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Mr. Clarke: I shall give way to the hon. Lady in a moment.

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I cannot imagine the reception that a member of the Wakeham commission would get if he went to Washington to try to explain how important it was to have an appointed Senate instead of the elected Senate to strengthen the democracy of the United States and make it altogether more suitable than the present system. We should not duck the idea of having two Chambers.

I shall give way to the hon. Lady, but I hope that I shall get injury time.

Mrs. Dunwoody: How does the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain the situation that has existed during last half of the Clinton Administration, where specific political moves took place to stymie the "other" Chamber and the President of the United States?

Mr. Clarke: They certainly did. The American political system differs in many ways from ours. The Executive cannot automatically assume that they will have their way. Recent events in Germany have also shown what happens when the Government do not have a majority in one Chamber. These democracies are based on checks and balances. Our democracy is dangerously near being based on the tyranny of the majority, for the time being. We avoid that in this place, but it is constantly a danger. It is not beyond the wit of British politicians to strengthen checks and balances in our constitution by having an upper House with clearly delineated powers, which can achieve a satisfactory modus vivendi with the supreme Chamber, which will be this place.

Mr. Andrew Love (Edmonton): Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Mr. Clarke: I am sorry, I cannot.

The second argument advanced by the Wakeham commission is that there would be domination by professional politicians if they were all elected. The commission is fearful that we would have the sort of people who want to go through the process of being elected, and they would have political parties choosing them. The commission obviously has in mind a broader and higher realm of people in the other place. The pure election of the sort that we go through here is apparently

unlikely to produce members with the ability to speak for the voluntary sector, the professions, cultural and sporting interests.

Certainly, direct elections are unlikely to produce quite as many people from theatre and media land as new Labour has produced in the upper House. It may be that there are not enough footballers in either Chamber; I do not know whether they are required.

I regard this, and the language elsewhere in the commission's report, as extraordinarily funny. They are the statements of an establishment trying to explain that the wrong sort of politician may emerge if we go through a process of election. The commission is not daunted by the fact that many of its members went through that process themselves before they got there, but they have apparently risen above that.

If the commission really is fearful that only party hacks would get into the upper House--I do not think that only party hacks get into this House--it could consider a 15-year term or a limitation on the term of office, which

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would produce a different sort of party politician who would go straight to the second Chamber for a different sort of public service.

The commission also complains about voter fatigue. There is a lot of that about, but my answer would be unitary local government to cut out some of our current elections, and no more referendums. However, I shall not dwell on that, as I do not have time.

The Wakeham commission's conclusions strike me as an establishment solution aimed at producing PLUs--people like us--drawn from the great and the good who can bring an altogether weightier judgment to bear than the representatives of the people might otherwise be able to command. That would have been rejected at most times in our past: indeed, fortunately it was.

Because political patronage has been so discredited in recent years, the Wakeham commission recommends an appointments system with appropriate terms of reference, so that the majority can be appointed by a commission. That independent commission is the most extraordinary selectorate I have ever heard proposed. How we guarantee balance, exactly who appoints it, and how they are accountable to the general public has never been explained to me. These people will appoint more parliamentarians than the electors of Old Sarum were ever allowed to elect. They will appoint dozens and dozens, no doubt with the help of executive appointment people, an advertising agency and a civil service secretariat. The political parties will not be allowed to choose their nominees for the upper House because we might get the wrong sort of politician. Nominations can come from the political parties, but the independent commission will choose which of them go forward.

All these proposals are supposed to drive us away from direct elections, but then the commission moves away from its own conclusions. Its final recommendation is that we had better have some elected people and some appointed by the Executive's selectors. That will be the second Chamber. In the end, it is yet another compromise to try to buy off the democrats in the lower House and those among the public.

The present arrangements for the upper House and the Wakeham proposals for their reform would be regarded as objects of ridicule if they were suggested by the politicians of any other country in the democratic world. This is too important an issue for such a proposal to be allowed to go forward.

7.13 pm

Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle): My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will be pleased with me, because he tells Labour Members that we should try to forsake tribal politics. I agree with virtually everything the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) said.

To be blunt, I think that the Wakeham proposals are half-baked; they are risible. It saddens me that the Labour Government are likely to embrace them. If we are to have a second Chamber, it should be a small, directly elected Chamber.

