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Sir Patrick Cormack: I must point out that I did not say that I was in favour of a wholly elected House of Lords. I said that we had not yet come to a conclusion on that. I also pointed out that it was difficult to envisage an elected House of Lords that would have a Cross-Bench element, which is one of the reasons why I have some misgivings.
Mr. Clarke: My apologies to my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire; I had the right part of the country, but it was my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) who expressed the view with which I agree. I am sorry that, on this occasion, I am more radical than my hon. Friend on the Front Bench, but I believe that it should be a wholly elected Chamber. I cannot believe that this House or the Government is going to come to any other conclusion in due course. As we proceed, the sheer absurdity of the details of the interim measure will be made ever more clear.
The amendment addresses the composition of the interim House. We are asked to consider what it is about another place that might be tainted by its continuing to hear within it the voice of hereditary peers without a vote. The moment one considers the composition of the group that will have the task of holding the Government to account for an indefinite period in the second Chamber, it becomes clear that the second Chamber will not be seriously damaged.
Probably the most legitimate members of the interim House will be the life peers, who are largely appointed by recent Prime Ministers on a mixture of political patronage
and distinction in their careers. I treat them all with the highest regard--many are my personal friends. Many have held office in this House. When I go to listen to their debates, I see sitting in front of me the House of Commons of 20 years ago. They used to be the country's leading politicians, scientists and artists. They are a sort of council of elders, reminding us of the great and good of a former generation. They are the most legitimate Members whom the upper Chamber will keep in place.
Also in place will be the senior bishops of the established Church. There will, I gather, be a further block of appointments made by the present Government, comprising 50 or so men and women who will be there because they will have undertaken on all occasions to follow the line set out by the press officer of Downing street and to vote in all Divisions to make sure that the Government's position is kept intact. My colleagues and the Liberal party will have the pleasure of appointing a no doubt smaller number of people with a similar instruction.
We are also told that a new quango will be appointed to appoint people who presumably will have to undertake to have no party affiliation, but to be in some way representative of the outside world. In other words, a mixture of patronage and the honours list will provide Members of the House of Lords, which will be the second Chamber indefinitely. It is a ridiculous proposal.
I have forgotten the most important element of all. If future amendments are accepted, or if the Government keep to their word as given to my noble Friends, 91 Members will be hereditary peers. Some may be the grandchildren of custard manufacturers. They will be people who will have been subject to the greatest strictures by Labour Members--
The Second Deputy Chairman:
Order. I remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman that that is not relevant to the amendment that we are discussing. Will he please confine his remarks to the amendment?
Mr. Clarke:
Subject to your guidance, Mr. Lord, I shall try to make my comments relevant by saying that it is this collection of people into which it is said it would be quite wrong to allow to intrude the voice of other hereditary peers for the interim period. There is no great threat to the proceedings of the truncated remnant of the old House of Lords which will be kept in place under the Bill if we allow hereditary peers to have a voice, if not a vote. They might be considered some guarantee of independence of--perhaps even of modest hostility towards--the present Government. If we are looking to a second House to help hold the Executive to account, I do not think that it would be weakened if we accepted the amendment; on occasions, it might be strengthened.
I cannot see the objections in principle that have been made. The hon. Members for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) and for Battersea (Mr. Linton) are still excited about the hereditary principle, but they presumably will accept 91 hereditary peers. The idea that the Bill sweeps away the hereditary principle and replaces it with something more democratic, more legitimate and better is not remotely the case. We are embarked on a foolish course in accepting this as an interim stage in the Government's proposals.
I know that, with the assistance of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) and others, my noble Friend Lord Wakeham, who is also a
personal friend, is meant to produce a policy. Even then, I understand that the policy is closely guided not towards democracy but towards blocs or groups that are supposed to represent interests in the wider world. Our mediaeval ancestors who created the House did a better job than this quango is likely to do for the 21st century in coming up with anything of that kind.
If we are to have an interim House, which is all that the Bill is about, it is absurdly dogmatic to say that all hereditary peers should be silent. They will lose their legislative power if they lose the right to vote in Divisions, but, in the peculiarly Mickey Mouse institution that we are putting in place for an indefinite period, their voice could on occasion be valuable.
Mr. Garnier:
With all due humility, I congratulate those of my right hon. and hon. Friends who have exposed this afternoon the Government's embarrassment and the vacuity of the thought behind their proposed reforms to the other place. My hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) began to expose their position, which is inept both politically and intellectually. Anyone who heard the speeches of my right hon. and hon. Friends this afternoon could reach only that conclusion.
One of my colleagues has said that he is a great respecter of the hereditary principle and that that was why he did not bet on horses. I occasionally do, and I respect the hereditary principle in the constitution. I accept that the arithmetic of this place nowadays means that the hereditary system in the other place is going, and, some say, the sooner it goes, the better. However, I object to the way in which the Government have made proposals that signally fail to meet their own arguments. That is why I applaud the amendment to allow hereditary peers to speak, even if they are not allowed to vote in Divisions.
When one considers the proper role of Parliament or of an upper House or another House, one legitimately comes to the questions that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) drew out. There are some minus points, but the other undemocratic House brings many plus points to our three-legged constitution or governmental system. It does this House and the Government no good to salami-slice away at particular aspects of our constitution, whether on the Union front or the House of Lords front, and produce half-baked, ill-considered solutions. I reject utterly the Government's proposals for an interim second Chamber. I hope that the
Committee will be persuaded, if not by my ineloquent arguments, by those of my right hon. and hon. Friends who have stripped bare the Government's ineptitude.
The Government's proposals are confused. They will lead to further trouble and to further dissatisfaction with the way in which Parliament works among the public, who are already becoming increasingly dissatisfied by the way in which this Government and Executive treat this House and Parliament as a whole. Unless amended and exposed to the arguments of my right hon. and hon. Friends, the proposals will continue to damage our constitution. I urge Labour Members to join us in the Lobby, and I hope that I can persuade my hon. Friends the Members for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) and for Stone (Mr. Cash) to do so as well.
Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross):
I, too, am grateful to the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) for moving the amendment, not because it is meritorious--it is not--but because it has created space in the debate to allow some free spirits among his colleagues, notably the hon. Members for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) and for Stone (Mr. Cash), to make extraordinarily sensible speeches. They showed that the Conservative party has within its ranks some people who are prepared to be constructive about the future of our constitution. Many of us take heart from that as we look to a cross-party alliance to make sense of an historical anachronism.
I also took some satisfaction from the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). As he spoke before me, he does not have the opportunity to head-butt me as he sometimes has in the past. He recognised that the principle of election is what we are moving to. I do not think that he is very excited by the possibility, but, if he sees that as the way in which we are going, perhaps he should welcome the anomalies that he thinks are created by the way in which the Government have chosen to go. The great good sense of the British people may come into play and make it impossible to propose a nonsensical second Chamber, such as that about which he expressed concern, with any credit to the Government. That would rule out the prospect of a House of mixed groups of representatives of different interests posing in some way as legitimate or representative.
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