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Mr. Hogg: I very much agree with what my right hon. Friend says. With regard to Fridays, does he accept that private Members' Bills often diminish the rights of individuals to a marked extent? An obvious example was the attempt to prohibit foxhunting; another example is the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill. However, as a general rule, the House is not well attended on the occasions when those measures are discussed--albeit that their consequence is greatly to diminish individual liberty.

Mr. Forth: I share the view of my right hon. and learned Friend and I am grateful to him for making that point. Many private Members' Bills would limit considerably the powers of individuals, or would introduce a large degree of regulation. However, few Members of the House turn up voluntarily to participate in the debates on those measures.

I do not necessarily agree with those who say that the House is so wonderful that it must never be challenged. I am prepared to countenance an elected upper House with enormous powers and ability to challenge what happens in the House of Commons. As so many hon. Members have pointed out, the real difficulty and the sadness about the modern House of Commons is that it is so much in the total control of the Executive of the day. That cannot be changed in the foreseeable future, so we owe it to the electorate to provide them with the assurance that there will be a second Chamber that can effectively challenge the Executive and hold them to account, in a way that I regret that the House of Commons rarely, if ever, now demonstrates that it is capable of doing.

Those are my arguments and, in view of the time, I shall draw them to a close. To complete them, I join the few Members who have highlighted the judicial role currently played by the House of Lords. That role can be, and should be, swept aside, along with the reforms that we are considering. We should have a supreme court, modelled closely on the one that has played such a distinguished role in the development of the United States throughout almost its entire history. The US Supreme Court is one of the most fascinating political institutions of the past 200 years; its role has been dramatic and remarkable. We would do well to emulate that court. If, as I suggest, we establish a wholly elected, accountable second Chamber, we should sweep away the unnecessary representation of the Church and other interests--I should be happy if that were gone, and the sooner the better. I should also be happy to see the judicial role of the upper Chamber brought to an end and replaced by a supreme court, modelled closely on that of the United States and able to play a similar role.

I am glad that the proposals that I have briefly outlined are shared by many of my colleagues. I hope that they find increasing support from Labour Members.

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9.8 pm

Mr. Gareth Thomas (Clwyd, West): The debate has been genuinely interesting. It has helped me to formulate my views--albeit tentative ones--on a subject that raises difficult issues, especially when one deals with the vexed question whether the second Chamber should be elected or nominated. I had thought that I was reasonably knowledgeable on the subject, but, having heard the wide range of rather good-quality contributions, it is clear to me that I must bow to the greater specialist knowledge of several hon. Members.

I am a relatively new Member, having been elected in 1997. I represent a Welsh constituency and am committed to Welsh devolution. I am aware that there is a wide programme of constitutional reform and that reform of the second Chamber also has to embrace the reforms in that programme. I welcome the fact that a royal commission has been appointed and I expect it to produce a comprehensive and well-argued report.

The first of my conclusions is that there is a need for a second Chamber. I do not accept the rather intriguing argument employed by my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst). However, I do accept the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright). A second Chamber is a reflection of what is required in a particular country. In our jurisdiction, there is a strong Executive and a strong first Chamber--the elected Chamber. As a corrective to an over-mighty Executive, it is essential to have a second Chamber charged with the tasks of revising legislation and complementing the scrutiny role of the elected Chamber by bringing to bear specialised knowledge.

That is my starting point. Given the public demand for strong and accountable government exercised through the House of Commons, it is unrealistic to expect this Chamber to do all that is required to produce good-quality legislation. Unfortunately, there have been many examples of poor legislation, which, in themselves, provide ample justification for having a second, revising Chamber. I make no apologies for taking a somewhat minimalist view, for my second conclusion is that there is no strongly rooted case for revising the essential roles of the second Chamber. I disagree with the analysis of the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), who would like the role of the second Chamber to be greatly expanded.