In the next election, the Labour Government will be outflanked by the Liberal Democrats--who presumably will propose some form of elected second Chamber--and,

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astonishingly, also by the Conservatives, because the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe and others speak for the majority of Conservative Back Benchers. If I were to advise the Leader of the Opposition--an unlikely prospect I know--I would tell him to go for the fully elected option, because it makes political sense.

In the nation's consciousness there is an understanding that new Labour is associated with fixes. There was a fix in Scotland, as we all know--[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Hope) disagrees. If he wants to intervene, I shall happily give way. There was a fix in Wales. There was manifestly a fix in London. Are we seriously suggesting that we should go into the next election with our political opponents being able to point the finger at us and say, "This is another new Labour fix"?

I mentioned the Prime Minister. I agreed with him in 1996. I was present when he said at the John Smith memorial lecture:

We have always favoured an elected second chamber.

Times move on, and we apparently no longer believe in an elected second Chamber. I suppose that I am a living, breathing embodiment of what happens when there is election rather than appointment. I am proud of the fact that I am a member of the national policy forum, which meets next month to discuss our policy on the second Chamber. I was elected to the national policy forum by my colleagues in the parliamentary Labour party. There would not have been a possibility in a thousand light years of my getting on to the national policy forum had membership been determined by appointment. It just would not have happened. Election throws up all sorts of interesting people who would never be allowed to emerge from the undergrowth if it were a matter of appointment.

Angela Smith: When my hon. Friend was elected to the national policy forum by his colleagues, did he state in his manifesto that he supported an elected second Chamber?

Mr. Prentice: I support an elected second Chamber. I say it publicly now. I disagree with my party's position if it proposes to adopt the Wakeham recommendation, which I think is indefensible. If people are appointed to the other place it will be corrupting--the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross used the word "corruption."

Individuals in this place bite their tongues because they look forward to preferment and elevation to the upper House. In "On the Record" yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) said that towards the end of a Parliament, when the general election is called, there is a spate of resignations. Members say that they will not resign and will continue to the next Parliament, but something happens and they resign. The local party is disenfranchised and the national executive committee steps in and appoints someone. Often, the trade-off is that people resign and when the election is called, they are sent to the upper House. We know about such corrosive, corrupting patronage.

Who will be responsible for appointments to the other place? It will be the House of Lords appointments commission. That is another joke. I have a copy of a letter from the Cabinet Office to Ms Judith Richardson at PricewaterhouseCoopers about contracts for assistance in

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identifying a range of candidates for House of Lords appointments. I do not know how many people applied, but they had to go through a rigorous selection process. The document says:

Applicants invited for an interview with the selection panel will be expected to give a five minute presentation on the skills and attributes they would bring to the Appointments Commission.

That is pretty testing, is it not?

The appointments commission is in place, and the letter refers to its draft remit for identifying

persons to be recommended to Her Majesty for life peerages.

They are people who will

enhance and sustain its standing as an effective part of our constitutional arrangements.

People like Tommy Sheridan--a Scottish Socialist party Member of the Scottish Parliament--would not get a look in. In no way could he be said to be "people like us"--the expression used by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe.

The appointments commission has to consider the impact that any new appointments would have

bearing in mind . . . the desirability of ensuring that the House includes Members with a wide range of experience, expertise and outlook.

We have heard about the gender, age and ethnic background requirements and the need for identification with different parts of the United Kingdom. In an intervention, I asked about wealth requirements. Fifty per cent. of the population own 94 per cent. of the nation's wealth; thus the remaining 50 per cent. own only 6 per cent. Perhaps there is a requirement that poor people should be represented in the upper House.

What about social class? As we have all those other requirements, would it be so unusual for an upper Chamber adequately and properly to reflect the social class profile of Britain? What about all those people who are Oxbridge educated? Will there be some measure for that? Will there be x per cent. of Members from provincial universities, y per cent. from Oxbridge and z per cent. from among those who have not attended university at all? The whole thing is ludicrous. The more we go into the matter, the more we realise that it is completely unsustainable, logically flawed and politically mad; we should be outflanked. My hon. Friend the Member for Corby is muttering. I am happy to give way to him.

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