Sir Patrick Cormack FSA

Conservative Party | Staffordshire South

House of Lords Reform

The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Jack Straw): I beg to move,

That this House supports the principle of a bicameral Parliament.

Mr. Speaker: With this we may take the following motions: Options for Reform of Composition: No.1—

That this House is of the opinion that a reformed House of Lords should be fully appointed.

Options for Reform of Composition: No.2—

That this House is of the opinion that a reformed House of Lords should be composed of 20 per cent. elected members and 80 per cent. appointed members.

Options for Reform of Composition: No.3—

That this House is of the opinion that a reformed House of Lords should be composed of 40 per cent. elected members and 60 per cent. appointed members.

Options for Reform of Composition: No.4—

That this House is of the opinion that a reformed House of Lords should be composed of 50 per cent. elected members and 50 per cent. appointed members.

Options for Reform of Composition: No.5—

That this House is of the opinion that a reformed House of Lords should be composed of 60 per cent. elected members and 40 per cent. appointed members.

Options for Reform of Composition: No.6—

That this House is of the opinion that a reformed House of Lords should be composed of 80 per cent. elected members and 20 per cent. appointed members.

Options for Reform of Composition: No.7—

That this House is of the opinion that a reformed House of Lords should be fully elected.

Hereditary Places—

That this House is of the opinion that the remaining retained places for peers whose membership is based on the hereditary principle should be removed.

 

Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con): Will the Leader of the House give way on that point?

Mr. Straw: I wish to make some progress, but I will give way to the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen shortly, if time allows. I have given way eight times already.

When the Government brought forth their previous White Paper on Lords reform in 2001, they proposed a limited elected element of just 20 per cent. But, as the latest White Paper delicately puts it, that 2001 proposal

“failed to command widespread support”.

In fact, 89 per cent. of the more than 900 respondents to the 2001 White Paper wanted a House that was 50 per cent. or more elected. That level of public rejection of the principle of an all-appointed or mainly appointed House in favour of a significantly or wholly elected House is a consistent feature of recent tests of public opinion. A thorough opinion survey last month for the Hansard Society, which itself has no axe to grind on this issue, showed that just 6 per cent. favoured an all-appointed House, and 82 per cent. a wholly or partly elected House.

In the end, on this issue as on any other, this House has to make its own decisions, and answer for them. But I think there is one reason above all why the instinct of the public is so clearly against a wholly appointed second Chamber, and that is because they doubt the legitimacy of a key institution of a democratic Parliament if they are denied any say through the ballot box over who should sit in that second Chamber.

Sir Patrick Cormack: The Leader of the House knows full well that that Hansard Society survey also showed that more than 50 per cent. of the respondents had very little idea of what the House of Lords did. That is an important point. What would his reaction be if, in a keenly contested vote in the other place, the day was carried by the non-elected?

Mr. Straw: My view is that we can establish the rules about the nature of the operation of the other place. Every other Parliament with a second chamber has done that, and all parties are agreed—as Wakeham recommended—that regardless of any change in composition, the primacy of this House should be maintained. I shall come on to that point. I also point out that it is dangerous to suggest that we should dismiss the public’s view on the grounds of ignorance. That was the view that was taken by our predecessors in opposing any extension of the franchise in 1832. Leaving that aside, the hon. Gentleman quoted the Hansard poll at me, but it also shows that of those who have a grasp of the issues—the poll’s words, not mine—many more people support the proposal that the Government make today.

Sir Patrick Cormack: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mrs. May: I will, in just a moment —[ Interruption. ] I was wondering how long it would be. We want to help the Leader of the House to achieve consensus, but if he is to do so, he must listen to our concerns.

Sir Patrick Cormack: I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. On the one hand, she says that she wants a more effective and powerful second Chamber, but on the other, she wants to enshrine the primacy of this Chamber. Is that not an incompatible wish?

Mrs. May: No, it is not, and I would say to hon. Members that when we discuss and consider primacy, it is important that we separate the issue of the primacy of the Commons, and the legitimacy of the Lords challenging the Commons, from the issue of the legitimacy of the Lords challenging the Government. I want a stronger Parliament that gives the Lords greater power to challenge the Government. The issue is not the balance of primacy in the Commons and the Lords.

