always encouraged by the expression on the face of the hon. Member for Buckingham when I get into this kind of strife. I changed again for a reason that can be seen in the White Paper, particularly in relation to the formof election in the second Chamber. The postulation of that election is that it should be by closed or semi-closed or open list—

Mr. Straw rose—

Mark Fisher: It is up to us. We can decide that.

Mr. Marshall-Andrews: We can revise it, but I am under instruction not to give way under any circumstances. However, as I am going to finish very soon, a short intervention by the Leader of the House may be possible.

Mr. Straw: I would like to say to my hon. and learned Friend, as I made clear in my opening speech, that the proposal in the White Paper is only a proposal at the moment. All that we are voting on tonight are the words on the Order Paper and I have already given an undertaking that, if we get to a point where we have agreed to have an elected element, I will then sit down with other parties to discuss how the election process should take place.

Mr. Marshall-Andrews: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and of course I accept that. I acknowledge that this is simply a paper and that it will require endorsement as legislation later. Of course that is the case, but at the moment, it is the Government’s proposal and I will not align myself with bringing into effect a wholly or partly elected House, while it is still a possibility. If we had held a vote in the House and had, before now, set our faces against a closed or partly closed list system for electing Members of the House of Lords, my position would be different. However, a closed list is effectively a biometric passport for the professional politician into the House of Lords for 15 years.

I asked myself if, in the past 15 years, professional politicians, especially from the Labour and Conservative parties, had been elected to the second Chamber on a list system, the House of Lords would have set its face against the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) Bill and the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) (No. 2) Bill, and whether it would have opposed the removal of the right to elect for trial by jury. My view is that it would not have done so. For that reason, at this stage, I will support the status quo.

I am somewhat alarmed by arriving at a position that the Prime Minister supported in previous votes. However, I take comfort from the fact that, while I have been travelling in one direction, he has been travelling in the other. I am grateful to have been called to speak.