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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will confine his remarks strictly to the amendment.
Mr. Nicholls: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I will define what I think the Weatherill amendment will achieve. We must ask what the reformed House will do after Weatherill. There is no point claiming that Weatherill will enable the reformed Chamber to stand against the House of Commons. It is pointless electing another Chamber simply to oppose the House. I do not want another House to be elected and given democratic legitimacy simply so that it can hold the Prime Minister to account. The correct time to do that is at the next general election, when Conservative Members will go out and
make our case--and many believe that we can defeat him in open country. That is our purpose. Creating an upper House simply to start a constitutional fight with another place is not an attractive prospect.
I like to think that, after Weatherill, the upper House will continue to carry out its current functions. Many in the other place say that the scrutiny role appeals to them, and I am sure that many noble Lords perform that role very carefully. After Weatherill, the second Chamber should not hold up the House of Commons but ensurethat the Government of the day--be it Labour or Conservative--act in the full light of day. Although one might not have designed it that way if one had had a blank sheet of paper, the marvellous thing about the House of Lords was that it performed that task. The House of Lords ensured that the electorate could have a second look without holding up the House of Commons. It ensured that the public knew what was afoot so that they could use that information at the next election.
Several hon. Members have asked, in the context of the Weatherill amendment, whether the new reformed House will work. The short answer is: I do not know, but we will find out because it will clearly be some time before the new reformed House is changed. I suppose that views on the matter will differ. A close friend in the upper House believes that, given what has happened to it since 1997, the House of Lords is an institution that can no longer perform the sort of scrutiny role to which I refer. After many years of public service, he decided not to stand for re-election. He will say, "That was a job well done for 600 years" and leave. I understand his view. He is probably wrong, but only time will tell.
If the new House comprises only Members appointed by Prime Ministers--let us face it, the Leader of the House of Lords is there only because she is the daughter of a Prime Minister--how can we be confident that it will perform the tasks that I have set out? Weatherill will achieve that objective. It will keep within the system a body of people who have--I say this without a hint of humour or irony--been judged by their peers; they are there because those with whom they have worked know that they can do the job. They are unwhippable and unbiddable and can provide a degree of independence. That objective must be desirable on pragmatic grounds alone.
Mr. Swayne:
Is not the fact that the noble Lords opted for this sordid compromise and failed in the total warfare that we expected from them--which would have cost the Government much of their legislation--proof that they were biddable?
Mr. Nicholls:
That is a good point, but it is entirely wrong. It is not based on fact. My hon. Friend and I are Members of Parliament. I am sure that all hon. Members think about the next election. All hon. Members know that the key issue facing the country at the next election is their return to the House, even if no one else makes it. Members of Parliament think in terms of those time scales.
However, the time scale in the upper House is much longer. It is ridiculous to think that the noble Lord Cranborne could be biddable: give him a life peerage and he will hang around for two years in a partially reformed House. I do not know Lord Cranborne; I met him a few times when I served with him in this place and I have
talked to him in the Corridor. He does not think in terms of the next election: historically, his family thinks in terms of half a millennium. It is nonsense to think that he could be bought off with a life peerage. I know many hon. Members who could not be bought off with a life peerage--except, of course, my hon. Friend and me. [Hon. Members: "Speak for yourself."] That comment must go on the record.
If anybody has any doubt that that is the motivation for the reform, they should consider the exchange that took place in Prime Minister's Question Time on 27 October between the Prime Minister and the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac), to whom I have written to say that I intended to mention the exchange. When she asked the usual fawning question of the Prime Minister about whether he agreed that he was a marvellous chap because he wanted to do in the hereditary peerage, she lingered over the names of the Earl of Burford. She called him Charles Francis Topham de Vere Beauclerk, and the way in which she pronounced those names absolutely reeked of the class hatred that underlies the Labour party.
If I had used the name of the hon. Lady and had milked it for its ordinary origins, I would have behaved in a disgraceful and ungentlemanly way, but Conservative Members believe that the fact that Labour Members think that it is a legitimate tactic of public debate to mock and sneer at somebody because they hold a name of great nobility says a great deal about them.
The Weatherill amendment is not the most brilliant amendment in the world. It will not achieve a reformed House that is the best that can be devised. It will not enable people to have the social cachet that my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) thinks will be achieved by being a Member of the reformed House, but, for the time being, it will enable peers to continue to do the job that they have done for the past 600 years, which is to make sure that there is a degree of independent scrutiny. Anybody who thinks that, under this Prime Minister, anything better could be achieved is, frankly, not living in the real world.
Mr. Fallon:
After having listened to this debate for four hours, I think that its most singular characteristic so far has been the dawning realisation of Labour Members that stage 2 simply will not happen. There has, of course, been one exception--the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) has blind faith that, somehow, he will be re-elected and the first Bill that he will support will be a stage 2 Bill.
What Conservative Members have been pointing out ever since we began proceedings on the Bill much earlier this year, and what Labour Members have now begun to realise, is that we shall be stuck with the Bill for perhaps 40, 50 or 60 years. If that were not the case, the Government would have accepted the range of amendments that we offered them in Committee specifically to link the Bill to stage 2. I moved some of those amendments, which offered a range of ways of binding the Government to stage 2. We shall be stuck with this Bill, and we shall be stuck with the Weatherill amendment.
Another characteristic of the debate has been the singular lack of enthusiasm for the Weatherill amendment. I certainly share the reservations of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) about the amendment. It will create something of a hostage House. Those surviving hereditaries, knowing that stage 2 can be produced at any time, will be on their best behaviour. Who knows? They may want to be part of stage 2.
I can well envisage the leader of the Labour hereditary peers trotting round to No. 10 to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) to conclude his own variation on the so-called Cranborne deal. Labour peers will also want to stay on, and the best proof of that lies in the wording of the Weatherill amendment. It contains the arrangements for perpetuation. The 90 will continue.
Other hon. Members have drawn attention to some of the more farcical aspects of that perpetuation. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said, we have not heard properly described how by-elections would be organised, or indeed where they would take place. The peers have been expelled from the House of Lords; would they be recalled for the day, given a glass of champagne and invited to vote in the Moses Room? Would they cluster together in White's on a winter morning for a glass of madeira and have the by-elections there? Would the voting be done by post? Special messengers could walk up the gravel drives and through the ducal halls, bearing the ballot papers on silver salvers. Who knows how those by-elections would be organised?
I have some sympathy with the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) and the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews). I pointed out that they will stand as somewhat unusual friends of the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Earl Marshal, whom they have exempted from their amendment. They are happy for those two hereditary peers to continue.
It is clear that the perpetuation of those peers has the Government's blessing. It is no use the Leader of the House trying, as she has done several times during the debate, to pretend that the amendment has nothing to do with her. It is clear from the drafting of the Weatherill amendment that the Government were involved in its preparation, and I give the right hon. Lady the opportunity to deny that. The inclusion of the peculiar words in brackets in subsection (3) in the amendment has clearly been condoned by the Government. They, too, realise that we will be stuck with the Weatherill peers for a long time to come.
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