Sir Patrick Cormack: The hon. Gentleman will accept that I was not elected on a manifesto that talked about 80:20, but does he also accept that a significant proportion of his colleagues in the other place— including Lord Steel of Aikwood, who has more parliamentary experience than most people here—are emphatically in favour of an all-appointed House?

Simon Hughes: On all the evidence, there is a small number of my colleagues in the Lords and three of my colleagues in this House who did not last time support the wholly or substantially elected proposal. Yes, one of them is a former leader of the party, who has gone native and forgotten that he was once elected on that position over and over again. As has been said, we do not choose to listen to dinosaur tendencies, be they in the Conservative party, the Labour party or on our own Benches.

Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con): It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing), who spoke, as always, with great candour and honesty. I cannot say that I agreed with everything he said, but, as I look around at the fairly empty Benches and count the number of Members on the Government Benches, I am bound to say that there is something rotten in the state of Parliament. It behoves us all to do something about that. In a way, it is putting the proverbial cart before the horse for us to be talking at inordinate length about the composition of the other place when this place is in need of such manifest reform. We need a Government who will have the courage to tackle the problems that face the House of Commons. Is it right that any constitutional Bill should pass without a two-thirds majority, for instance? We should be looking at things such as that in this place.

Tonight, however, we are debating the House of Lords and it seems to me that there are only two—three if one counts the unicameral position—honest positions to take on the future of the House of Lords. One is that we move towards a written constitution, a redistribution of powers and two elected Houses. There is an impeccable logic in favour of that and I respect those who hold to that point of view. I disagree with them, but I respect them. I disagree with them not because of any fundamental error in their argument—because if I were starting with a new country and a blank sheet of paper, that system is probably what I would wish to devise—but because we are, in those famous and hackneyed words, where we are.

In this country, we have an elected Chamber that enjoys both primacy and supremacy, to quote two words that have been bandied around in the debate, and a second Chamber that has a greater accumulation of expertise, experience and wisdom than any other
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Chamber anywhere in the world. That Chamber is an accident of history. It is not legitimate in the sense of being elected. But, because the Members of that House are not encumbered by constituency and other duties, it has the opportunity more critically to scrutinise and examine legislation that—the hon. Gentleman is quite right—often leaves this House in a less than tidy state. That is not a criticism of this Government, although the situation has got far worse under this Government with the automatic programme motion; it is a criticism of successive Governments over the past two or three decades—the time that I have been in the House and longer.

We should accept tonight that we are being asked by the Leader of the House to pass a motion that would mean the abolition of the House of Lords as we know it and its replacement by a different sort of second Chamber. The Leader of the House is not advocating a wholly elected second Chamber. As I have said, supporting a wholly elected second Chamber is a position that I respect. I am not seeking to score cheap points, but it was noticeable that on neither side were the speeches of the Leader of the House or the shadow Leader of the House accepted with any degree of acclamation in what was at the time a fairly full House.

The Leader of the House advocates a hybrid House. That is the worst of all worlds. I accept as irrefutable the logic advanced in a short but persuasive speech by the Father of the House. The point was taken up by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso). Arguing from different points of view, they both said that if we once had a substantial elected element, inexorably we would move towards a fully elected second Chamber. We would move towards it not in the way that I would accept as respectable, but in a way that would, like Topsy, grow.

We have to look at some of the points that have been made in today’s debate. First, there is the point about the settled constitutional position and the report on the conventions. There is no settled constitutional position. If we move towards a substantially elected second Chamber, all the conventions will be up for grabs. Even the Parliament Act itself, which applies to the House of Lords, not to a differently constituted second Chamber, would be open to question. We would inevitably be building into our system a move towards constitutional gridlock, at a time when we have not properly sorted out our priorities in a way that enables us to hold the Executive truly and properly to account.

