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Mr. Straw: Do those criteria include an end to the built-in 3:1 Tory majority in the other place?
Dr. Fox: It is typical of the Home Secretary to ask such a question. We are talking about engaging openly in a process of reform, which, as the Home Secretary knows, we have offered to do on several occasions. We have wanted to take part in a full, one-stage, coherent process of reform. We are talking about the better governance of the United Kingdom--and what does the Home Secretary talk about? He talks about the Labour party's interests. The Labour party can see any part of constitutional change only in terms of what is in its interests. Only when we have decided what the role of the Chamber can be shall we be able to decide what its composition should be.
We heard one or two extraordinarily interesting contributions. Perhaps the best was that of the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac), who, in a "Beanoesque" speech, said, "No one voted for a candidate in the election. No one voted for me." The hon. Lady has not worked out that the whole point of an election is that the voters are supposed to have a choice. According to her, it is all about party. It takes one of the newest Members of Parliament to speak the truth, for that is indeed what it is all about for the Labour party: it is all about party.
Last week, Lady Jay referred, in the other place, to Cross Benchers' being independent "in name only". That betrayed the fact that, under the current Administration, people are either with the Government or against them. It is not possible to be independent: you are either "them" or "us". As my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood pointed out, they do not understand the danger of patronage.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester said, unusually in this Government, the new life peers being created are predominantly Government peers--54 per cent. so far. It is clear that the Government intend to pack the upper House, to increase the Prime Minister's power and to increase the Executive's power when we should be bringing it under check.
What is the demand for the constitutional change that is being put forward? Are our voters stretching out in constituencies demanding constitutional change? Are lorry loads of petitions making their way into the House at this moment to be dumped on our desks? Do barges sail up the Thames, with the people of this country demanding that we have constitutional change? No, they do not. That is not what people are interested in, as many hon. Members have pointed out.
The trouble is that the Government believe that history began on 1 May 1997. They have little respect for our traditions or our heritage. [Interruption.] Labour Members may well roar their approval because that is exactly the perspective. They see us not as a nation state, but as a conglomeration of regions, just as they see the electorate not as a whole, but as a coalition of minorities. As they say, they want us to be governed by modern European mechanisms of government, but we are not a modern European nation. [Laughter.] We are a strong, independent nation state that twice this century, because of the values that we have held, has been able to get Europe out of trouble of its own making. It is typical of how little feel the Labour party has for our country's traditions that it can mock them in such a way.
I look forward to the Secretary of State for Wales answering the debate. He is in a particularly difficult position: either he wins his election and gets a job that he does not want, or he stays in extended exile. I enjoyed his shotgun wedding to the Welsh Labour party last week, with him being led down the aisle by the Prime Minister. The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) could be the best man, but best man is not a term that counts in the Labour party; only Blair's man counts.
We have in the Secretary of State someone who has come late to the constitutional debate, having not taken part in the devolution flagship debates, and he is left to clear up what is now a mess. The European Parliamentary Elections Bill tries to gag the voters and to boost the party bosses. The House of Lords reform is to bolster the Prime Minister, not to improve how we are governed. The nationalists are resurgent. The United Kingdom is in peril.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Alun Michael):
What a rant that was. I was looking forward to a wide-ranging debate reflecting the scope and breadth of the Government's constitutional reform programme. From devolution to the incorporation of human rights legislation into domestic law, to the reform of the other place, the Government are committed to overhauling and modernising our constitution. Instead of that sort of debate, we have had a narrow, petty amendment, reflected
If anyone has come late to the constitutional debate, it is the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox). I have been involved in that debate for more than 30 years. My commitment over the years is beyond doubt. After the contribution that he has just made, his commitment to anything is slightly doubtful.
In the last Session, 10 constitutional measures were enacted, when constitutional experts said that two would be ambitious, yet it would have been 11 but for the refusal of the hereditary peers to accept the wishes of those who have been elected. There is more work to come in this Session, as well as a number of draft Bills--more than enough, I would have thought, to engage Conservative Members--yet instead there has been a series of stale and stereotyped attempts to defend the indefensible: the so-called right of an in-built Conservative majority to frustrate the policies of an elected majority in the House of Commons. That is what the debate has been about.
The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) was right to criticise what he described as the "ritual opposition" of Conservative Members, who have debated nothing but one issue. They have offered no real debate on the European elections or on the Neill committee's report. They have shown no real engagement on the major constitutional issues raised by the 10 major constitutional measures that I mentioned. They have also not attempted to debate the measures that were introduced in the Gracious Speech.
I tell the hon. Member for Woodspring that the Government's authority is based on our constitution, and on the confidence with which people voted for us and their desire for us to make this a modern, democratic Government. He has confessed that the previous Government did not leave us a modern and democratic House.
The language used by Conservative Members in today's debate has been curious and loaded with prejudice. They accuse us of undertaking reform piecemeal. It is more appropriate to talk of incremental change. As we have an uncodified and unwritten constitution, we are bound to effect change in a case-by-case, incremental process. I thought that Conservative Members favoured such a process--of careful, incremental change, driven by a coherent philosophy. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary clearly said at the beginning of the debate, we certainly take such an approach.
I agree with the comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush (Mr. Soley) on the Government's courage in proceeding with the modernisation agenda at every level of government.
Mr. Lansley:
I fear that, in his comments on the previous Session, the right hon. Gentleman may be failing to distinguish between activity and achievement. Nevertheless, on the coming Session, will he explain--if he has a coherent philosophy--what the Government propose as the democratic and modern alternatives to the current House of Lords and to current electoral systems?
Mr. Michael:
The alternatives are simply what we promised in our manifesto--to remove the entirely
This Session will also bear witness to several of the previous Session's measures bearing fruit. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) mentioned that point. As a consequence of the Human Rights Act 1998, for example, the Bills that have been published already this Session have been accompanied by ministerial statements certifying their compliance with the provisions of the European convention on human rights. The constitutional reforms that the Government have undertaken are starting to have a direct beneficial effect on the lives of ordinary people. None the less, today's Conservative amendment is narrow, bitter and arid.
Why did Conservative Members not want to talk about the new Northern Ireland Assembly, the government of London, or the sentence in the Address celebrating the fact that
The fact is that 1999 will be very much a year of destiny for Wales and Scotland and for all of the United Kingdom. I am very concerned that there are those in Westminster and in Whitehall who misunderstand the process of change that we are experiencing, just as they seemed to misunderstand the referendum process that we experienced. Conservative Members' mention of referendums and, in their amendment, of the Neill report was meant simply as a hook to be used in attacking the devolution process. Dare I say it that hon. Members and some people in Whitehall believe that, after 7 May, they will no longer have to consider or bother about Wales or Scotland?
There are also those who pursue a nationalist agenda and talk as if, after devolution, a deep divide will develop between the English border and the Welsh border. There is neither a new Offa's dyke to be erected nor a new Welsh sea to come between us. The point of our constitutional change is for the people of Wales to elect representatives who are directly accountable for the decisions that are currently taken by the Welsh Office. It will be essential for the Assembly to engage with other Departments of state and be involved in legislation and administration that is done on an England and Wales basis or a United Kingdom basis.
"people will be able to vote in elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly next year, and my Government will work to ensure that both are established successfully"?
It was not until the hon. Member for Woodspring replied for the Opposition that a lame attempt was made to criticise the exciting progress being made by the Government. Perhaps Conservative Members are so quiet now because that legislation completed its passage, finishing the job, in the previous Session.
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