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Mr. Tyrie: One aspect of the relationship between the clause and the Salisbury convention is that the convention is intended to apply mainly to non-obstruction of Government business that has been in a manifesto: legislation should not be voted down on Second Reading. However, another possibility is that the convention might need to apply to those people who might consider filibustering against Government business. If we passed the clause, might we not have to consider the possibility that peers who are brought in who have the right to speak, but not vote, may yet play a constitutional role by filibustering?
Mr. Wells: Filibustering is a time-honoured convention of this House. I know that those who fill the Chair do not agree with that time-honoured convention and seek to prevent any such thing from taking place, but it is a useful democratic tool in a debating Chamber such as this--an elected one--as it is in the House of Lords. Therefore, hereditary peers would assist the process of delay. As you will know, Mr. Martin, because of the number of years that you sat on the Back Benches, that is practically the only weapon that is available to the Opposition to bring
the Government to their senses and to make them listen to some views that they would rather not hear. I know that you are very determined to make certain that all Back Benchers get that opportunity, which I use at the present time.
One of the serious issues is the way in which the Government will use the House of Lords without the hereditary peers in it. Clearly, it will be a major extension of Executive power if the Government totally control the way in which the House of Lords votes. That is what will happen in the House of Lords if it is totally appointed and does not have the element of hereditary peers, even if they do not have votes.
Mrs. Dunwoody:
The hon. Gentleman seems to be suggesting that the "limbo" position is horizontal.
Mr. Wells:
I know that the hon. Lady has visited the Caribbean. She is of course right to say that, in the Caribbean, limbo dancing is done horizontally, under a flaming bar, to calypso music of the type that is performed so brilliantly in Trinidad and Tobago during carnival, which starts today and leads up to Lent. However, I believe that you would quickly pull me up to order if I followed that thought, Mr. Martin.
Limbo--lying down--is exactly what the elected Government want the other place to do. I believe that we need the hereditary peers to prevent such a Chamber being created.
We have also to question the Government about the peculiar position into which they have got themselves. Although they oppose amendment No. 1, they will support an amendment tabled subsequently in the other place proposing to retain hereditary peers with powers.
The First Deputy Chairman:
Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he must not speak to subsequent amendments. We must dispose of this group of amendments before dealing with the next one. There is no point in mentioning subsequent amendments now. He will be able to speak to them when we reach them.
Mr. Wells:
I should be very interested to know what your Clerk would advise you, Mr. Martin.
The First Deputy Chairman:
Order. No one advises the occupant of the Chair--who has made a decision and given a ruling.
Mr. Wells:
I assure you, Mr. Martin, that I have no doubt that you will always make very positive and proper decisions in the interests of all hon. Members.
The Government are in a peculiar position. In a subsequent amendment, they will be supporting hereditary peers with voting rights, whereas, in amendment No. 1, they will not support peers without voting rights. That seems to be illogical.
The First Deputy Chairman:
Order. We are considering amendment No. 1 and the amendments grouped with it. We shall consider the next group of amendments when we reach it. Let us speak to this group of amendments before proceeding to the next one.
Mr. Wells:
I believe that, if we pass amendment No. 1, we may not have to worry about the next group of amendments. If we pass the amendment, the Clerk may say to you, "The next amendment falls." We could therefore move on even more swiftly--which I know would very much please your heart, Mr. Martin, and the hearts of the Government Whips.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
Perhaps I might help my hon. Friend by saying that, if the Government had the good sense to accept amendment No. 1, we might well decide not to move the next group of amendments.
Mr. Wells:
That might be a very sensible course of action. If we passed the amendment, we would have a new House of Lords in which we retained all the peers and would not have to choose from among them. They would not have to elect from among themselves, and we would not have to have the peculiarly distorted electoral process described in the next group of amendments, which we shall debate at length.
If we passed amendment No. 1, we would create a House of Lords that is credible and contains all the talents. I should say that I wonder why the hereditary peers give so much time to the work of the House of Lords. They deserve our respect and great gratitude for doing the very hard that work they do.
If we passed amendment No. 1--even if the new second Chamber were temporary for much longer than any of us suspect that it will be--we would have a second Chamber of which the United Kingdom could be proud and that would fulfil a very useful function in our overall parliamentary process.
I therefore commend amendment No. 1 to the Committee.
I am grateful to you, Mr. Martin, for your forbearance in allowing me to try to apply some pertinent points in the argument that we should have hereditary peers--unable to vote, but sitting in the other place.
Mr. Tyrie:
I shall be brief. [Hon. Members: "Shame."] I can only assume that that is a reference to one or two other occasions--which hon. Members liked--when I spoke in the House.
The amendment expresses not a new idea but an idea that has been around for a very long time. It was first expressed as a serious proposal, in draft legislative form, by a Labour Government, in 1968. Richard Crossman proposed it. Labour quite happily signed up to the idea then--and it did so after a process of all-party consultation. If there is one salient and appalling aspect of the way in which the current Government have gone about their business in introducing the Bill, it is that there has been no all-party consultation.
On all previous occasions when fundamental reformof the House of Lords has been proposed by a Government--in 1910, 1948 and 1968--there has been prior all-party consultation. There has not been such consultation this time--not a scrap of it; nothing at all. The Government have simply introduced the Bill and told us to vote for it. Today, we have the opportunity at least for a little debate and to point out that Labour itself once supported--even introduced--the proposals made in the group of amendments before us.
After all-party consultation, the proposals were agreed by Conservative Members. Lord Carrington agreed to them. Consequently, they might easily have found their way on to the statute book. Having said all that, however, I cannot say that I am terribly attracted to the idea.
Mr. Wells:
I wonder whether my hon. Friend will reflect on the reasons why that Bill was not passed? It was, after all, Mr. Foot and Enoch Powell who opposed it.
The First Deputy Chairman:
Order. The hon. Gentleman should know better. We are going far too wide of the matters dealt with in amendment No. 1.
Mr. Tyrie:
One of the reasons why it was not passed--
The First Deputy Chairman:
Order. I have made the point. The hon. Gentleman should speak to the amendment. The history of previous Bills is nothing to do with what we are considering now.
Mr. Tyrie:
If you will be forbearing for just a moment, Mr. Martin, I promise you that--probably even by the end of the sentence that I was beginning--I shall be able to show that I am speaking exclusively to the amendment.
One of the main reasons why the earlier Bill was not passed is that the proposals in it were very complicated and would have been difficult to administer. A crucial and difficult aspect of the administration of that Bill was the decision to have people sitting alongside one another some of whom would have been able to vote and some of whom would not.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
Does my hon. Friend accept that there is a significant difference between this Bill and the earlier Bill--which was to be a once-and-for-all reform? The situation created by the earlier Bill would have persisted for many years, whereas our proposals deal only with an interim stage.
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