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Sir Patrick Cormack: The right hon. Gentleman has made the longest speech so far.
Mr. Maclennan: Regrettably, my party has few opportunities to intervene in this debate, and I think it reasonable to take a little time. I hope that the debate will have shown the Government that they were right to keep an open mind and to remain ready to listen to arguments from Labour Members, as well as from hon. Members in other parties.
6.43 pm
Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley): I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in the Commons' first debate on the Wakeham commission report. I do not accept the view expressed by the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) on a referendum. I am not in favour of extending the use of referendums, and I do not want one to be held on this issue.
I fully support the way in which the Government are handling reform of the House of Lords. I spoke in the debate when the first stage of reform was proposed. If stage 1 had not been put in hand, we would not now be going forward to stage 2.
I delivered leaflets when the Attlee Government were in power and stood in my first local council election 40 years ago. The Labour party has said many times that it would do something about reforming the Lords, but managed nothing in that regard in the century just ended. I began to fear that nothing would ever be done. It is outrageous that, for the whole of the 20th century, our second Chamber consisted mainly of people whose sole right to be Members stemmed from what their forefathers had done. Sometimes those events in history were nothing to be proud of.
Moreover, the House of Lords was withering and in serious decline when life peerages were introduced. That change gave it a new lease of life, but it is time to go forward and move in a positive direction.
Recommendation 1 in the report states:
- The new second chamber should have the capacity to offer counsel from a range of sources.
The report says that the Salisbury convention means that the elected mandate and this House will always have the right to determine policy and to implement manifesto pledges. I agree in this respect with the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, who said that the new House--whether it is elected, appointed or part-elected and part-appointed--would accept and perform the role that the House of Commons gave it.
At one time, I feared that that would not be the case, but my study of the Wakeham report and other items has convinced me otherwise. I believe that the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross is right and that Members of the second Chamber will accept that this House has the clear electoral mandate. The second Chamber will have the right to delay and improve legislation, but not to block it and thus thwart the will of this House. That is absolutely crucial.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) said that the second Chamber would have powers to scrutinise secondary legislation. That is an improvement on the present situation, and is a positive and sensible move.
Mr. Fisher: Why does my hon. Friend say that the second Chamber should have an automatic power to
delay? Many hon. Members have said that its role is to improve scrutiny and to hold the Government to account, but delay is not part of that role.
Mr. Pike: I can understand my hon. Friend's concern about that, but sometimes a limited amount of delay allows time for second thoughts and is not a bad thing. However, the second Chamber must use any power of delay very warily.
I am a member of the Select Committee on the Modernisation of the House of Commons. The Committee's first report said that its top priority was to improve scrutiny of legislation. So far, we have failed to achieve that objective. There is a long way to go, as hon. Members still make long and meaningless speeches in Committee that do not really contribute to the scrutiny of legislation. I admit that I have done the same in the past, but we must improve our procedures in that regard.
My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) referred to the Liaison Committee report. I believe that that also offers positive ways forward that must be debated and considered to improve the way in which this House functions.
Mr. Nicholls: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, with the best will in the world, Governments--no matter of which party--do not like being scrutinised? Therefore, there must be powers of delay--not of blocking in terms of total rejection--to ensure that the Government pay heed to the scrutiny that has taken place.
Mr. Pike: I think that the hon. Gentleman is basically saying the same as I am. I believe that we must try to make Governments, of whatever party, accept scrutiny. I know that the hon. Gentleman had different views when his party was in office. However, we are all parliamentarians, and I strongly believe in the rights of Back Benchers. One of the issues that I keep pressing with regard to modernisation is that we should be able to table written questions to the Executive for 52 weeks a year, and that they should be open to scrutiny, even when the House is in recess.
There are many measures that have to be carried out to improve the way our democracy works. We must ensure that Back Benchers, whatever party they are from, scrutinise the Executive far more than they have done over the years. We have allowed our powers to decline, and we should not allow that to continue. The Liaison Committee report is all about turning back the tide.
We must scrutinise our own procedures. When the reform of the House of Lords goes through, the Government must, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton said, look at Lords' procedures to change and improve them. The opportunity should be used to make the House of Lords and its powers more effective once the reforms take place.
Recommendation 46 indicated that the complementary system of scrutiny of European Union business should continue in the upper House. I believe that that is right. As chairman of the Select Committee on Deregulation in this House, I believe that the House of Lords should continue its joint function of scrutinising deregulation. Not much is going on at the moment, but there will be a new Bill, and I hope that more deregulation measures will be forthcoming.
Chapter 9 of the report recommends that the judicial role of the House of Lords should continue. I have no great objections to that, but believe that the issue should be debated further. It is not the main issue before us today--the political issues are the most important. However, the House of Lords performs an important legal role, and I believe that the way ahead needs careful thought.
We must also consider the position of the Churches. I am a member of the Church of England, and at present, 24 bishops and two archbishops automatically enter the upper House. If that House is to have a place for Church representatives, why should not Catholics, Methodists, Muslims and Jews be granted places automatically as well?
Mr. Gordon Prentice: Canon law would prevent Catholic priests from sitting in the second Chamber. That is one of the great contradictions, I suppose, in the Wakeham report.
Mr. Pike: I do not accept that that is necessarily so. The late cardinal was offered a peerage and chose not to accept it, and there have been others.
A minister in the Church of England cannot stand for the House of Commons because that is statute-barred.
Sir Patrick Cormack: The hon. Gentleman must accept that the late Cardinal Hume turned down the offer of a peerage for the very reason that the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) gave. The presence of the bishops stems from the fact that we have an established Church. Is the hon. Gentleman arguing for disestablishment?
Mr. Pike: I am not arguing for disestablishment of the Church, and I am certainly not about to get into an argument with the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) who, of course, voted against the ordination of women. However, we have no women bishops, so it is a single-sex issue. He will remember that on an ecclesiastical committee I argued that if women were to be appointed as priests, they should also be bishops. That is the logical outcome. We need to look very carefully at whether other religions should be represented in the House of Lords, and not just the Church of England. It is a big issue, but it needs debating.
With regard to the regions, the report gives us three methods by which people can enter the second Chamber. As everyone knows, my view is that we have seen enough of proportional representation abroad, we have seen it in Scotland, Wales and London, and we do not want any more of it. So let us not have any PR--I am totally against that.
Instead of having appointed positions, I think that we should consider having representatives of specific areas of expertise elected directly to the second Chamber. What about electing a fixed number of representatives to the second Chamber from the trade unions, the Confederation of British Industry and the Forum for Small Business? If we genuinely want people of expertise in that House,
rather than appointing them, should we not allow certain organisations, with a specialist electorate, to be put forward?
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