People talk about one party never having a majority in the second Chamber, but if we have a Chamber that is 50 per cent. elected, and we move on from there, how can we bind the electorate to ensure that they will not give a majority to a particular party? How can one, in any sense, argue that the electorate will inevitably return to Parliament a large number of independents? That proposition was advanced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May). The electorate will elect whom they want to elect.

If we are going to have the elections on the day of the European elections, or the Scottish and Welsh elections, as has been suggested, they will probably come mid-way through a Parliament and could certainly upset the constitutional balance of Parliament. We are talking about something that we would not have planned for if we sat down and drew up a written constitution; it would be something that we drifted into, without proper thought for the sort of people who would sit in the
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second Chamber. If we are going to try to devise a Chamber that has no more powers than exist at the moment, it could be asked whether that would attract that right calibre of man and woman. In that context, if the second Chamber used the powers that it currently has but, by self-imposed restraint and convention, does not use, that in itself would be a prescription for clash after clash with this Chamber.

I believe that the proposition advanced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead has a fundamentally flawed logic. I am incredulous that the Conservative party—perhaps, initially, for opportunistic reasons, because it understandably wanted to embarrass the Government—should have come up four years ago with this crackpot 80:20 idea. The idea is not based on any true parliamentary logic. I say to hon. Members on both sides of the House: let us reform the existing House of Lords and do away with the absurd anomaly of the ridiculous by-elections.

Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire) (Con): Cannot my hon. Friend see that we in this House should cherish democracy? If we are to do away with the patronage that has brought the House and the other place into disrepute over recent months, we have to do something. Electing 80 per cent. of Members and having 20 per cent. who were not party political would achieve that.

Sir Patrick Cormack: That is the sort of knee-jerk reaction that led to the abolition of the Greater London council, against which I voted, and then landed us with something far worse. We would be in danger of landing ourselves with something far worse here, I say to my hon. Friend, with whom I normally agree and whom I greatly respect and admire. We have to be extremely careful about what we are embarking on tonight.

Our party is advancing a proposition that is inimical to its true roots and traditions. However, there are Members in all parties—I have worked in close co-operation with Members of both this House and the other place over the past four years—who believe in the basic stability of the British constitution and want an effective Parliament. They believe that many things can be done to improve this House and the interrelationship between the two Houses, but think, for the moment at least, that, in our second Chamber, we have a House of probity—I do not accept the aspersions that have just been cast, because the possible antics of one or two do not invalidate the actions of the many—a House that works, a House that is honourable and a House that carries out with due diligence duties that we are not always able to do. We must serve the interests of our constituents. I yield to no one as a democrat—I am fighting a certain democratic battle at the moment—and I believe that we would have a much more balanced constitution if we were to improve what we have got, rather than sweeping it away and bringing in an ill-devised scheme in its place.

8.31 pm
 
Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire) (Con): Cannot my hon. Friend see that we in this House should cherish democracy? If we are to do away with the patronage that has brought the House and the other place into disrepute over recent months, we have to do something. Electing 80 per cent. of Members and having 20 per cent. who were not party political would achieve that.

Sir Patrick Cormack: That is the sort of knee-jerk reaction that led to the abolition of the Greater London council, against which I voted, and then landed us with something far worse. We would be in danger of landing ourselves with something far worse here, I say to my hon. Friend, with whom I normally agree and whom I greatly respect and admire. We have to be extremely careful about what we are embarking on tonight.

Our party is advancing a proposition that is inimical to its true roots and traditions. However, there are Members in all parties—I have worked in close co-operation with Members of both this House and the other place over the past four years—who believe in the basic stability of the British constitution and want an effective Parliament. They believe that many things can be done to improve this House and the interrelationship between the two Houses, but think, for the moment at least, that, in our second Chamber, we have a House of probity—I do not accept the aspersions that have just been cast, because the possible antics of one or two do not invalidate the actions of the many—a House that works, a House that is honourable and a House that carries out with due diligence duties that we are not always able to do. We must serve the interests of our constituents. I yield to no one as a democrat—I am fighting a certain democratic battle at the moment—and I believe that we would have a much more balanced constitution if we were to improve what we have got, rather than sweeping it away and bringing in an ill-devised scheme in its place.

