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Mr. Tyrie: Will my hon. Friend explain why we would need a written constitution if we were to have an elected second Chamber? I did not quite catch that point.
Sir Patrick Cormack: I shall explain that to my hon. Friend in detail later, but I cannot do so in the next three minutes. If we are to have two Chambers, to redistribute their powers, and to move towards a fixed-term Parliament, it would be logical to enshrine all that in a constitutional framework, so we would move towards a written constitution.
It is important to have an independent element in the other place, such as the Cross Benches. Most people agree that it makes a unique and special contribution to our parliamentary deliberations. A number of hon. Members on both sides of the House have touched on the position of the established Church and the representatives of other religious faiths. Is there to be a place for them in a second Chamber? I believe that there should be, and that they represent an extremely important constituency. I also believe that we must face up to what we do with the Law Lords. Are we to have a separate supreme court or is it to continue as part of the second Chamber?
All those issues should be addressed by the Joint Committee, which I hope will be appointed very soon. If it is a broadly based Committee--we know nothing, as there have been no discussions on its size, composition or terms of reference--it must be able to address all those issues within a timetable that is not too constraining, and that enables it to report back to both Houses before the end of this Parliament. Otherwise, the promises that have been given are meaningless. I hope that when the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office winds up the debate, he will give us a clear indication of the timetable.
The word "legitimacy" has been tossed around a lot. I hope that no one in the Chamber would suggest that our present system is not legitimate. Throughout the world, the Westminster system of democracy has been and is admired, and we should be very conscious of that. Up until now, our system has included an unelected second Chamber. Whether we change it is for this House and the other place to decide--principally this House. Do not let us connive at undermining our own legitimacy in the process.
However fast we move towards stage 2--a degree of impatience has been expressed on both sides of the House--what we have at the moment as our second Chamber must be regarded and recognised as such,
and we in this place should do all that we can to ensure that it works effectively. We should not snipe at that Chamber in a rather derogatory way, if it asks us--as it has every right and indeed a constitutional duty to do--to think again.There is much work ahead. I hope that we shall be able to get down to it soon. Although some disparate views have been expressed, I hope that the debate was sufficiently encouraging to the Minister for him to announce the setting up of a Committee in the near future.
9.45 pm
The Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office (Mr. Paddy Tipping): Let me begin where the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) left off. He referred to the impatience for change. There has also been impatience for this debate; hon. Members have pressed for it. The date was changed once for the convenience of hon. Members. However, the debate was worth waiting for; it was lively at some times and thoughtful at others. It is fair to say that there is unanimity neither between parties nor within them.
On occasions such as this, it is customary to praise the royal commission. We were told that the royal commission had been set such a tight timetable that it would never deliver. However, it has done so and we have had the opportunity to discuss its report this evening.
The welcome for the report has been slightly dismissive at times. The report was described variously as "ridiculous", "extraordinary", "bizarre", "deeply disappointing" and "a dog's breakfast"--and that was only from those Members who had the opportunity to speak. I am very conscious that at least two hon. Members sat through the debate and were unable to make speeches--my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) and the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson). However, they both made their views known in sedentary and sometimes active interventions.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), who was a member of the commission, gave us some insight into its work. He described how individual members of the commission had changed their views and how, in the end, the report was unanimous and consensual.
It is important to realise that hon. Members, too, have changed their views. There have been substantial changes in the views held by Opposition Members. I remember both the Conservative manifesto, which stated that there would be no radical change for the upper House, and the comments of some hon. Members who supported the hereditary principle. There were dim and distant echoes of that this evening from the hon. Members for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) and for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth)--
Mr. Nicholls: I urge the hon. Gentleman to ignore the ribaldry behind him and to say that, whatever else he thought about my contribution, it was neither dim nor distant.
Mr. Tipping: That shows that there is a long way to go before we reach consensus. However, as my right hon.
Friend the President of the Council pointed out in her opening remarks, the important point is that we should seek consensus on the matter.The comments made during the debate make it clear that we shall not achieve consensus on all the issues. The highlight of the debate has been the relatively narrow focus on the composition of the upper House--from the elected element called for by some Opposition Members to the wholly appointed House advocated by others.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The hon. Gentleman talks about consensus. I am deeply suspicious about this call for consensus before anything more can be done. I remain suspicious that the Government intend to do absolutely nothing further about reforming the House of Lords. Surely, having come this far, they are committed to turning the Chamber into one that is defensible. They should state their view and defend it. Why can we not have the Joint Committee--the next step? Must we wait until a consensus emerges before we can take that next obvious step--on which we are all agreed--of setting up a Joint Committee to discuss the proposals?
Mr. Tipping: I would never call the right hon. and learned Gentleman a consensual politician. His attitude on Europe does not command consensus among Conservative Members. However, he will have to wait, because I am determined to spell out the way forward at the end of my speech. Let me remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman that significant important changes have been made. After a century of dithering, we have first-stage reform. We set up a royal commission; it reported on time; the House has had an opportunity to discuss its report; and we have set up an interim appointments commission. Change is occurring and it has been driven through by this Government and Labour Members.
Mr. Tyrie: The Minister promised that he would tell us the way forward at the end of his speech. Could he not tell us now?
Mr. Tipping: Let me do that, because there may be an element of consensus between us. I thank the hon. Gentleman for the opportunity to see today the pamphlet that he has published. I would like him to sign it, because there are elements in it with which I agree and that would work across the House. The hon. Gentleman asked me the way forward, so I shall spell out where we have come from and where we are going. We said that we would reform the House of Lords in a two-stage process--as the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) said, "So far, so good." The agreement was that reform would be carried out in two stages. We have got rid of the hereditary element, we have set up the royal commission and an independent appointments commission and we are going to go further.
The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) asked specifically about the Joint Committee. In a sense, the royal commission has done much of the work of the Joint Committee. The right hon. Gentleman asked for a public debate, but what was the process of the royal commission if it did not engender a public debate? It went out and sought evidence. The fact
that the debate did not take off may mean that it is not the top delivery issue for some people--that it may not be the most significant issue for people on the doorsteps of Hampshire and Nottinghamshire. However, we have had that debate.The right hon. Gentleman said that he wanted the debate now, but then qualified that by saying that he wanted the Joint Committee soon. I am not breaking any confidence when I say to the House that he has had at least one opportunity for an informal discussion on the way forward. His colleagues in the other place have also had the opportunity to talk about the way forward. The right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said that he was willing for discussion and that he would meet us any time, anywhere and any place. "Barkis is willin'," he seemed to say. We will set up the Joint Committee soon.
We have had the debate tonight and we have listened to it. It would have been nonsensical to have a royal commission report and not to have given the House the opportunity to debate it. We have heard the debate tonight. I say to the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire that we shall approach him over the next few weeks about the Joint Committee. The hon. Member for South Staffordshire made important points about what it should consider, and we shall talk to him about it. We shall try to reach a consensus about the size of the Committee, its timetable and its terms of reference. One of the important points that the hon. Gentleman made was that the Joint Committee would have implications for this House, too.
We must consider carefully how the Wakeham report will work in practice to involve people from the rough trade, as it was called, in the discussions. We are therefore going to have discussions with hon. Members about the way forward with the Joint Committee.
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