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9.9 pm
Mr. Paul Clark (Gillingham): I shall heed yourearlier comments, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and keep my contribution short.
There is confusion among the Conservatives. Most of them, with the exception of those on the Front Bench, have supported clause 1. I have referred to the 1997 campaign guide, which says:
To help speed up proceedings, I intend to concentrate purely on the Bill. This Chamber was elected by some 31 million people. Those people listened to a political debate and cast their votes, according to their preference, to indicate the leaders whom they thought would bring the necessary help in terms of better schools and health care and improved transport, jobs and prosperity.
I doubt whether many of those people realised when they cast their vote on 1 May 1997 that it would be partly devalued and reduced in importance because of some event or favour granted some 500 or 600 years ago. Some 743 men and 16 women have the privilege of sitting in our Parliament and voting on the policies of a democratically elected Government purely because of one thing--the fact that their parentage gave them that power. They are not there on merit; they are not there because of their own good works. They are not there because my constituents said that they should be there. They are there through the grace and favour of monarchs of centuries past.
Nobody could seriously believe that that can be right for this country, or any country. In fact, one would go a long way to find any country where rights and responsibilities were passed to people purely because of their birth line.
It is worse than that, because there is also the fact of the vast in-built majority--a majority which, as we have heard, never changes. One need not take my word, or those of my right hon. and hon. Friends, for this; the Library contains clear statistics that are available to all. That majority delivers for one political party. It does not matter which party wins the election; the Conservative party always wins in the House of Lords. Some 48 per cent. of hereditary peers take the Tory Whip, compared with under 3 per cent. who take the Labour Whip. Those are the important statistics. Even a fan of "Alice in Wonderland" could not call the second Chamber "representative" or in touch with British society--unless that fan was Viscount Cranborne.
The vast majority of people in this country achieve success and responsibility through their own merits. Some 59 per cent. of hereditary peers are there solely because of parentage. Only 8 per cent. in total are women. The largest political party in the House of Lords is the Conservative party, which stands at 41 per cent. The Labour party stands at 15 per cent. For this Chamber, the electorate gave the Conservatives 30 per cent. of the vote, compared with 43 per cent. for Labour.
All the matters that have been mentioned today mean that the imbalance cannot be right. Hereditary peers have little in common with the men and women who live and
work in my constituency--for example, the nurses who work in our hospital, the people who work within the voluntary sector and those who work in the Shelter office. Many of my constituents have served their country in the forces, and in the Chatham dockyard, building ships and refitting nuclear submarines; some of those people, I might add, are still awaiting compensation for related illnesses. However, that is a matter for another debate. It is to those people, whom we were elected to represent, that we owe it to ensure that we have an effective, representative and modern parliamentary system to deliver good government. We can all agree that that should be the outcome.
I do not rely on my personal thoughts or even my party's clear manifesto commitment; I undertook a survey in my constituency. I do not claim that it was scientifically based and I did not apply weighting factors to this group or that. However, it was widespread and the results were overwhelming. People in Gillingham want to see an end to the unfair rights of hereditary peers. They think that we should do it now and do it quickly. They want a second Chamber that represents the real world before the next election. Almost eight of 10 Gillingham people believed in the Government's plans and some 69 per cent. wanted to see the work of the royal commission and the Joint Committee completed before then. When I support the Bill tomorrow, I am confident, therefore, that I shall have the backing of my constituency.
I recognise the real and sometimes valuable contribution that some of the hereditary peers have made. It would be wrong not to do so. I pay tribute to the achievements of their ancestors, who often played a valuable part in making Britain great; we should never forget their legacy. I also recognise that some hereditary peers bring real expertise and compassion to the legislative process. However, they have no direct link to my constituents or other people in this country. Gillingham's history contains several links with the House of Lords, but I will not go into that subject in great detail because we have heard much about the historical aspects of the argument.
Some hereditary peers have helped our parliamentary system, but that does not mean that it operates efficiently or effectively. Only 20 per cent. of hereditary peers attended more than two thirds of the parliamentary Session in 1997-98. More than 200 did not attend at all. The regular attenders, most of whom are life peers, carry out the majority of the business of the House. All those facts show that reform is required.
In our work as Members of the House of Commons we meet many people who excel in their areas of work, in some cases battling against the odds to raise families or achieving business success and creating worthwhile prosperity for our regions. Such people clearly understand the social agenda and challenges of today. They work in their communities to develop harmony and bring together different strands of society. Such people could bring their skills and expertise to a second Chamber to give it legitimacy in its own right. The current House of Lords lacks that legitimacy, because of its anachronistic and unrepresentative composition.
I am sure that most people would agree that this is a simple issue. The Government's proposals are clear and
concise, and they honour our commitment to the British people. On 13 July last year, Leader of the Opposition said:
The Bill is not ill thought out. The royal commission had a clear task and a definite time scale. I hope that hon. Members will read its terms of reference carefully, as they cover the second Chamber's composition and its roles and functions. It was not always evident from today's debate that everyone had read those terms of reference. With the fullest involvement of all interested parties, we can provide a legitimate and effective second Chamber for a modern and dynamic society.
The only freedoms and liberties that I want to be attacked are those that bear no reference to today's society and to the people whom we represent; by that I mean the freedoms exercised by the hereditary peers when they vote on parliamentary Bills.
Voltaire wrote:
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex):
Can't you shut him down?
Mr. Clark:
I am coming to a part that may excite the Opposition.
My constituents regard the hereditary principle as outdated and outmoded. That is why the Tory party's Battle for Britain campaign, launched by the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), is doomed to failure. It is a smokescreen, used throughout this debate and the whole campaign, to hide internal divisions in the Conservative party. The Tories claim that Britain's freedoms are under threat from this Government's plans to abolish hereditary peers and that Labour Members do not care about the same things as the British people.
I hope that I have nailed those falsehoods by bringing a clear message from the people of my constituency with whom I have discussed the matter. The Opposition's campaign looks back to the past as the Conservatives try to wrap themselves in the Union Jack. Unfortunately for our democratic process, Her Majesty's official Opposition are wrapped only in a time warp as they fail to look forward or help to create a modern parliamentary system.
"It is important to defend the hereditary principle in its own right."
Tory Members were asked why the Tory Government did nothing for 18 years, and about what had happened in the previous 88 years. There was confusion in their response--that the Bill will not do anything because it is dealing with a single issue and not the whole thing. We have had the added bonus of smokescreen issues, such as the monarchy, the German constitution, Tony's cronies, predictions about the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments and even the evolution of fish.
"the reform of Parliament must be above party politics. Rushed and ill thought-out reform, dreamt up in the heat of party political battle, could threaten the foundations on which our freedoms and liberties are based."
Rushed? For 88 years, attempts have been made to reform the House of Lords, every one ending in the sands. As long ago as 1917, an inter-party conference agreed that the House of Lords should not be dominated by one party, that it should contain an independent element and that it should be made up of those with "personal eminence".
"Whoever serves his country well has no need for ancestors."
We all needed our mums and dads to be here today, but we need a modern, meritocratic system in which people endeavour to do their best, in their chosen fields, for our country.
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