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Mr. Tyrie: My hon. Friend anticipates remarks that I shall make in a few moments. Be not afeard! Tonight, I shall not be a rebel: I shall be back on-side by the time the Division bell goes.
In 1956, a study of the idea was made by an official working party, including Clerks of the House, which has become available under the 30-year rule. On the proposal that is dealt with in amendment No. 1, which was supported by the Labour party in 1968, the report concluded:
"A second Chamber which contained a large number of peers who were impotent but not speechless would be regarded by many as ludicrous and unrealistic."
15 Feb 1999 : Column 666
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The working party also said that such an arrangement would be wholly impractical, making the composition and voting structure of the Committee structure of the House of Lords very complicated and almost impossible to run.
Mr. Greg Pope (Hyndburn): The poll tax?
Mr. Tyrie: The hon. Gentleman mentions the poll tax--
The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the poll tax, and I have told him to be quiet.
Mr. Tyrie: I am doing my best. You will recall, Mr. Martin, that the last time I was called to order, I completed my sentence to arrive absolutely within order in seconds.
Mr. Forth: My hon. Friend has pointed out that the report referred to the impracticality of the proposal in the amendment. Does he agree that there is a certain attractiveness in that? If stage 1 were demonstrated to be impractical, would that not hasten the need to move to stage 2?
Mr. Tyrie: I am reluctant to give way any more because everyone seems to want to make the few points that I have left for me, which is very distressing. I will do my best to make the points in my own way, and then I will sit down quickly.
We are faced with a Bill that will leave the House of Lords not even halfway workable. It will be a joke of a House of Lords--nothing more than a farce. It will be something for which the public will show no respect and which will command no general consent. That is why anyone with any sense should support the amendment, which would at least provide an element of continuity between where we are now and stage 1. It would enable a few people who know what they are doing to carry on articulating their views and demonstrating the independence that is an essential part of a second Chamber.
It is possible that the amendment would have no effect, and that the House of Lords would look just as bad with or without hereditary peers having speaking rights--I do not know--but I am sure that it would not make it look worse. I am therefore moved to support the amendment. I am particularly aware of the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), because the retention of those peers with speaking, if not voting, rights will increase the pressure on the Government to introduce stage 2 reform. I have always wanted stage 2 reform and believed that we should go straight to it. I have never wanted stage 1. It is essential that we have a second Chamber that works effectively.
It is possible that the proposal will flag up even more saliently the absurdity of the interim House. We have heard tonight that the interim House will be a dog's
breakfast or a pig's ear. No language is too strong to describe the disgraceful constitutional gerrymandering that the Government are embarked on. At best, the amendment assuages a tiny bit the damaging impact of that; at worst. it can do no damage. I therefore commend it to the Committee.
Mr. Grieve:
One of the features to emerge from the debate--it came as a surprise to me--was the way in which a number of the Government's supporters suggested that the main thrust of the amendments was in some way to prolong into a future Parliament the role of the hereditary peerage. My support for the amendment comes precisely from the desire to see stage 2 implemented--exactly like my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie).
I said on Second Reading--I stand by it--that I was unwilling to embark on stage 1 without stage 2. Since the Government have freed the logjam and made that decision for me, I want to move rapidly to a stage 2 that will lead to a radical transformation of the relationship between the two Houses and, above all, of the way in which the upper House operates and is selected. I am increasingly coming to the view that the only way in which that can be done--and the only way in which we can be sure that Governments are brought to account and that there is proper public scrutiny of business--is with an elected second Chamber.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell) said that he accepted the Government's assurance that they would try to move to the next stage by 2001. In fact, if one looks at the Government's comments on Second Reading as concerning the length of the interim--
The First Deputy Chairman:
Order. The hon. Gentleman must concentrate on the amendments, and not on Second Reading or on stage 2. He cannot speak at length on those matters.
Mr. Grieve:
I will do my very best, but I hope that some forbearance will be exercised towards the development of arguments on what I think are relevant points--points centring on the amendments--from Members who may come late to the debate but who have sat through everything, as opposed to the latitude that seemed to be allowed to those who participated earlier.
If we allow hereditary peers to remain as participating, but not voting, Members of the interim Chamber, it will provide a powerful mechanism to ensure that the quality that they have contributed in the past--which Labour Members have acknowledged--is maintained. However, they will not be interfering with the basic premise repeated so often on Second Reading--that the fact that they are there by right of heredity is wrong; that the Government have a mandate to bring about change; and that the Government wish to see an upper House that is more balanced in terms of the proportions of the parties.
None of those matters is interfered with in any way by amendment No. 1, which is targeted at continuing participation by hereditary peers in debate, but not in votes. On 1 February, the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) said:
The First Deputy Chairman:
Order. Once again the hon. Gentleman is going wide of the amendments. I am bound by the rules of the House, and I cannot allow him to do that. It is not good if the Chair keeps intervening, but I must do so if the hon. Gentleman goes wide of the amendments. We cannot have a rerun of the Second Reading debate.
Mr. Grieve:
I apologise, but I am referring to the significance of the amendment in terms of the problem pointed to by the Minister of State. There is no consensus. There is no consensus of any kind among Labour Members. What powerful mechanism can therefore be introduced by the amendment to ensure that the Government are shamed into hastening stage 2? I believe that the hereditary peers' continued participation in the upper House will be that powerful mechanism. They will not have a vested interest in voting, but they are the one group with a permanent and vested interest in seeing that the Government honour their commitments on both stage 1 and stage 2 of reform.
I have no faith in the Government's promise; not because I think that the Minister of State tried to deceive the House on Second Reading--or, for that matter, that the Leader of the House has tried to do so--but because of the difficulty of achieving consensus, and therefore of not moving to the second stage.
Amendment No. 23 deals with the question of leaving to the hereditary peers a residual voting right over the extension of the life of the Parliament. The issue goes to the heart of a major flaw in the Bill, to which we shall return on the next group of amendments. No adequate answer was provided by Ministers on Second Reading. I hope that the matter will be fully discussed in Committee. My understanding of a Parliament is that it subsists for a set period. It is started by the issue of a writ of election, followed by the writ of summons to individual peers to attend. We are one body in terms of the constitution and make-up of this House and of the other House. I am the first to accept that we have the power to change that make-up for the future, but I should be interested to know the constitutional basis on which the House can lop off a limb--a part of itself--during the currency of the Parliament.
7.45 pm
"The White Paper made it clear that if we can get a consensus and if the commission meets the timetable, we shall make every effort to ensure that the second stage of reform is approved by Parliament by the next general election."--[Official Report, 1 February 1999; Vol. 324, c. 696.]
That is hardly in accordance with the Government saying the year 2001--and, indeed, as a nebulous promise it takes some beating. At the end of that debate, the Minister said that only by consensus could the Government move forward.
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