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21 Jan 2003 : Column 191—continued
Mr. Simon Thomas (Ceredigion): One of the principles which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned and which is elucidated in the report is that there should be no domination by one political party. Of course, the same principle was also stated in the royal commission report. If this House voted for the option of a fully elected second Chamber, however, how on earth could that principle be achieved?
Dr. Cunningham: The hon. Gentleman asks a very important question. It would be very difficult to achieve that aim, but not impossible. We would have to ensure that the electoral and other processes gave some guarantees about that. That is perfectly possible to do. The issue goes to the heart of some of the decisions that we have to make. One can easily see that if an independent commission is making appointments and has been given proper terms of reference, it is possible quickly and easily to move to greater representativeness, gender equality and representation of the ethnic communities, as well as to a better age profile. The appointments commission would be instructed to work to those ends, but it would be more difficult to achieve them by election, and impossible if the election were conducted on the first-past-the-post system, as the Committee acknowledges in its report. It is not impossible to achieve those aims with other electoral approaches, but they would not be as quick or simple to achieve.
Mr. David Chaytor (Bury, North) rose—
Dr. Cunningham: I should move on, because many hon. Members want to contribute to such an important debate.
We listed several matters that we had to leave until phase 2 of our work simply because we knew that hon. Members were anxious for us to produce a report as
quickly as possible. Those matters include the ultimate size of the House and the nature of the election process that might be used. Part 5 of the report sets out the options.I have covered some of the pros and cons of a fully appointed House and a fully elected House, but a hybrid is also possible. It is more difficult to be clear about the way in which that would work, but the Joint Committee did not believe that it was impossible to construct a system whereby the House could comprise some elected and some appointed Members.
We drew attention to the fact that none of the previous reports—the royal commission report, the White Paper, the Public Administration Committee report—took account of the costs involved in a change. We referred to that only briefly in our report, but it will be important to consider costs in greater detail when the exact nature of the change has been determined.
We are considering complex, difficult and controversial issues. The Committee acknowledged that it would take some time for a new constitutional balance to emerge. That is always the case when important changes that affect Parliament are introduced.
Andrew Mackinlay: When the Committee considered the relationship between the two Houses, did it examine the idea that Ministers who are the architects of specific measures or have an exclusive portfolio should be able to answer questions in both Houses and/or steer legislation through Parliament? That is the pattern in many other Westminster-style constitutions and Parliaments. Such a system makes sense because it gives a Minister charge of a subject instead of our having someone who works off a brief and behaves like a parrot.
Dr. Cunningham: No, we did not consider such a proposal.
We are considering a new constitutional settlement between the Houses of Parliament, and between a changed House of Lords and the Government of the day. If changes are made, apart from emphasising that they should be robust, practical and enduring, we should ask ourselves what sort of new relationship we want and how it can best be achieved.
Do we want the new second Chamber to be a replica of the House of Commons? Most people would say no to that. Would a wholly or substantially elected House accept the current role, functions and power of the second Chamber or would elected Members want to assert more authority with regard to the House of Commons or the Government? Would an elected second Chamber with an in-built majority against the Government of the day—it is universally agreed that that should be the case—accept the conventions and restrictions that have been placed on it?
Would a new approach through an independent appointments commission, with a remit to produce regional, gender, ethnic and age balance, give the second Chamber the greater legitimacy and representative nature that we are striving to achieve? How can independence and independents have a secure place and role in a reformed second Chamber?
How would a partly elected, partly appointed House work in practice? Would such an arrangement be sufficiently stable to endure in the long term? We all
want that to happen. Is the second Chamber intended to represent the country electorally and politically, like the House of Commons, or should it have a different role?Let me now speak for myself, not the Committee. I believe that the House of Commons should not tolerate a rival House with similar powers. We should not risk creating such a rival without great care and consideration of what such fundamental constitutional change would bring.
