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Sir Nicholas Lyell: The hon. Gentleman has pointed out, helpfully, how much constructive thought came from Conservative Members back in 1978. Does not that point up the message that I am trying to get across to the Government? Our complaint is not that there will be reform, but that there should be reform in a single stage, not in two stages. The Government have quite enough power to say, "Okay, if you haven't achieved reform in three years, we will have our way." With the presence of that sword of Damocles, is there not an opportunity to achieve constructive reform in a single stage?
Mr. Temple-Morris: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman was the Leader of the Opposition I would treat what he says with more credibility. I agree with the sentiment that he expresses, but the evidence was not present in the past and it is certainly not present in the activities of the current leadership and of Conservative Front-Bench spokesmen. Such evidence has never been present in this Parliament. The party cannot agree; indeed, that is self-evident from the right hon. and learned Gentleman's intervention.
Mr. Grieve: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Temple-Morris: Once more, then I must get on.
Mr. Grieve: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who, in any other context, I would also refer to as my friend.
I want to pick up a point that the hon. Gentleman made earlier, which ties in. There has been opposition from Conservative Members since the start of this Parliament, which makes, it is said, single-stage reform impossible. Surely, since the start of this Parliament, we have never been told by anyone--either through the setting up of a royal commission or the Government expressing a view--how the total package might look. Therefore we have never been able to comment on it, contribute to it or agree it.
Mr. Temple-Morris:
That really is not good enough. The former Leader of the House of Lords was in constant conversation--often of a prandial nature--with the then leader of the Conservatives in the Lords. The two knew each other extremely well. Like many other hon. Members, I know both the people involved. It was made clear again and again that the Opposition could have a
I should like to make some specific points about the second stage of the reform. Like Lord Home, I believe that there should be a mixed House of Lords. That will almost certainly be the inevitable outcome of any reform. I suggest 70 per cent. elected and 30 per cent. non-elected. We should also consider having a third of members appointed, a third elected by proportional representation under a regional list, and a third elected by colleges of interest.
The proposal for some members to be elected by colleges of interest always crops up, but is usually dropped because it is considered to be too complicated to arrange and agree the colleges. However, the Irish Senate has such a system. The flaw in its system--with which I have had a lot to do--is not the colleges of interest but the electorate, because the electorate comprises Members of the Dail and members of local authorities. It is the most political electorate around, and that is why the Irish Senate is not what it was intended to be.
Bishops and Law Lords should not sit in the House of Lords. Bishops and representatives of other religious denominations could be colleges of interest in their own right. The Law Lords would continue to sit in the Privy Council. I am sure that, whatever we do, there will be too many lawyers in the upper House, so we do not need to send people there to exercise judicial office.
I can knock the question of dual mandates on the head. When we created the system for the first elections to the European Parliament, many people said that we must have dual mandates. Committees said how marvellous it would be for these lovely MEPs to come and tell us what was going on. When all bar one of those who achieved a dual mandate did not last more than one Parliament before, virtually to a man, they came back here, it rapidly became apparent that dual mandates would not work because MEPs had a lot to do. The Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly will have plenty to do, but they could be colleges of interest to elect representatives to a reformed upper House. They could also be given a right of audience, as the European Parliament gives visiting Ministers. I see no reason for the second Chamber to be limited to its membership.
Mr. Bowen Wells (Hertford and Stortford):
As the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) said, the problem that we face is the overweening power of
Mr. Hope:
The hon. Gentleman said that clause 1 is a minor reform of the House of Lords. Does his party support that clause, which states:
Mr. Wells:
I cannot speak for my party--I am not the spokesman on these issues--but I shall give the hon. Gentleman a direct answer. I agree with the statement in clause 1. I do not believe that membership of the upper House should be based on hereditary principles. In all his questions, the hon. Gentleman has failed to distinguish the difference between supporting the hereditary principle and deciding the membership of the House of Lords. I do not believe that it should be decided on the hereditary principle, and I hope that that is clear enough for the hon. Gentleman to understand.
Both Houses of Parliament have fallen in the public's esteem in the past 40 or 50 years. That should worry both Houses considerably, especially the House of Commons. It is essential to reform both the House of Lords and the House of Commons if we are to restore public respect for this vital instrument of democracy.
If we are to go down the path of reform, we should start with the traditional approach to which the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) alluded. We should call together all parties and peoples in the House--perhaps under the chairmanship of the Speaker, a Speaker's conference--to decide how reform should take place.
One of the first issues to consider would be the entitlement of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords. I said that that was not a major point, because if we abolished the hereditary principle, we would not change the constitution, except that we would put the House of Lords much more in the power of the serving Prime Minister, and would make it a party political machine supporting the Government in power.
What would happen after successive Prime Ministers had appointed their appointees to the House of Lords? Presumably, it would have a large number of members, unless there was a retirement provision or they were appointed for a set period. The consequences of the Government's proposal are not clear. We do not know what will happen at stage 2, what the royal commission will decide and what further legislation will be required.
