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Mr. Grieve: The hon. Gentleman said that the Government's plans were well thought out. Is not the difficulty with the reform of the House of Lords that we are being asked to embark on a process when we have not been given the benefit of the Government's thoughts on the outcome of the proposals? We are being asked to replace an eccentric and bizarre institution--albeit an institution with some real strengths--but we will not have an opportunity to debate or consider the likely outcome of the change and how practical and beneficial it will be.
Mr. Soley: The essence of that argument, which has been put time and again by the Conservative party, is, "We want to see an exact plan. We know that no one can draw up an exact plan that gets everyone's agreement to every dot and comma, so the change will not happen and we can carry on having the hereditary peers to give us our built-in Conservative majority." That is the argument, but it flies in the face of this country's history. To use a Conservative phrase, we don't do it that way. We build up change, and that has been a successful approach. The House of Lords dominates the argument to a degree that is not wholly desirable.
The other area of our constitution that must be modernised is local government. Devolution to Scotland, Wales and, I hope, London and the English regions is important. The roots of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe are in the north and he will remember that the most successful time for this country, economically as well as politically, was the last century. That was the time when our local government was most adventurous, assertive and politically and economically active. The great cities of the industrial revolution--Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Liverpool--fed the wealth of Britain and helped to create a local structure of rights and responsibilities that we undermine at our cost.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman will also know that many great Conservatives came out of that system, but the Conservative party has lost its confidence to the extent that it no longer believes in what it achieved in the past. It is time that it looked back to its roots to see where it should go in the future.
Mr. John Maxton (Glasgow, Cathcart):
My hon. Friend may recall that the predecessors of the Conservative party opposed a Bill to give Manchester--by that time, the second or third largest city--any Members of Parliament at all.
Mr. Soley:
My hon. Friend will understand that I am not defending everything that the Conservative party did in the 19th century. I suggest that the Conservative party has forgotten that a better and more appropriate system of local government was achieved at that time, and it does so at its peril.
Local government is important, and it is currently undervalued. We must address our responsibility for that, because Members of Parliament sometimes behave as though they are super-councillors. We must give power back to local authorities and we must give power to the regions.
One of Germany's greatest success stories was based on the economic development powers of its regions. Like almost all the other European countries, Germany has successful regional development, which we do not have here. The English regions do not enjoy the benefits that many of the European regions enjoy, but with devolution to Scotland, Wales and the English regions, we can start to do so.
When the Conservatives removed powers from London government, they left a big hole. No sensible decisions could be reached by 32 London boroughs meeting together. When they tried to decide which borough should have a waste disposal plant, none of them wanted one. If a city does not have a basic planning mechanism to underpin economic efficiency, why should anyone be surprised if that city becomes unattractive? For example, Frankfurt and Brussels argued that London should not be the home of financial institutions because it had a poor environment and economic infrastructure. One of the reasons for that is the lack of an effective government for London.
I shall turn briefly to the international aspects of constitutional change. Many changes are so dramatic and fast that they have an impact on our constitution beyond what we envisage when they occur. Britain's incorporation of the European convention on human rights is a significant step forward. Conservative Members
should remember that that document was drafted by British jurists. It is curious that we gave the document to Europe and were the first to sign it, but did not incorporate it into our legislation. That is another classic case of the British saying, "Do as we tell you, not as we do."
That process left a number of holes in our system, which had worked well in the past. One cannot continue with a system that was built on the assumption that one could do anything that was not against the law, without recognising that the way in which the world has changed necessitates building into that system certain defences of basic human rights. That is why I welcome the change made by the Government.
I welcome also the signing up to the International Criminal Court, which reflects this place at its best. You would rightly check me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I began to talk about a recent case, but an historic, watershed decision was made by the Law Lords last week. That is curious because it fits so precisely with our past. One has only to walk through Westminster Hall to realise how, 400 years ago, this country was separating the political from the legal.
We advance the rule of law through a process of passing Acts of Parliament in a democratic structure. What happened last week was another step on that road which was very welcome and of which we ought to be proud. Whatever one thinks the outcome should be in that case, the process says that dictators such as Saddam Hussein and Milosevic should no longer be able to commit crimes and assume that they can never be called to account for them. That is one of the most important ideas growing throughout the world, and we should be proud of our part in its growth. The process started in Nuremberg in 1945, but it has moved on. We need to move it on again. Dictators who so appallingly disfigure the face of the 20th century with their torture and genocide can no longer assume that they can simply walk away. The International Criminal Court is part of that process. It has implications in that it limits our freedom to operate in other areas but it is important.
My final point, which is linked with the overall approach to the constitution, relates to the reform of Parliament. I speak as a member of the Modernisation Committee. I know that some of my hon. Friends are at times frustrated because the progress does not seem to be as fast as they would like it to be. It is important that we carry the other parties with us in reform as far as possible.
I, and many other Members, have thought for many years--hon. Members elected in the last election simply embellish our views--that Members of Parliament are no longer as effective as they used to be. Modernisation must therefore make Members more effective. We recognise that a delicate balance must be struck because Parliament is not the same as Government. Effective Members of Parliament may not always be good news for the Government, but it is important that we become effective because we have lost confidence in ourselves.
The House of Commons arranged for Members of Parliament to report back to it on the Jamieson raid at the turn of the century and on the Clerkenwell riots in the 1830s. When we have had cases such as arms to Iraq or the Brixton riots, we have arranged for the inquiry to be conducted by a judge or a civil servant. I mean no disrespect to those people but the House ought to have a little more confidence in its ability to deal with such
matters itself. That is one of the reasons why I welcome the commitment in the Queen's Speech to a freedom of information Bill, not only for its own sake--although several correspondents have said that the Government were not planning to introduce it--but, more importantly, because the Queen's Speech said that there would be pre-legislative scrutiny in this House and the other place. There is much talk about stripping away the powers of the House of Lords, but hon. Members must recognise that we are giving the other place additional important duties.
Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross):
I follow the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush (Mr. Soley) in recognising that the House and the country have tended to innovate step by step in constitutional matters. The hon. Gentleman described that as the way in which we do things and sought--in vain--to enlist the support of Conservative Members. Although he is right in his historical description of how we have proceeded, he will agree that the period of the outgoing Conservative Government was marked by their negativism and hostility to constitutional reform.
That was a period of stasis for which the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), as one of the most senior members of that Government, bore a heavy responsibility. He cannot shrug his shoulders and say, "Well, I know better now." He did immense damage in delaying the implementation of devolution in Scotland when the settled will of its people had been established before his Government took office. He cannot just say, "Perhaps we should not have disposed of the government of London without any proper authority to do so and left Britain's capital city without a representative government."
The right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot use his arguments of letting the good be the enemy of the best to carry the support of the House for a further period of know nothing, do nothing on constitutional reform. He may be semi-detached from his party and not carry a great deal of weight with its members. His speech was markedly different from that of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), the official spokesman for the Opposition, who showed no regret about the past. In that, I suspect, the right hon. Gentleman was more honest than the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe because the right hon. Gentleman will continue as the Conservatives governed in the past. He saw fit only to make narrow criticism of the contents of the Queen's Speech and to make fun of attempts to reform the indefensible upper Chamber.
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