The public do not often get excited about this place and the other place when we contemplate our navels. In my experience, they are not greatly interested in the strategies for enhancing or reducing the powers or status of one House as opposed to another. However, our constituents are concerned about more effective scrutiny of Government—I hope that we all support that, whatever the outcome—more expeditious provision of better governance; more vigilance in defence of constituents' rights and more efficient enhancement of their social and economic well-being. Those outcomes should have priority when we decide whether changes should be made. No Joint Committee could resolve such matters alone; they are questions for Parliament. I am sure that the Government also rightly have a view.
We have an opportunity to reflect on the report and the debate in this House and the other place before voting on options for change. Like other members of the Committee, I shall listen to colleagues with great interest. I end by reflecting on the words of the American comedian, George Burns, who once said that it is too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.
2.6 pm
Mr. William Hague (Richmond, Yorks): I pay tribute on behalf of all hon. Members who served on the Joint Committee, including me, to the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) for his chairmanship, which he undertook with skill, humour and a few sharp words. He managed a Committee of 24 people, all of whom believed that their opinion was the great, weighty view that had to be delivered on the subject.
The Committee included two former Chancellors of the Exchequer and two former Chief Whips. It was wonderful to observe some young, radical Labour Back Benchers sitting cheek by jowl with long-established hereditary peers and sometimes expressing the same opinions: doubtless they marvelled at the sight of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and I sitting cheek by jowl and occasionally expressing the same opinions.
Serving on the Committee has been entertaining, enjoyable and, I hope, useful. As the right hon. Member for Copeland said, I hope that the debate will fuel any further deliberations by the Committee with valuable advice. I apologise to hon. Members because I shall unavoidably miss the end of the debate. However, like the right hon. Gentleman, I look forward to listening to or reading the speeches.
We are all conscious of the fact that the debate forms part of a lengthy process. The preamble to the Parliament Act 1911 envisaged that it would be a temporary measure until popular representation was introduced to the upper House. Ninety-two years later, we are still deliberating on how to achieve that, and I
cannot say with confidence that hon. Members will not be deliberating on the matter in another 92 years. I am not wholly optimistic that introducing popular representation to the upper House will be the outcome of deliberations in both Houses over the next few weeks.If we go back further in time, we realise that the process is even lengthier. In the mid-17th century, our predecessors decided to abolish the House of Lords because in 1649 they believed that it was useless and dangerous. That opinion receives a little support today, even though the decision was followed by a military dictatorship and the abolition of the House of Commons; supporters should take account of that cautionary note.
Our report states that there is no evidence of substantial support for unicameralism, but we were probably wrong—there is some support for it in the House. It is important to respect and confront that, and to understand why a properly functioning second Chamber is important. That is often demonstrated in practical ways—for example, in the huge amount of legislative work that is accomplished down the Corridor. The fact that we now go home at a nice early time in the evenings—or, at least, that we no longer have debates of quite the open-ended nature that we used to have—reinforces the need for such work to be done by a second Chamber. As the Joint Committee points out, in 2001 the House of Lords spent 53 hours on the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill, and many of its amendments were subsequently accepted in this place.
We need a properly functioning second Chamber for practical reasons, and for very good constitutional reasons. Every major country in the world that has set out to produce from scratch a constitution based on liberty and democracy—with the exception of New Zealand—has chosen a bicameral system. The founding fathers who wrote the constitution of the United States, those who crafted the German constitution after the second world war, and even the people who brought the miracle of democracy to India in the 1940s, created bicameral systems so that there would be some check on over-hasty legislation or an over-mighty Executive.
That is why we must face up to the belief held by some Members of this House that the upper House should be abolished altogether. It has one absolute veto remaining, which is a veto over the extension of the life of Parliament. We may think that, these days, we are all so nice and democratic that we cannot imagine voting for the extension of the life of Parliament in circumstances that were not warranted, but can we guarantee that our successors in 50 years' time will not be driven to that by some extremity?
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