What will happen once we have tinkered with the extraordinary system in the House of Lords? No one would have invented it: it is a crazy system. If we take one of the bricks from the wall, the whole thing will tumble down. That is why we must have a discussion on what we mean by reform and what we want from it.
I should like the House to consider carefully whether we should straightforwardly abolish the House of Lords and have no second Chamber. In the Commonwealth, the New Zealand Parliament abolished its second Chamber 40 years ago. It has proceeded comfortably and well without a second, revising Chamber. That may be the simplest solution for us all. If we did that, we would have to reform this place.
Dr. Starkey:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Wells:
No, I want to keep to Mr. Deputy Speaker's time limit, so I cannot take the hon. Lady's intervention.
If we abolished the second Chamber completely, we would have the simplest solution of all; but it would require major reform of our proceedings in the House of Commons. Indeed, part of this process will involve reform of the House of Commons in any event. I shall be referring to some of the respects in which we must do a great deal better in future.
If, however, the House of Lords is to have an elected element--as suggested by both the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross and the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris)--it will gain democratic credibility, and will demand to be given power. It would, surely, be possible to allocate some powers to the House of Commons, and some to the second House. The second House, for example, could be given responsibility for many matters that are currently in the gift of the Crown--Crown privileges, particularly in respect of foreign affairs and treaties. That would accord with what happens in the United States Congress, which has considerable powers in that regard. As the House will know, it refused to agree to the treaty of Versailles after the first world war, which was, possibly, one of the reasons for the second world war. It interviews all those appointed to ambassadorial posts, and the Senate's approval is needed before such appointments are made.
Indeed, the question of appointments--which was raised by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield--is extremely important. The Executive has far too much power over appointments to quangos, and to other bodies that spend huge amounts of public money. Certainly, such appointments should not be allowed without parliamentary supervision.
Those, then, are powers that could be divided between the two Houses; but do hon. Members imagine that the House of Commons will give up the power over the Executive that it currently has? Had we passed a motion opposing the signing of the Maastricht treaty, for example, the Government would have had to retract their signature, or they would not have been able to continue to exist. My proposal therefore would mean this House giving up power to the new, elected House of Lords.
I do not believe that we shall get through the House of Commons any proposal that would empower the House of Lords--the upper House, the second Chamber or whatever we want to call it--to gainsay or second-guess the elected Chamber here. We would not secure that kind of reform, and that suggests that the best way forward may indeed be a single-Chamber Government. If we are to have a single-Chamber Government, we must take over, and call to account, the powers of Crown privilege and appointment held by the Executive; but we ought also to take powers to control the Government's power
to borrow. The House of Commons has never been able to do that, which over the years has got us into a huge amount of trouble economically. That has led to rampant inflation, mainly under Labour Governments.
We would also have to include European affairs when considering how to deal with a reformed House. Currently, we handle European affairs very badly, although we probably handle them better than most European Union Parliaments--with the exception of the Danish Parliament. I agree that Prime Ministers, and Ministers generally, should not go to the European Council and make agreements on our behalf without authorisation from the Parliaments that they represent. I think it monstrous, for example, that the monetary union proposals presented to the European Union were agreed by two leaders, President Mitterrand and Chancellor Kohl, with no reference to their parties, their Parliaments or their people. That, surely, is the kind of power that we should give reformed Houses of Parliament.
I feel that, when the European Scrutiny Committee and European Standing Committees A and B do not think that Ministers should go to Europe and agree, on behalf of this country, legislation passed by Europe, that should be binding on the Government. In such circumstances, this House of Parliament does not agree. It should have the power not to agree, and Ministers should have to withhold their agreement. I know that they will not like that, because they will not be able to wheel and deal. So be it--and so much the better for the supremacy of Parliament.
Scotland is to have a national Parliament, Northern Ireland and Wales are to have Assemblies, and presumably we shall eventually have regional government of some kind in England. We shall need representation of those powerful regional bodies in this place. That could be the basis of a second Chamber, but those bodies would also have to be represented, in some way, in this House. I am rather attracted to the proposal in the White Paper that we should find a place for a Committee--a Grand Committee, or a European Committee--that MEPs would not only be able to attend, but be expected to attend. They would have a duty to attend. It is important for us to understand increasingly what is going on in Europe, and to be able to influence MEPs.
My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) referred to the power of the judiciary, which is becoming greater and greater under the judicial review procedure. Under the human rights measures that we have enacted, the judiciary is increasingly beginning to make the laws of this country, including administrative law. It is usurping the powers of Parliament and the House of Commons.
Another worry is caused by the fact that, on many occasions, we conduct our business in an absurdly childlike manner. Everyone is aware, from BBC radio and television, of the appalling spectacle that we present when we call the Prime Minister to account at Prime Minister's Question Time, which degrades the House and diminishes those who take part. We need to find an adult, sensible way in which we can hold our Prime Minister to account, with papers in front of us--hold him to account realistically and effectively. We must develop such techniques.
"No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage"?
Does the hon. Gentleman support or oppose that clause?
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