Sir Patrick Cormack: As always, my hon. Friend makes a passionate, persuasive and eloquent speech. He is a man of real logic, so I ask him whether it is really sensible to impose a change on the other place before we have thought through the changes that we should introduce for this place.

John Bercow: I do not think that there is a problem with that. I would like to have had further and better reform of this place at an earlier stage, but the reforms that we envisage as necessary for the Lords remain necessary and could act as an inspirational or competitive spur to this House to do what is necessary in respect of its own proceedings.

There is an unreal and unjustified concern about the form of elections that might take place. Whatever one opts for, there will be people who object. My own view is that it would be much better to proceed with the elections to the revised second Chamber through open, transparent processes that offer the electorate more choice. I am also persuaded that there is a strong imperative for some sort of proportionality in the system, given that the normal objection that my hon. Friends and I make to proportional representation applies in the context of the Chamber from which the Government are drawn and on which they depend for their majority. The same argument does not apply to a second Chamber with palpably and permanently different functions.

If we want more independence and more of a mix of representation in the second Chamber, we should have a different electoral system. We should also say, categorically, that we want a smaller second Chamber. There may be scope for reducing the size of this institution, but whatever size the second Chamber ends up, it should be smaller than at present.

I wish to make two final points that are relevant to the culture of the revised second Chamber. I said earlier that I was quizzical—and at best, uncertain—about amendment (c), in the name of my right hon. Friends the Members for Witney (Mr. Cameron) and for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), which is also supported by several Liberal Democrats. The time for the hereditaries to sit in the second Chamber has passed and they should leave sooner rather than later. The notion that the whole process might take 10, 12 or 15 years is incredible and unsustainable and it is not a notion that I can support. I say that as someone who respects the contribution that those individuals have made. They have worked hard and shown their expertise and they are genuinely dedicated and loyal in the service of the other place, but they cannot continue to be present there for any reasonable period. That is not on. The notion that they can be used as a bargaining chip in an elaborate game is neither credible nor modern politics. We have to judge the issue on its merits, intellectually and ethically. If we do so, we will recognise that the hereditary peers cannot be allowed to stay for long. By all means let us be generous with them, give them pay-offs, show our thanks and be appreciative, but they cannot continue.

My final point has been touched on intermittently in the debate by a couple of colleagues. In 2007, there is no case to be made for reserved, ex officio, guaranteed religious representation in the second Chamber. The argument simply does not hold water. The Leader of the House proposes keeping a reduced number of bishops, but that would require us, in all conscience, decency and equity, to incorporate a good many other people who represent the other faiths in this country. It has been calculated that of the order of 77 such people would have to be included.

I suppose that one could argue that all the faiths should be accommodated, or none of them. The notion that there should be a privileged position for a small number of bishops in a decreasingly religious country simply will not wash. Again, those people should be thanked, appreciated and respected, but they should be told, “You might be part of an appointed element on merit, but ex officio, guaranteed representation is for the birds.” We need a genuine, effective and committed reform of the House of Lords, and it should happen without significant delay.

I will not let the best be the enemy of the good. Like the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), I will vote for 100, 80, or 60 per cent. I will even vote for 50 per cent., because we must make progress.

Wednesday 7th March 2007-03-09

Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con): Does my right hon. Friend accept that when 80:20 was last voted on, more Conservative Members voted against it than for it? Does he also accept that we are on a genuinely free vote tonight?

Sir George Young: If my hon. Friend looks at the vote on the all-appointed option, he will see that more Conservative MPs voted against it than voted for it. One can interpret the votes in more than one way.

Sir Patrick Cormack: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree with me and with Lord Steel of Aikwood, the former Liberal leader, that the best way of dealing with the 92 is to end the absurd, ridiculous by-elections and just let them die?

Mr. Mullin: I am a bit more radical and ambitious than that I am told that the youngest will survive until 2030. But, one way or another, I would like to see the back of them.