I agree that there is an inherent problem in having an elected second Chamber that could contest the will of our elected Chamber, but my third conclusion is that there must be a strong independent element in any second Chamber. Although I was almost persuaded by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher), who offered an extremely good analysis of why, in the latter half of the 20th century, we must conclude that legitimacy is normally derived from the ballot box, I take the view that, to preserve the independence of the second Chamber and to ensure that it effectively fulfils its revising and scrutiny roles, it is necessary for it to consist of a wide range of people who reflect different experiences. I am sceptical that the conventional electoral system, which involves people working their way through conventional political parties, would produce the sort of people we want in the second Chamber.

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In addition, like my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Rammell), I am concerned that the increased number of elections for different levels of government has resulted in voter fatigue. If the second Chamber is to have a limited role, which I would support, turnout in elections for it might be drastically low, which would undermine its legitimacy. The best way to ensure that we have an independent second Chamber is to have an appointments commission that is seen to be dispassionate, independent and detached from the Executive. Like the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), I hope the Minister will tell us more about how the Government propose to give teeth to such a commission.

In Wales and Scotland, there has been debate about whether there should be territorial representation in the second Chamber. I support the view expressed many years ago in the Kilbrandon report that that would be undesirable. I am in favour of a broad spread of geographical representation, but not in any formalised way, because that might lead to confusion about the functions of the House of Lords--incidentally, I see no reason why its name should be changed.

A balance must be struck between, on the one hand, tradition and stability and, on the other, the need to create a second Chamber that is more representative and fulfils its role more effectively. Provided that we can deal with the overriding objection to the current system--that there is an in-built Conservative majority in the House of Lords--I would feel comfortable with a nominated House of Lords, so long as the system for nominations was truly detached and dispassionate and ensured good-quality, independent representation.

9.15 pm

Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield): I shall have to be brief and I have only myself to blame if I am called last. I must apologise to the House for having missed the opening speeches. The reason, I must confide to the House, is that I was attempting to maintain my independence by carrying out some of my professional duties instead of attending the House, although I had hopes that I might be able to get here slightly earlier than I did. Perhaps I am paying the penalty for that, although I was reassured to hear several Labour Members suggest that it was not necessarily a bad thing that I should have some independent interests.

I start from the premise that I am a great believer in parliamentary democracy. That does not mean that I am a believer in pure democracy, because only the ancient Athenians had pure democracy and they tended to chop off the heads of members of the Executive whom they had democratically mandated at the end of each term. Parliamentary democracy works especially well in this country and in the structure of this Chamber because there is a reasonable degree of consensus about and acceptance of the decisions that we take. However, there are many flaws in the way this Chamber operates. I do not want to go into them in this speech, which will deal mainly with the upper House, but the way we carry out our functions is in need of massive reform. That that is so does not alter the need for us to consider what goes on in the House of Lords.

We have been offered a package that goes only part of the way. I accept what is said about the hereditary peers being anachronistic, but they are an independent element.

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We are getting rid of that independent element and we will end up--it appears at the moment--with only nominated Members.

The functions of the upper House need to be strengthened--not enormously, but slightly. What I found most interesting in the contributions of Labour Members was not that they did not want the other place to have enhanced powers. Their fear was that the result of the reforms would be that the upper House might suddenly start to exercise the powers that it already has in a way that it would be wholly entitled to do. It could use its powers to scrutinise and, if necessary, delay legislation. That would be a good thing. I can think of few instances in which delaying legislation would result in some catastrophe, given the legislation that has passed through this Parliament since the second world war.

On constitutional issues, if there is disagreement between the upper House and this place, it is desirable that the upper House should have the power to block legislation and, if it blocks it twice, for the matter to be referred to a referendum to resolve it. That would be a powerful enhancement of democracy. If we take that approach--it is the only one we can properly take in a democratic society--it is axiomatic that the House of Lords will have to be principally an elected Chamber. It must be an elected Chamber. No other solution that has been put forward could command the legitimacy that the Chamber must have if it is properly to fulfil its functions.

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