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Mr. Grieve: Why should those aspirations be frustrated if there is an elected second Chamber? For instance, it might be that, two years into the elected period of the Government--when their mandate is becoming a
little stale--fresh Members of the upper House may say not that they wish to thwart that mandate, but that they disagree with some aspects of it and wish to make the Government think again by exercising to the full their powers under the Parliament Acts. What is the matter with that?
Mr. Rammell: The hon. Gentleman underlines one of my key concerns: that elections to the other place would be conducted in mid term and people elected with a fresh mandate would argue, however small the proportion of elected Members, that their mandate was stronger than the Government's. We would be in danger of constant gridlock and the blocking of the legitimate mandate won by a Government in a general election.
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock): The important element of the elections is that they would be rotational. If a third retired at each fixed-term House of Lords election, every Member would have legitimacy to cause reflection, but there would not be a mandate to block completely the will of the House of Commons, whose view must ultimately prevail. There would never be the snapshot of time that gives us in the House of Commons a mandate. Members of the other place would never be able to claim supremacy, although each Member would have legitimacy.
Mr. Rammell: We would need to think through the detail. Even if only a third were elected at any one time, clearly there would be others in that House under thesame party label who would draw inspiration and encouragement from the electoral mandate that that third of the House got. I am not ruling out elections, perhaps for a proportion of Members, in all circumstances, but I am highlighting the fact that we need to think long and hard before automatically and instinctively responding to the inadequacies of the current make-up of the House of Lords by replacing it with an elected second Chamber. Before we knew where we were, we would have constitutional gridlock between the two Houses and the Government of the day, democratically elected with a significant mandate, would be unable to implement their programme beyond a period of two years.
Mr. Savidge: As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) said, if the legislation says that the other House can only delay and cannot create gridlock, there is a perfectly good reason why a Government, who no longer have the support of the country should be made to think again.
Mr. Rammell: As we all know, the power of delay can be extremely significant and can affect the rest of a Government's legislative programme.
We also need to consider what is the role of a second Chamber in relation to this Chamber. This is where we hold the Government to account and where we are the primary instigators of legislation. Conservative Members may say that that is not the situation at present, and perhaps that is one of the problems with the current constitutional set-up, but I do not think that the right response is necessarily direct elections.
The role of the second Chamber should be tightly circumscribed. It should be a constitutional long stop, checking abuse and asking this place to think again. I am not convinced that to carry out that role one must necessarily be elected. We do not have a political culture and system in which every form of public office in every nook and cranny of our constitution is elected. We do not elect the dog catcher and we do not elect the judiciary. We should pause for thought.
Where is the enthusiasm for elections among the electorate? Perhaps my experience of the current European parliamentary election campaign has been unique, but I do not detect massive enthusiasm in the electorate for voting in local or European elections. If we add a further set of elections for a reformed second Chamber, we may find that people lose interest more and more and the turnout becomes lower, which would not advance anybody's cause.
Mr. Tyrie:
I strongly agree that there is a risk of voter fatigue. Might not a way round that be to hold the elections at the same time as general elections?
Mr. Rammell:
That is one possible solution and it would certainly deal with the concern about elections taking place in mid term. I am not certain that the answer to the current inadequacies of the House of Lords is to move to a wholesale system of direct elections.
The concerns that I am voicing have been expressed consistently every time the House has considered these issues. The Brice conference in 1917-18, set up by Lloyd George, rejected the option of a directly elected second Chamber on the ground that such a Chamber would inevitably become a rival to the House of Commons. That same concern was expressed when the 1945-51 Labour Government considered the issues in 1948, and in 1968, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne was involved in the campaign, and people such as Michael Foot voiced their reservations from a very democratic perspective.
If the second Chamber is not to be wholly elected, what should its composition be? There are certainly strong arguments for reflecting the new constitutional settlement, with representatives from the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly, once it is established, and the English regions. Those people would be there to ensure that the overall constitutional settlement was taken into account.
There is also a strong case for Members of the European Parliament to be represented--[Interruption.] It is hardly surprising that that idea causes concern on the Conservative Benches. We should remember that 25 per cent. of our laws, and a much higher proportion of our business legislation, are derived from Europe, and we need to ensure that the interlocking between this place and the European Parliament, and our scrutiny of European legislation, take place on an informed basis. I do not think that anyone either in this House or the other place could say that that happens at the moment.
Mr. Grieve:
I am wondering whether we shall hear anything from the hon. Gentleman about functional constituencies, which have been touted by the hon. Members for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris) andfor Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright). Those would be
Mr. Rammell:
If that is done on a limited basis, I am not sure that, in view of the role that we are prescribing for the second Chamber, it would necessarily be a bad thing. There is at least a case to be made for a small element of representation from sectional interests, whether those be trade unionists, business people, doctors, teachers or whatever. We should explore the idea.
We also need to think long and hard about religious representation. Religious belief is part of the fabric of our society, and nobody suggests that the Church of England should be removed from the second Chamber. Britain today is a multi-ethnic, multicultural and multi-religious society, and it is important that, without the position of the Church of England being undermined, those views are represented in the second Chamber.
Inevitably, within the kind of set-up that I envisage, there will be a process of appointment. That is not necessarily wrong, so long as appointments are made openly and fairly. The move towards an independent appointments commission is important, as is the fact that the Prime Minister has voluntarily given up some powers of patronage.
We need to go further. If there are to be processes of appointment, political parties need to be far more open about how people can come forward and seek nomination for peerages or places in the second Chamber. We should advertise to tell people how to go about seeking a nomination; publicising the process will be important.
The view that nomination is wrong in all circumstances is not shared by most people, especially if the job is not to be primarily one of initiating legislation. That is not a role that we seek for the second Chamber. Despite the fact that this is one of the criticisms most frequently made, nomination does not necessarily mean domination by the Executive, especially as the Government, rightly, have said that no one political party will have a majority in the second Chamber.
No evidence has been produced to suggest that nominated peers, once established, are supine creatures who automatically do the will of their political parties. Let us take some examples of recently created life peers from both parties. No one could plausibly argue that the likes of Lord Hattersley, Lord Shore and Lord Tebbit are there as tame party poodles to carry out the will of the political parties that appointed them.
Under the current system of appointment, once people are appointed they are not accountable to the person or party that put them there--a view that the history of life peers in the House of Lords supports.
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