By Ned Simons - 12th May 2011
Labour will accuse Nick Clegg of being unprincipled and unwilling or unable to stand up to the Conservatives when he unveils plans for a partially elected House of Lords.
The Lib Dem leader is due to publish proposals by the end of the month for a 80 per cent elected House, but Hilary Benn, the shadow leader of the Commons, has said this does not go far enough.
At an event in Westminster last night Benn said the bill would be "an early test of the Liberal Democrats’ new-found determination to say what they think in public".
Benn said Labour was committed to a 100 per cent elected upper House approved by a referendum of the British public.
A wholly elected House, he said, was an "issue of principle" and to introduce legislation that did not at least begin with that as its basis was a "less than principled position".
"We will all be watching to see whether they [Lib Dems] stand up for a wholly elected chamber," he said.
He told an meeting organised by the Hansard Society "this is an issue of principle and must not become one of tactics". But of course the stance hands Labour the tactical advantage of being able to once again criticise the Lib Dems for 'breaking' a manifesto commitment while appearing 20 per cent more principled on the issue.
And Benn raised the stakes by implying that to propose parliamentary reforms that were not wholly democratic would put Clegg on the wrong side of anti-authoritarian protesters across the world.
He said: "At a time when people are taking to the streets across the Middle East and North Africa demanding to have a say in who represents them, how could anyone contemplate reforming our system on any other basis than full democracy?"
The well-liked Labour MP sat on a cross-party committee chaired by Clegg that examined initial proposals but he said he did not know what final form the deputy prime minister's bill would take.
Labour gave an indication that it would seek to distance itself from the coalition's proposals in April when Chris Bryant told Clegg during a Commons debate that he should "stick with a 100 per cent elected House of Lords".
Clegg has warned that previous attempts to introduce an elected Lords failed because the plans overreached and failed to take account of the reality of widespread opposition.
He told the Commons last month that he had to "proceed not only with idealism but with a degree of pragmatism" and warned against making “the best the enemy of the good".
There is deep hostility to reforming the Lords in both Houses from Labour MPs and peers as well as Tory backbenchers who do not want to see further concessions to the Lib Dems.
Have your say...
Please enter your comments below.