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7.58 pm
Mr. Mark Fisher (Stoke-on-Trent, Central): Like many people, I welcome the Bill--democrats have been dreaming of it and waiting for it for a century. It a great credit to the Government that they have broken a parliamentary taboo by introducing the Bill. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have enumerated the attempts made by other Governments which have failed, rather weakly and feebly. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, the Government are doing something momentous in this Bill: we are rethinking Parliament, rebalancing the two Houses and rebuilding our political constitution. That effort goes to the heart of why we are Members of Parliament--what we do and what we want to do in this place.
As Members on both sides of the House have said, the Bill is only a start. It destroys one aspect of the second Chamber that is undemocratic--the hereditary principle--but does not touch the other aspect of the second Chamber that many of us find totally unacceptable, which is that it is a nominated Chamber. The right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) and the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell) emphasised that nominated aspect. The right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the rotten boroughs as being a different source of nomination, but--
Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green):
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I rise to seek your advice about a written answer that I received from the Chancellor today. I asked him on 10 March whether he had received, had knowledge of or discussed a Select Committee report on the taxing of child benefit--either a draft or the eventual report--prior to its publication. In answer, the Chancellor said:
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. It is impossible for me to deal with a point of order if I cannot hear it.
Mr. Duncan Smith:
Mr. Deputy Speaker, given the huge import of that written answer--which displays the Government's total disregard of the House and of the public whom these processes serve--will you now adjourn the House in order to allow the Chancellor time to come to the Chamber and make a statement about exactly what he had to do with the leaking of that report?
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
That information is sufficient to allow me to deal with that point of order. Select Committees have procedures laid down for investigating such matters and, if things are as the hon. Gentleman says, the Committee concerned will undoubtedly follow the
Sir Brian Mawhinney (North-West Cambridgeshire):
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
I have dealt with the point of order. We shall now continue with the important debate before the House. I call Mr. Fisher.
Mr. Fisher:
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Sir Brian Mawhinney:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Is it a separate point of order?
Sir Brian Mawhinney:
It is a separate, but related, point of order.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
I have dealt with the matter for this evening. I call Mr. Fisher.
Mr. Fisher:
I shall resume my separate, but related, speech. Here was I thinking that members of the shadow Cabinet could not wait to hear my views on the constitution.
Angela Smith:
Has my hon. Friend noticed that, further to that point of order--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I have dealt with the point of order for hon. Members on both sides of the House.
Mr. Fisher:
As I was saying, I think all hon. Members hope that the Bill will mark the beginning of the process that takes us towards a full and modern democracy. That process has two parts: the transitional House, to which the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) referred; and the royal commission. We must also consider how the two parts relate to each other.
The Leader of the House talked today about the transitional House. I agree with the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) that the transitional House will be better for several reasons--some of which he identified--not least because it will be a smaller House. The second Chamber has swollen to nearly 1,200 Members in the past 50 years. That does not make it an effective Chamber and, at the very least, this legislation--pace the Weatherill amendment--will reduce its size by more than half, to 503 Members.
I believe that the transitional House will be a better Chamber. However, for those hon. Members who, like me, want to see an elected second Chamber, it will remain totally unsatisfactory. I hope that, in responding to the debate, the Minister will elaborate slightly on the remarks of the Leader of the House about the transitional House and make it clear that the Government would share a general democratic unhappiness if the second Chamber--which is a transitional and interim Chamber--were to be permanent.
The Leader of the House mentioned the virtues of life peers, their independence on the Cross Benches, their diversity and the expertise and excellence that they bring to the second Chamber--all of which is indisputable. However, the fact remains that they are not accountable to or representative of anybody and, in that sense, they cannot play a permanent and constructive role in our democracy--however expert they are and however great a contribution they make.
Dr. Fox:
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the logic of that point means that it would be unacceptable for any political party to go to the next general election without a clearly defined policy on what stage 2 should be if we have not already achieved it at that point?
Mr. Fisher:
I am sure that that will be the case. The royal commission will report at the end of the year and we will then begin a major debate. I hope that the House--perhaps the Minister will help us when he responds to the debate--will understand the role of the royal commission and its relationship to the Government's responsibilities. It seems to me that it is the responsibility of the Government--and subsequently of the House--to decide the principles upon which both the remit and the membership of the second Chamber will be based. It is not for the royal commission--a group of people--to consider fundamental constitutional issues. The royal commission should act as a gathering house for all views and should comment intelligently on the nuances of different approaches, their implications and what their implementation would mean.
We are dealing with a huge constitutional change that we have not addressed in this Chamber this century. The Government must lay down the principles. It is for the royal commission to do the decorative work and for the Government to establish the political principles. Although we do not expect the Government to make those principles clear tonight, I hope that the Minister will agree that there is a distinction between the Government's responsibilities and the opportunities that are open to the royal commission. There is a rather important distinction between those two things, and I hope that the Minister will express his views about it tonight.
I believe that this is a good Bill in that it destroys something that is no longer acceptable or relevant in our democracy: the hereditary principle. However, as other hon. Members have said, it is essentially a destructive Bill: it destroys something that is unacceptable but replaces it only with a vacuum or by implication. That is acceptable only in a transitional and interim sense.
Mr. Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks):
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher). If I may say so, I should have thought that he was an example of an hereditary politician whose family did not have an in-built majority, because they have been represented on both sides of the House.
The House has today received reports of the institutionalised shortcomings, at the very least, of one wholly appointed body nominated by politicians and heard much talk of the need for more democracy and accountability and an independent element in the European Commission. I find it ironic that, on the very same day, we shall create one half of a Parliament that will be wholly appointed and consist only of a Prime Minister's placemen and nominees. The Bill will turn the second Chamber into a quango or commission.
The Bill is short, but extremely dangerous. It will expel 40 per cent. of the membership of the Houses of Parliament without proposing how a future Chamber might be reformed or committing the Government to carrying through that reform. Hon. Members who have already spoken have referred to that proposal as the stage 1 House, the temporary House or the transitional House, but the only circumstances in which we might have been prepared to consider a Bill that set up a temporary House would have been those in which there was at least a commitment to the legislation that would follow.
The Government do not even do us the courtesy of including in the Bill a preamble that would set out that commitment. Previous Bills did. The ill-fated Parliament (No. 2) Bill in 1968 had a preamble and the Parliament Act 1911 had the now-famous preamble that has so often been quoted in our debates. When the Minister winds up, will he tell us--this point was raised about the Government of India legislation in the 1930s--whether the fact that the Bill has no preamble means that the Government regard the preamble to the 1911 Act as still valid? Is that why the Bill has no preamble?
There is no commitment in clause 4, where it could be enshrined, which deals with the commencement and transitional provisions. All we have to rely on is the curious sentence in the White Paper that states:
"A preliminary draft of a report was given to my Parliamentary Private Secretary, but not the final report."
That is surely a further abuse of the processes of this House.
"If there is consensus, the Government will make every effort to ensure that the second stage of reform has been approved by Parliament before the next election."
First, those are vague, heavily qualified words. No Minister has explained what consensus would be required before that commitment was deemed to be met. Secondly, the words commit the Government only to best endeavours; they make no firm commitment to introduce proposals. Thirdly, there is no commitment in that sentence to legislation. All it suggests is that the Government's proposals should be approved by Parliament. That could simply be a White Paper debate.
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