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Dr. Godman: I should like to ask the Minister a couple of questions. Before I do so, I offer my apologies to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack), for interrupting his
comments on the respect that people have for the other place. I should point out that all recent opinion polls in Scotland on the subject of the governance of the United Kingdom have shown that there is diminishing respect for the other place as it is currently structured. Incidentally, a more recent opinion poll suggested that 80 per cent. of Scots believed that Scotland would be independent within 20 years--but that is another thing.
I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) that, as a former shipwright to trade, I find it a great honour and privilege to be in this place.
Mr. Mackinlay:
Alas, my hon. Friend is a dying breed.
Dr. Godman:
No, Lord Dixon is another former shipwright. I hope that he stays on despite the changes.
I have some concerns about the Government's proposals. I support totally the perspective of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) and the views of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). If we are to have a bicameral system, the second House must be elected and must represent the multinational state in which we live. I shall come to that point in a minute.
Unless the proposals are amended, hundreds of thousands of voters will be deprived of having their concerns expressed during the commission's deliberations. Am I right in thinking that Scottish judges are given the privilege of becoming Cross Benchers, and that that will not change?
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock that the commission should not be composed of Privy Councillors. We should move on from electing the great and the good to deliberate on such profound matters. The role given to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to deal with areas of conflict between the Scottish Parliament and the United Kingdom Parliament was a major mistake under the Scotland Act 1998. That, however, is another story.
Subsection (9) of the amendment says:
I do not hold any brief for the Scottish National party, but say what you will about that party, a substantial minority of people in Scotland actively support it. I hold no brief for SNP Members; they absent themselves from the Chamber when we are discussing all sorts of issues that are of paramount importance to the people of Scotland, such as defence or international relations. However, the views of very many Scottish voters will not be represented as they should be.
Mr. Hogg:
The hon. Gentleman is not wholly right. If he looks at the proposed new clause, which may of course be defective, he will see that the commission must consist
Dr. Godman:
I am exceedingly grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I would hope that these minority parties might be represented among the other five representatives. Somehow I doubt that, given the way the new clause is drafted, but I make a plea to the Minister that especially at a moment like this, when things are not going too well with the negotiations in Northern Ireland on the Good Friday agreement, we do not want to send a message to people in Northern Ireland that we are not really concerned about their representation on a body as important as this.
I envisage that we shall go through a transitional phase before the House debates--I hope thoroughly, and in a tough-minded way--the recommendations of the Wakeham commission. From there, we should move on to legislation. I hope that some of us will be there to argue the case for an elected second Chamber, but, in the meantime, the Minister and his ministerial colleagues really must reconsider the composition of the appointments commission, because it is not good enough to be seen to push to one side the people of Northern Ireland and elsewhere in this multinational state of ours.
Mr. Peter Brooke (Cities of London and Westminster):
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman). He and I are members of the British-Irish parliamentary group. We frequently visit the Province together. We therefore experience mutual exposure to revolutionary fervour. I was prevented from speaking on the Weatherill amendment by the meeting of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs, and I was grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he said in that regard.
I declare an interest, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) did, as a member of the Privy Council. I should be entirely prepared to disclaim the involvement of the Privy Council in the amendment, although I am more sensitive about the future membership of the Privy Council than is my right hon. and learned Friend.
It will be to the shame of the Labour party if its self-stressed modernising ambitions are limited to the relatively simple task of abolishing the hereditary principle when there is a Labour majority of almost 200 in this House, and if the Government do not proceed to the more serious and ultimately more worthwhile and demanding task of redefining the powers of the second Chamber.
Reform of scrutiny by Parliament is already the constitutional flavour of the next decade--the first in the new millennium. Two bodies, of one of which I am a modest member, are examining the issue. Although the
Government may not like it, the campaign enjoys considerable intellectual support outside Parliament. An appointments commission, which is the subject of the amendment, established by statute is an important underpinning of the whole process.
The Lord Privy Seal said that the Government have no quarrel with the underlying principle and purpose of the amendment, but the Government's reluctance to accept it at this stage, as demonstrated by the Minister's speech, is profoundly ominous. The Government may imply that the amendment would impede a ready transition to stage 2, and I dare say that they regard that as evidence of their commitment to stage 2. However, in the previous debate, the hon. Member for South Thanet was not widely supported on the Labour Benches in his confidence that we would move to stage 2.
The Government cannot be surprised if some of us think that one constitutional bird in the hand is worth an infinite number in the new Labour bush, and that the Bill will be improved by including a solid constitutional innovation, on top of the more idiosyncratic Weatherill amendment. I had no difficulty in voting for the Weatherill amendment, pragmatism being the heart of Conservatism, but I was a little surprised--Conservatism not being the Prime Minister's present flavour of the month--that the Government also put pragmatism first. We live in strange times.
I have already sketched out the skeleton of a first-class political thriller based on the Weatherill amendment, involving a Genghis Khan-like figure, an Ian Fleming villain in the lonely places of Mongolia, seeking to use the provisions of the amendment, particularly its by-election principle, to avenge the passing of the hereditary principle.
The Weatherill amendment's very bizarreness made it a highly traditional increment to the British constitution, but amendment No. 2 would add something solid to the constitution and would not need bizarreness to recommend it.
Dr. George Turner (North-West Norfolk):
We should not pass the evening without noting the hypocrisy of Opposition Members, who, for 18 years, managed to hide their principled objection to patronage, and supported a system under which they already held a Conservative majority of 3:1 over other parties. Under the system of patronage that they supported, their Prime Minister even vetoed proposals from other political parties. It ill suits the Opposition tonight suddenly to discover that, because there has been a change in political control, what they supported in the past is urgently in need of repair.
Mr. Tyrie:
The hon. Gentleman says that Conservative Prime Ministers vetoed nominations from leaders of other political parties. That may be true; I do not know. I should be grateful if he could provide an example.
Dr. Turner:
Specifically, no. It was a feature of the past 18 years that the patronage of the Prime Minister was complete in that respect. Conservative Members did not complain then. There is a goodly element of hypocrisy in the case that they bring tonight.
"One Commissioner shall be appointed from each of the three largest parties in the House of Commons".
That means that the hundreds of thousands of electors in Northern Ireland are excluded from this scheme of things. As a frequent visitor to Northern Ireland--as chairman of the parliamentary Labour party's Northern Ireland committee--I find that unacceptable. We have a number of MPs representing the 1.5 million people in Northern Ireland; we have Ulster Unionist Members, Democratic Unionist Members and my hon. Friends representing the SDLP.
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