I favour—I think we all do—some form of arm’s length appointment system to avoid the controversies in which successive Governments have become embroiled over the years. I also favour some form of redundancy scheme, not necessarily involving much money. I would start with those who have not shown up for the last few months: that would remove several hundred. A redundancy scheme to reduce the numbers would be necessary, because 750 would clearly be a ludicrous, indefensible number in any second Chamber anywhere in the world.

Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con): It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). I can see that, in a future Conservative Administration, a place will be reserved for him—somewhere else.

I have something of a handicap, in that I am an unashamed traditional Tory. That is why I shall be voting to retain a wholly appointed Chamber, and voting for the continuation of the hereditaries. As a Conservative, I believe in a fundamental principle: if it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. Nothing I have heard in the debate—I was here for a large part of it yesterday, and have been here for all of it so far today—convinces me that change is what is needed now. Have I received a shedload of letters about this from my constituents?

Sir Patrick Cormack: Not one.

Mr. Howarth: I have not received a single one. Is there any appetite for another round of elections among my electors in Aldershot? I see no evidence of it. Do they want another, more expensive House? [Hon. Members: “No!”] I see no evidence of that either.

I must correct the Leader of the House, who estimated the cost of this House at £300 million. That is an understatement. According to the most recent costing, this place costs £360 million, while the other place costs £106 million. At a time when we are awaiting a further squeezing of public expenditure by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the idea that we should we say to our electors, “By the way, we want to reproduce the House of Commons. It will cost you a lot more money and involve you in a lot more elections” is strictly for the birds.

Sir Patrick Cormack: Is not there an added complication, in that there could be no by-election if a Member were to die towards the end of his term? Instead, he would be replaced by someone lower down the list.

Tom Levitt: I had not appreciated that nuance, but it certainly adds to my argument.

I believe that an elected Chamber at the other end of the Corridor would be bad for the Commons, and that a hybrid arrangement would be bad for the House of Lords. Therefore I can vote for only one of the options—an appointed Chamber. However, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) was setting up an Aunt Sally when he described that arrangement: asking for a system of appointment is not the same as asking for a system of patronage, which would mean that a small group of people or an individual could appoint Members of the second Chamber.

We need to create a framework in which employers, unions, religious bodies, universities, councillors, public servants, young people’s organisations, the professions, the political parties, charities and the voluntary sector are allocated a number of seats. They would then be told to create their own systems for electing people in their virtual constituencies to the second Chamber. They would devise ways to hold those people accountable, decide how much time must pass before they must face re-election, and so on.

In tonight’s votes, I shall vote to retain the second Chamber. I shall also vote for the appointed option although, for the reasons that I have set out, that will not be a vote for the status quo. I shall vote against all the hybrid options, and for the removal of hereditary element, sooner rather than later. I should like to be able to vote for the removal of the bishops’ automatic right to sit in the House of Lords, but that amendment has not been selected.

I hope that we will be able to look at the interpretation of the word “appointment” to ensure that the second Chamber is genuinely accountable and diverse, with positive powers of scrutiny. We need to achieve for it a truly democratic system that neither challenges the primacy of the Commons nor sows the seeds of its own destruction in the Lords.

 

Sir Patrick Cormack: How on earth could one guarantee that a man or woman elected for 15 years would not poke his or her nose into things? They would have total freedom to do whatever they liked—for example, to embarrass the sitting Member, especially if he were of a different party. What my hon. Friend says is nonsense.

Mr. Heald: How many of the MEPs in my hon. Friend’s region can he name?

Sir Patrick Cormack: All of them.

Mr. Heald: My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) seemed almost to imply that people who are elected are inevitably duffers. We should have a little more self-respect than that. Obviously, there is a case to be made for certain great individuals who could add something to Parliament; there could be a small percentage—perhaps 20 per cent.—of absolutely superb figures such as those who have been described. However, I rather agreed with the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes)—although it is not something I make a habit of doing: in this Chamber we have people of genuine ability who can speak with authority in major debates. If I think about military issues—I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot accepts this point—we have people with fine military careers, who have served in recent conflicts, and who can come and talk in debates. Those people are elected. Equally, on the economy, we have people in this House who are former FTSE 100 company directors, stockbrokers, City solicitors—