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8.39 pm
Maria Eagle (Liverpool, Garston): I want to concentrate on the reference in the Opposition amendment to reform of the House of Lords, although the other two issues raised in the amendment are equally important. I have been struck during this debate and previous debates by one word that we hear time and again from Conservative Members. It was used by the Leader of the Opposition when he opened the debate on the Gracious Speech last Tuesday. It has been used constantly today, not least by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) and the right hon. Member for Fareham(Sir P. Lloyd). The word in question is "independence".
I wish to explore what is meant by that. I have made several interventions to try to tease out what the Opposition mean when they use that word because it can
have several meanings. What is it that is independent about the current upper Chamber? How representative is it? What is its composition? What does its voting record over the past few decades show?
I ask the House's forgiveness in advance for giving percentage figures that are inherently boring, but I hope that hon. Members will bear with me because they have an impact on one's view of the upper Chamber's independence. How representative are the current members of the upper Chamber? More than half of them are hereditary peers--626 out of 1,166. Of those, 299, or 47.7 per cent., take the Tory Whip. Some 17, or 2.7 per cent., take the Labour Whip, and 24, or 3.8 per cent., are Liberal Democrats, Another 198 are Cross Benchers, who swing all ways in casting their vote and are not reliable in a party sense, and they form 31.6 per cent. Some 88--or 14.5 per cent.--have no affiliation, not even to the Cross Benches.
My hon. Friends have already pointed out that less than a third of 1 per cent. are from the ethnic minorities and, of the hereditary peers, only 2.5 per cent are women. For the benefit of Conservative Members, I should point out that the two latter facts narrow the range of experiences on the basis of which those who sit in the upper Chamber can speak and vote. The value of having a diverse range of people in any legislature, including this House, is that they bring wider experiences of life to the consideration of legislation. That is an important point that is not often made.
At the general election, the Labour party experienced one of the three biggest landslides this century. It was the best result the party had ever had. The Conservatives will not wish to be reminded, but they had their worst result since 1832. What impact has that massive change in political views had on the independence of the House of Lords? Well, 47.7 per cent. of the hereditary peers still take the Tory Whip. In other words, the landslide had no impact whatever on the composition of the upper House.
Some Conservative Members have defended the hereditary principle, but others seemed somewhat embarrassed and said that they would vote to get rid of it, given the opportunity, in favour of a senate or something. It is a democratic outrage that an election can demonstrate such a change in political opinion but that the impact on the other place is zero. The hereditary peers are representative only of an old aristocratic section of society. I do not wish to sound prejudiced, but they overwhelmingly represent one social stratum and one type of life and experience. That does not fit my definition of independent. Most of them are conservative, if not in party affiliation, in experience, background and life style.
What of the life peers? I have heard it said that the life peers restore the balance and make the hereditary aspect acceptable. The current Chamber contains 531 life peers. The Tories have 173, or 32.5 per cent.; Labour has 158, or 29.7 per cent.; the Liberal Democrats have 45, or 8.4 per cent.; there are 120 Cross Benchers, or 22.5 per cent.; there are nine Law Lords, or 1.6 per cent.; and the bishops make up 4.8 per cent. Even among the life peers, the Tories still have the biggest group. Labour has fewer life peers, but the number is closer to equality with the Conservatives. Cross Benchers form the next biggest group, and the others make up the numbers.
The Tories still have the most peers, whether life or hereditary, despite the fact that they went down to their worst defeat since 1832. While the hereditary peers still
exist, the Tories can call on them whenever they want to ensure victory in the upper Chamber.
That is not what I call independence of either representation or composition, although the Conservative party has a tendency to use the word "independent" interchangeably with the word "Conservative". We have all come across that on local councils, where they also used to use the word "ratepayer" to mean Conservative.
What have the peers done over the years in their voting record to indicate the independence that the Conservatives seem to value as their most important contribution? I have a list of important defeats inflicted on Governments by the House of Lords since the Liberal Government of 1909, and it makes illuminating reading. My conclusion, from reading the list, is that the upper Chamber has defeated Labour Governments much more often than it has defeated Conservative Governments and, when we used to have Liberal Governments--a long time ago now--the Lords defeated them much more often than they defeated Tory Governments.
The defeats that the upper Chamber has inflicted on Labour and Liberal Governments in the past have also been more extensive and on much more important pieces of legislation. The upper Chamber has also tended not to press Conservative Governments so far, so defeats are inflicted but entire Bills are not lost. A further important aspect is that defeats inflicted on Labour and Liberal Governments chimed in with the Conservative Opposition of the day.
Mr. Grieve:
The hon. Lady is making a fascinating and thoughtful speech. However, she is surely not suggesting that the upper Chamber, whether elected, appointed or hereditary, should operate by trying to achieve equality in the number of times that it rejects the legislation introduced by different Governments.
Maria Eagle:
Of course I am not suggesting that--it would be nonsensical. I am trying to illustrate that the composition of the upper Chamber becomes important when we examine how it exercises its powers. I shall give some examples.
We have all read in history books about the crisis that brought about the first of the Parliament Acts, when the upper Chamber decided to defeat the Liberal Government's Finance Bill. The first Labour Government were defeated on proposals to nationalise the mines, and those defeats benefited the private mine owners, those landed and propertied interests that the upper Chamber tends to represent and protect.
At the time of the vast programmes of nationalisation on which the post-war Labour Government embarked, the Lords tended to defeat the Government in order to prevent the vesting days of nationalised industries. That was still occurring under the Wilson Governments, when the Lords inflicted defeats on legislation that nationalised assets. Those were clearly Government policies that had been included in the party's manifesto.
The upper Chamber has not only inflicted far fewer defeats on Conservative than on Labour Governments: it tends to concentrate its defeats of Labour Governments on important legislation and is not concerned that the policies were in the party's manifesto.
Reference has already been made to the manifesto commitment to reform the upper Chamber, which is specific. It says:
Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset):
I have been listening to the hon. Lady's speech with great interest. Does she accept that Conservative Members would have vastly more faith in that second step if the royal commission had been set up on the day the Government came to power, so that there was a chance of putting serious reform before the House now?
Maria Eagle:
I am happy to give my view on that. Of course, I am not a member of the Government but a Back-Bench supporter. There is no reason why the royal commission cannot report quickly, and I would support that. The view that the royal commission means that reform will disappear into the dim and distant future is not necessarily correct. Although I can understand the hon. Gentleman's view, which is based on the role of royal commissions in the past, this commission will not necessarily be the same.
"The House of Lords must be reformed. As an initial, self-contained reform, not dependent on further reform in the future, the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute. This will be the first stage in a process of reform to make the House of Lords more democratic and representative. The legislative powers of the House of Lords will remain unaltered."
That is why I take exception to the implication in the amendment before us today that we should propose stage two of the reform before abolishing the rights of the hereditary peerage to sit and vote. It is clear from the manifesto that that is not envisaged as stage 1 of the reform.
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