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Mrs. Beckett: I have never ever said that the Cross Benchers were not independent.
Mr. Andrew Tyrie (Chichester): Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Beckett: I shall deal with this point first, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.
I was careful to say that that is how they have always been described. I have sat through most of the debates and I have endeavoured to read each contribution that I have not sat through, but I cannot say, hand on heart, that no hon. Member has ever cast doubt on the independence of any Cross Bencher. It is within recent memory that some have crossed from the Tory Benches to the Cross Benches. I have never impugned the independence of the Cross Benchers and the White Paper specifically describes them as such and says that that independent element, should, in the Government's view, be preserved.
Mr. Tyrie:
The right hon. Lady has covered herself a little with those remarks, but in a speech in the House a few weeks ago, the Home Secretary made it clear that he believes that the Cross Benchers are not really independent. I shall gladly provide the right hon. Lady with the reference in due course.
Mrs. Beckett:
There is no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is prone to teasing Conservative Members, usually quite successfully. However, the Government's view of Cross Benchers and the life peers' potential for independence is clear from the White Paper.
On Second Reading, I suggested that proper debate about what a second Chamber should do and, in consequence, be, had always been bedevilled and diverted by the voices and the potential votes of the hereditary peers. In past debates, those who oppose reform have always thrown their weight against any individual reform. They have joined those who wanted an elected House against a mixed House. They have joined those who feared for the effect on the House of Commons of elections to a Second Chamber to defeat an elected House. All the time, their agenda--sometimes their hidden agenda--has simply been to maintain the hereditary peers.
Just as it is true that the debate has always been bedevilled by the issue of the hereditary peerage, and hijacked by opponents of any change, it is equally true that it has always been bedevilled by the interests of the Conservative party, which has, I fear, always seen its interests as being at best identical to, or, if needs be, more important than, the interests of the country.
It may be that, out of the discussions in the House of Lords, out of the work of the Royal Commission and the study of the Joint Committee, will come a broad consensus of view on the best way forward. That would not only be a good thing in itself; it could mean fairly speedy progress towards longer-term reform and a new Second Chamber, even in this Parliament. That may happen. It may be that the Conservative party will see the value of reform. I hope so. We shall see.
However, what I have never doubted, and what the debates have overwhelmingly confirmed, is that even stage 1 of reform will be better than what we have today. We will have the emergence of a House of Lords, all of whose Members have earned their place on the basis of their contribution to our public life. I say that without discredit to those who, whatever the service they have tried to give, owe their place to the contribution of their forebears.
One of the unfortunate features of the debate--I hear mild echoes of it from the Opposition Benches now--was the way in which some Conservative Members slid
towards attacking life peers, making the point that a mere 500 of them were insufficient to carry out the business of a House of Parliament. Most insulting of all, they claimed that only hereditary peers could be truly independent.
When hereditary peers go, distinguished scientists, doctors, business people, retired soldiers, public servants, even some farmers, will still sit in the House of Lords, but all will be sitting there because of their distinction. Many life peers are distinguished former Members of this House, yet some Conservative Members have repeatedly suggested that this eminent group of men and women are quite incapable of managing without the hereditary peers.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
Conservative Members have never suggested any such thing. We have said that half those who regularly attend the other place are hereditary peers. The figures have been produced time and again, and to that particular charge there has been no effective answer.
Mrs. Beckett:
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, it has repeatedly been said--as I say, not only have I sat through the debates, but I have read them--particularly by Conservative Back Benchers, that, in some way, the life peers will be insufficient to cope in the House of Lords without the hereditary peers. It is, of course, true that many of those who attend today are hereditary peers; it is equally true that large numbers of life peers attend. As has been pointed out by hon. Members, including Conservative Members, there are quite enough among the life peers to sustain the work of a Second Chamber.
In these days of debate, we have seen a range of contradictions, but as I looked back over them, I was suddenly struck by one curious, perhaps significant, omission. It has been a constant feature of detective fiction, from Conan Doyle onwards, that so often what is not said is as significant or more significant than what is--the dog that does not bark. The Conservative party has aired its purported fears about what the Government intend and their real attitude, but what about their own attitude to the transitional House? That is the dog that has not barked in this debate.
Mr. Tyrie:
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Beckett:
No, not for a moment.
All the attention has been given to whether, or how fast, the Government might move on to stage 2. Where do the Opposition stand? Much of the thrust of their amendments and their speeches in support of them have been to protest that nothing should be done to the existing House of Lords without a wide-ranging and fundamental overall review of our constitution.
The hon. Member for Woodspring, in his opening speech on Second Reading, said:
Mrs. Beckett:
I disagree with the fact that it is impossible to contemplate removing the hereditary peerage from the House of Lords without contemplating all those major constitutional questions. That clearly was the hon. Gentleman's contention at that point.
I should like the hon. Member for Woodspring, who leads for the Opposition on these matters, to address two questions on behalf of his party. First, although I recognise that only a couple of his hon. Friends have touched on this issue in passing, will he say whether the Conservative party would recreate today's House of Lords if it won the next election? If not even the Conservative party would recreate a House of Lords with 750 people entitled to a place in it by virtue of their birth, what are its intentions towards the transitional House?
Secondly, when I introduced the Bill on Second Reading, I quoted from our manifesto, making it crystal clear that we do not intend to
Mr. Mike Hancock (Portsmouth, South):
The right hon. Lady is asking the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) to deal with certain issues in his speech. Before she reaches the end of her speech, I should be grateful if she answered a question in respect of the timing and the length of stage 1, which has preoccupied so many of our colleagues on the Tory Benches during the six days of debate. Is she now able to give the House and the country a better steer on what the Government anticipate will be the length of stage 1? She asks Conservative Front Benchers to come clean, and I support her in that, but the nation would like some steer from the Government about how long they expect the transitional period to take, even if they do not receive support from the official Opposition on that.
Mrs. Beckett:
I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman's question--I do not think that anyone can, at the moment--because we are at too early a stage. I shall give him two reasons why. First, the royal commission has begun its work. When it gets into that work, and when we see the reaction to the consultation that it is undertaking, we may have a clearer idea of whether consensus is possible or whether views are so divided that it will be difficult to come to common ground.
"we shall have to decide not only what we want Parliament to do, but Parliament's relation to the Executive, to the judiciary and to Europe. Only after we have decided what we want Parliament to do should we divide the powers between the two Houses--assuming we believe in a bicameral system. Only then can we decide the membership and size of the two Chambers."--[Official Report, 1 February 1999; Vol. 324, c. 622.]
16 Mar 1999 : Column 937
A moment's thought serves to suggest that that undertaking would take not months, but probably a considerable number of years.
Dr. Liam Fox (Woodspring):
Can the right hon. Lady tell me which of my remarks she disagrees with?
"seek more than parity in numbers with the Conservative party in the transitional House, and that we do not believe that any party should seek a majority in the House of Lords."--[Official Report, 1 February 1999; Vol. 324, c. 615.]
I then challenged the Opposition to say the same. In all the six days of debate that have ensued, as far as I can see only one Opposition Member--the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), who does not always speak for his Front Bench--has said that it is not good for the Conservatives to have a permanent in-built majority, but no Conservative Front Bencher has felt able to give the assurance that I sought on the first day of our debates.
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