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7.26 pm
Mr. Damian Green (Ashford): Those of us who have sat through the debate so far will have realised that many of the more interesting contributions have crystallised what is wrong with the Bill. I am sure that it is widely agreed that constitutional Bills should be of particular interest to us all as parliamentarians. After all, if parliamentarians are not sensitive about parliamentary democracy, no one else will be. It behoves us, especially at a time when Parliament seems to be falling into public disrepute, to take any parliamentary reform seriously.
It is my contention that it is impossible for the conscientious parliamentarian, who wishes to see an effective second Chamber as a contribution to the democratic process, to support the Bill, because it leaves the future of that Chamber as a void. As we have heard in many of the contributions today, people have tried to fill the void by suggesting what the result of the reform process should be. That is an entirely legitimate debate that this House and the country should be having, but the Government have introduced the Bill before any sensible consultation process has started and they have got everything in the wrong order.
It is absurd to claim that any second Chamber would be better than the current one, as the Leader of the House did earlier. It is not possible to hold that position sensibly. The objection to the current second Chamber, which we have heard from Labour Members today, is that nobody should be able to vote in it by reason of heredity.
Mr. Green:
I shall save the hon. Gentleman the trouble. The answer to his question is yes. In order to vote for the Bill, one must believe that any replacement House of Lords would be better than the one we have. [Hon. Members: "Yes."] It is interesting that Members on the Government Benches are chorusing yes. They are saying that if the Prime Minister of the day chose to appoint 500,
Dr. Ladyman:
The hon. Gentleman is right: the hypothetical situation that he has described would be anti-democratic. However, does he honestly believe that it would be less democratic than the Conservative party's permanent 3:1 majority in the present House of Lords?
Mr. Green:
Yes, it would be less democratic, as modern patronage, as opposed to old patronage, would be involved. [Laughter.] It certainly would not be better.
Labour Members are proof of that. They regard it as preferable for a modern Government to decide to subvert Parliament by using its majority in this House to destroy the revising power of the second Chamber. That is an interesting insight into new Labour. It shows that Labour Members do not have a democratic bone in their bodies. They do not accept what Parliament is for. They do not realise that any Parliament needs a revising function, which must have at its heart the ability to defeat the Government of the day. If they do not accept that, Labour Members ought to be unicameralists, but I think that they profess not to be.
Maria Eagle:
When previous Bills have been introduced suggesting that the powers of the House of Lords should be changed, the Conservative party has always said, "Don't deal with the powers, deal with the composition." This Bill deals with the composition of the second Chamber, but now the hon. Gentleman says, "Don't deal with the composition, deal with the powers." Is not the hon. Gentleman really saying that he simply does not want the matter to be dealt with at all?
Mr. Green:
No, I am not saying that. The hon. Lady is extremely effective at attacking the Conservative party of 1911, but she should either bring herself up to date or find a new intervention for the second day of this debate tomorrow.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough):
Will the hon. Gentleman enlighten the House about the Conservative party's attempts since 1911 to reform the other place?
Mr. Green:
The most successful reform of the House of Lords this century was the introduction of life peerages. That was done by a Conservative Government, so the hon. Lady need not worry on that score.
Legitimate arguments can be held about the competence of the current hereditary peers and about the role and composition of the second Chamber. However, no case can be made for asking this House to change radically the composition of Parliament without any indication of how it will be composed at the end of
the process. We could have a second Chamber with a majority appointed by one Prime Minister--the parliamentary equivalent of the South sea bubble, the worst kind of capitalism, when investors were invited to buy shares in a company whose purpose would be revealed later. The Government are asking us to have a House in Parliament whose composition and role will be revealed later. That is no way to reform Parliament.
Dr. Ladyman:
I am glad to have been able to catch the hon. Gentleman before he proceeds too far down his line of argument. I have just realised what he has said. He contended that the introduction of life peers was the greatest reform of the House of Lords so far and added that it was done by the Conservative party. However, was not that exactly the power that he attacked as new patronage only a few minutes ago?
Mr. Green:
No. I was attacking the possibility that the Prime Minister of the day could be allowed to abuse that patronage. The Labour party claims to be modernising the constitution, but in fact it is seeking to entrench that abuse--a process that is neither sensible nor democratic.
Labour Members should consider their individual positions, as they will vote on the Bill as individuals. I suspect that they would feel rather uncomfortable at being invited to vote for legislation on health, education or any of the vital issues if the Government introduced it by saying, "We are introducing a reform and we have no idea where it is going to end up." I suggest that they should feel even more uncomfortable about being asked to vote for constitutional reform, about which they have a responsibility as individual parliamentarians, and to take their vote seriously.
The point has been made that a huge popular demand exists for the abolition of the hereditary peerage. It does, but only one poll has been taken about the means that should be adopted. In answer to a question about whether hereditary peers should be abolished before other details of the reform are decided, 25 per cent. of people agreed that the peers should be abolished. However, when asked whether things should be left as they are at present until the details of the reforms are decided, 68 per cent. of people said that things should be left as they are. Although I accept that there is a huge popular mandate for getting rid of the hereditary peerage, the British people do not support the way in which the Government are going about it.
The Government have said already that they will accept an amendment that will drive a coach and horses through their protestations about how much they hate the hereditary peers. Earlier, the Leader of the House performed an extremely spirited Madame Defarge act when she expressed her deep hatred of hereditary peers. Therefore, it is slightly odd that the Government's first action is to reach for a compromise that will preserve 100 hereditary peers for the indefinite future. They object to the hereditaries so much that they will put them in what they describe as a transitional House and leave them there for as long as possible.
The Bill is therefore misnamed: it should be called the Abolition of Hereditary Peers (Apart from the Ones We Won't Abolish) Bill. That is what the Government
are doing. The Bill is full of rhetoric about how unfit hereditary peers are to legislate on any matter at all. Nevertheless, the Government also appear to think that hereditary peers are uniquely able to legislate on the future of the peerage and the second Chamber.
The Government's position is completely incoherent. If the hereditary peers can legislate on those matters, they cannot be so unfit to legislate on other matters. If the Government do not believe their rhetoric--and the gap between words and actions is huge--no one else should.
The White Paper, I admit, offers hints about where we go next but it is not Whitehall's finest hour and does not illuminate the underlying issues as it should. The first problem with it has been touched on already by my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox). The Government constantly repeat the line that there is an inbuilt Conservative majority of 3:1 in the House of Lords. In fact, the tables in the White Paper give the lie to that assertion. My hon. Friend has mentioned the overall total, but I point out to Labour Members that, even though there are 627 hereditary peers in the House of Lords, only 300 are Conservatives. That is less than 50 per cent. of the total--hardly a 3:1 Conservative majority.
The Government derive the 3:1 figure by ignoring the Cross-Bench peers, about whom we have heard quite a lot of sneering in the debate. That is especially regrettable, as many of the Cross-Bench peers contribute to the debates of this Parliament a degree of non-partisan expertise that is one reason why the House of Lords is probably held in higher repute than the House of Commons at present. Labour Members should consider that point.
The second big problem with the White Paper is that reveals the Government's tendency to blackmail. On page 29, it states:
"If there is consensus, the Government will make every effort to ensure that the second stage of reform has been approved by Parliament before the next election."
Sadly, the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple- Morris) is no longer present. He referred to the consensus that has been on offer from the Government all along. The consensus seems to be, "You agree with us, and we'll form a consensus."
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