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Sir Patrick Cormack: Will my hon. Friend give way?
This House has a monopoly of democratic authority. If we gave any elected authority to the second Chamber, we would have to share it.
The most important vested interest is the Executive. The Government have a huge vested interest in ensuring that no impediments are put in the way of pushing through legislation. That has been true of all Executives. I am not making an assault on this Government. It has been the case since the 1911 reform.
The power of vested interests on this issue is huge. We are talking about a large number of Members of Parliament, the Executive, life peers and hereditary peers. If we are to secure democratic reform, we must take the issue away from the vested interests and give it to the electorate to decide.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
I am sorry to take my hon. Friend back, but he made a categorical statement about Lord Cranborne. I do not know whether he is right, but is he sure that he knows precisely what took place in a private alleged conversation between Lord Cranborne and the Prime Minister?
Mr. Tyrie:
It is rather tedious to go through all this, but I have a transcript of Lord Cranborne's interview on "Breakfast with Frost". Since my hon. Friend has raised the issue, I suppose that I shall have to read it out. He said:
This is our first debate on an issue that we should have debated two years ago--whether we want an upper House that is largely or wholly directly elected or one that is indirectly elected or wholly appointed. I have tried to answer that in various pieces that I have written over the past two years. It is worth going through some of the arguments briefly. Many of them have been mentioned today.
We need to be clear about whether we want a second Chamber. There are many unicameralists in the House, but most of them are not here today and their voice has scarcely been heard in the debate. I respect their views, but I find the arguments for bicameralism compelling. The Executive have become more powerful in recent decades. Many factors have contributed to that. The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), who is no longer present, alluded to some of them, including the growth of the payroll vote, the professionalisation of Commons politics, the increase in the power of the Whips, the decline of the independent Back Bencher and the Executive's almost complete control over the Standing Orders of the House.
Our scrutiny of legislation is inadequate. After two years here, I am appalled by how shoddy legislation gets on to the statute book. I do not want to suggest that that has arisen only in the past two years. We also rely too much on the self-restraint of the Executive to protect our freedoms. A second Chamber can help to improve scrutiny and can act as a constitutional long stop.
Unicameralists may ask, "Why do we need the Lords to do those jobs? Why not reform the Commons?" That is a strong theoretical argument, but I do not think that such reforms will see the light of day. It is just possible that the Executive may be persuaded to support some improvement in the effectiveness of the Lords, but it is inconceivable that they will allow themselves to be restrained by radical reform of the Commons. Myright hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) made a similar point, and I agree with him.
Mr. Letwin:
Does my hon. Friend agree that there are grounds for a little more optimism than he is expressing in that, as an Opposition, we now have an opportunity to bind ourselves to reforms of this place which, when in government, we would be forced to implement?
Mr. Tyrie:
That is a welcome suggestion, and I will now give greater thought to how the House of Commons might be reformed so that I can add to that debate.
As things stand, a second Chamber that works is the only way to tackle the problem of an over-mighty Executive.
Before moving on to consider election, we have to ask ourselves whether an interim House such as that being created by the first Bill or a largely appointed House--or something very similar--could do the job of scrutiny. I do not believe so. I believe that stage 1 reform will leave the lower House controlled by the Executive and the upper House effectively appointed by them. Abolishing the hereditaries achieves very little. It merely ensures that ancient patronage is replaced by modern patronage. What quality of scrutiny could we hope to obtain from that?
When it is created, it will be a Chamber of virtually no legitimacy. It will be no more than an interim rump, effectively on death row. If there is any trouble, the Government will be able to threaten to press the stage 2 button and eject as many as they want from the remainder of the Chamber.
I do not believe that tweaking a few dials such as creating an appointments committee, can create a modern appointed Chamber that will command widespread public respect. Without that public respect, no second Chamber would be able to exercise its powers. That is the central flaw in the argument of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk. He said that he wanted an increase in powers, but he did not want any increase in the moral authority of the Chamber in exercising them. He argued for some indirect election and some appointment. That would carry no more moral authority than we have now--in fact, it may carry less. By virtue merely of longevity, the existing House has come to serve some sort of constitutional role, although not a wholly adequate one. Once that has been removed--or even if there is only a moderate reform--what is left will have no moral authority.
The plain fact is that we live in a democratic ageand only democracy can supply legitimacy. In the 21st century, parliamentary legitimacy must come largely from the ballot box. The public will find it increasingly unacceptable that parliamentarians should be created by a committee and given the power to legislate over them. Such a committee would amount to little more than a self-perpetuating oligarchy of the great and the good.
Sometimes I catch myself wondering why making that case should sound so radical. When I first raised this subject 18 months ago--shortly after I published my first article in The Times in favour of an elected House--an elderly colleague prodded me in the shoulder and said, "You're a republican." I can assure the House that I am not a republican and that I believe that it is entirely reasonable to envisage two parliamentary Chambers--directly elected or largely directly elected--while retaining the monarchy in its present form.
I believe that, only a few years ago, the vast majority of Labour party members, certainly those on the Front Bench, would have agreed that there should be more direct democracy in the House of Lords. Two years of being the Executive seems to have spawned a few doubts. After the election, there were still a few nods in the direction of democracy, but most of those have disappeared from Labour rhetoric.
I want to be slightly partisan in taking issue strongly with the Labour party's submission on reform of the House of Lords. It tells its own story. It is a profoundly anti-democratic document. It is replete with boxes of Labour party members' views--56 views are listed. I cannot find one Labour party member who is in favour of democracy--not one. On reading the boxes, one would believe that no one in Labour's grass roots believes in election. The press release that accompanied the document states:
I find it appalling that the Labour party should produce a document suggesting that, if any Conservative such as myself stands here arguing for election--most of us have done it today--we should be accused of naked opportunism.
To read the Labour party document, one would believe that democracy was no way to achieve representation of the people. It calls for a "fully representative" Chamber of different interests and says that, above all, the House of Lords
Mr. Forth:
I wonder whether my hon. Friend is flattered that the Labour party should assume that Conservatives should be opportunistic in arguing for
Mr. Tyrie:
My right hon. Friend makes his point very well. I do not believe that two years, or even five or eight years, ago we would have seen a document such as this from the Labour party. It is deeply regrettable.
"Very kindly, the Government made it clear that . . . I could stay on if I wanted to as a life peer and I think it would be a bit churlish to turn that down--that general offer--particularly when there was a memorandum in the attached Bill making it clear they wanted to get rid of me. It is nice that they have changed their mind on that, too."
I think that that is a fairly clear answer to my hon. Friend.
"any proposals . . . for an elected second Chamber"--
that is proposals from the Conservative party--are
"naked opportunism masquerading as argument."
"should be representative of the people as a whole."
That representation should be achieved not by election but by appointment. It is an outrageous abuse of language to talk about a representative Chamber that is wholly undemocratic. It is quite absurd.
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