House of Commons Hansard Debates for 3 Mar 1999 (pt 38)

Mr. Grieve: The hon. Gentleman has got the wrong end of the stick. The Canadian Senate is a purely appointed body. It has come in for a great deal of criticism because it is toothless as a result.

Mr. Hurst: If that is so, the intention of those whoset up the Canadian Senate was not successfully implemented. All upper Houses throughout history in every part of the world have been set up, or allowed to remain, to slow down or thwart the will of democracy. It does not surprise me that one has to adapt to modern times.

Another amendment suggests that we should study the New Zealand Parliament and the abolition of its upper House in 1950. I hope that other hon. Members agree that until New Zealand was foolish enough to change its voting system to something quite grotesque, it was, with a single Chamber, one of the most successful, enlightened and progressive democracies in the world. We claim to

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have founded the welfare state, but New Zealand was ahead of us in many particulars. I would welcome a study of the New Zealand system following the abolition of the second Chamber, but that is no reason to delay putting the Bill into effect.

I do not propose to filibuster. I believe that that is primarily an American device, not so known to our constitution. We need to be clear soon about where we are going. Delaying putting the Bill into operation will not achieve that. I do not doubt the sincerity of the Conservatives' belief in democracy for an upper House, as was true of their forebears in 1911, but I doubt how quickly their proposals would go forward. Those in 1910 and 1911 were sincere in their commitment to democracy, but it took two general elections and the threat of the creation of 500 new peers to ensure substantial progress. Very little progress has been made since then. We need to begin the process by passing the Bill into law as soon as we can. Thereafter, consideration of what should replace the House of Lords--if anything--can take its course.

7.15 pm

Mr. Leigh: In a night of several long speeches, hon. Members will be relieved to hear that I intend to make a short speech. I should like to put a different perspective on what we have heard.

The Weatherill solution could well prove permanent and I support it. I realise that I am at variance with many hon. Members in that. The system that will emerge will be an orphan, because neither political party is prepared to claim credit for it. The Labour party will not claim credit for the Weatherill solution for the simple reason that it preserves the hereditaries, albeit fewer of them. The Conservative party will not claim credit for the Weatherill solution because it cuts the number of hereditary peers to 91. I believe that it is a good British compromise. It is entirely within our traditions and should be supported by hon. Members on both sides as a fair solution.

It is not good for the House of Lords to have a permanent, inbuilt Conservative majority. That often results in the House failing to oppose bad legislation. The preservation of a limited number of hereditaries in the Weatherill solution is no bad thing, because it provides for the continuance of an independent element. Regardless of whether one supports it in principle, it will probably last because any other solution has so many enemies ranged against it on the old Foot-Powell axis that, as the Government have rightly determined, it would be bound to fall foul of the House of Commons. If the House of Lords was entirely elected, it would be a pale imitation of the House of Commons and would be controlled by the Whips, as this place is. If it was partially elected and partially appointed, the appointees would be there for life and would be independent of the Whips, but would lack the democratic legitimacy of the elected members and would be able to do what they liked. All the possible solutions are logical in their way, but any other will be rejected. The interim solution is justifiable.

Those who support the Weatherill interim solution should have the courage to say so. That is why I support the amendments. The Government are entitled to abolish the hereditary peers because they put the measure in their manifesto and were elected. However, it is wrong for them to abolish the hereditaries without revealing their

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long-term ambitions. We all know that they have done that because otherwise it would be impossible to gain any consensus; we all understand that. Surely by the time of the next election the long-term solution should be clear to the British people, be it the Weatherill solution, a partially elected Chamber or a fully elected Chamber. Surely that is all that my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) is asking for.

I am sure that Labour Members do not like the amendments. Why should they? They have been drafted by Conservatives and could result in the hereditaries being re-created in all their splendour--although it is inconceivable that that would happen. I should like to repeat a point that was made earlier in a non-partisan spirit. We know that the Government are not going to accept the amendments, but there is a serious intent behind them. I accept that the Government are well intentioned and that the Minister is a genuine radical, not just a cynic like me. He does not accept my arguments about the Weatherill solution lasting for ever. I accept that he wants a non-Weatherill, non-hereditary solution. He wants to do something.

I merely plead with the Minister to make it clear to the British people when he decides the final shape of the Bill--or when it becomes an Act--that the matter will be finally determined in this Parliament. If he does that, when people vote in the next general election--or, hopefully, before that--the new constitutional set-up will be clear. That is all I ask.

Mr. Grieve: I intend to be brief, because I have already raised some of the matters that I would have raised in my speech in interventions.

I simply do not understand the suggestion by Labour Members that the amendments were designed to thwart the Government's entirely legitimate aim of getting rid of hereditary peers, which is their stage 1 ambition. They do no such thing. They enable the Government to achieve their aim: indeed, the point has been entirely and properly conceded by the mere fact of the Bill's having been given a Second Reading.

I might add that it is true to the Conservative tradition that, having been reluctant to consider alterations to the form of the Upper House--because we have found it difficult to see how they could be implemented--we should be the most desirous of radical changes in the way in which the second Chamber operates, now that the logjam has been shifted and the principle of change has been established. I certainly am. I have tried to adopt a consistent approach to the Bill, and I intend to continue to do so.

I think it was the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) who told us that we should be in no doubt about the Government's willingness to proceed to stage 2. There it was, in black and white, in the White Paper; it could be accepted without any difficulty. The history of the past 12 months, however, suggests that the Government have experienced appalling difficulties in wrestling with stage 2. I do not wish to be cynical about the Government's difficulties, because I think that they are genuine; but we have had to extract bit by bit even the concessions that made the completion of stage 1 possible. Without that, there would have been no royal commission a year ago. Certainly there was no talk of it, and there was no real suggestion that

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