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21 Jan 2003 : Column 198—continued
Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-on-Tweed): I hope the right hon. Gentleman will deal with the wholly spurious argument advanced in favour of the U-turn that only a wholly elected or a wholly appointed House of Lords is possible. Given the various elements in the existing composition of that House, there seems to be no evidence for that proposition.
Mr. Hague: The 24 members of the Committee would certainly not agree that only one or the other is possible. Otherwise, we would not have presented seven options, five of them involving a mixture of appointment and election. Such options are both practically and politically possible.
No Members should be conned into thinking that that is the choice. I do, however, believe that a choice exists, between a predominantly or, in the view of some, a wholly elected House of Lords and an appointed House. I implore Members not to vote for a 20 per cent. or even a 40 per cent. elected House. As the Committee's Chairman knows, I argued briefly that we should not even put those options to the Houses; but it was pointed out that an amendment could be tabled, or there might be great demand for votes on the options. In my view, they provide a marginal increase in legitimacy and improvements in representation, while also providing a major increase in expense, complexity and, I think, ridicule of Parliament. I do not think that that would be worth voting for.
Sir Teddy Taylor (Rochford and Southend, East): Does my right hon. Friend not accept that as the public are in general switching off from politics by not voting—
they think we have too many politicians and not enough power—there is a danger that they will all go on strike if they are also expected to vote for elected regional councils and an elected Lords?
Mr. Hague: Yes. My hon. Friend anticipates the one further point that I wish to make. I think that unless the majority of an elected upper House's membership had some clout, people would not vote. It might be a struggle to get them to vote even then, but I think it would be impossible if we were electing 20 per cent. of a House that we did not expect to have any teeth.
The idea was floated in our Committee that the vote could be combined with the European elections. The more I think about it, the more I think that even that would not work. We can all imagine the scene. There is a knock at the door; a woman stands there with a child in her arms, while another screams in the background. I am sorry—I am slipping into a stereotype. The dinner is on the stove, while the man of the house is working hard on his DIY. The woman is asked, "Will you vote in the elections for the upper House?" She says "No." "It is combined with the European elections." She is not going to say "Oh well, in that case, of course!"
I believe that only combining this election with a general election would bring people out to vote.
Mr. Chaytor: In arguing the case for a hybrid, and given the rule demanding no party majority, would the right hon. Gentleman persuade his constituent that it was worth voting for 60 per cent. or 80 per cent. when the appointed element will override the elected element? How would that galvanise people into voting?
Mr. Hague: I think that all constituents are used to the idea that others may override the people whom they elect. Indeed, that has been the experience of my constituents throughout this Parliament and the last. I do not think that that is a show-stopping argument against a hybrid system. In any case, it is one of the reasons for my advocating an elected majority. The hon. Gentleman's argument would have much more force if a majority were appointed: constituents would then be entitled to ask, "What is the point of voting?"
I hope we will rule out the ideas that have been floated by my noble Friend Lord Wakeham and the Lord Chancellor. One can almost see the Lord Chancellor sitting there saying "It is a bore that some of us must be elected. What is the minimum percentage that we think we can get away with? Let us make it 15 per cent., or 25 per cent., or something of that order."
We must either grasp the opportunity of voting for a stronger Parliament and a stronger upper House within a stronger Parliament, or say "Let the Government continue to dominate Parliament in legislation as well as in governing, and have a fully appointed upper House". That is the real choice before us. I certainly favour the majority-elected option, and I hope the vast majority will vote against the minority-elected option. I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate.
2.29 pm
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Robin Cook) rose—
Andrew Mackinlay : Come back, all is forgiven!
Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend is too far ahead of his party.
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). I find myself 80 per cent. in agreement with what he said; the other 20 per cent. will be considered by an independent appointments commission, but on this issue 80 per cent. is as close to 100 per cent. as any two Members can manage.
Before I deal with the nub of the issue, let me record the thanks of the Government and, I hope, the whole House, for the work of the Joint Committee. It is not an easy task to get 24 politicians to agree on the time of day; it is even more difficult to get the same number to sign up to a report of substance and authority. It says much for the patience and skill of my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) that he should have been successful in getting a consensus in the Joint Committee on the text, with only two divisions on the entire report. As he demonstrated in his speech, in the course of his work, he has become an authority on the distressingly long history of House of Lords reform.
House of Lords reform is frequently presented as an issue of white-heat controversy. I promise to address the controversial issues, but before I do so I note that the Joint Committee's report underlines the broad agreement that exists on many aspects of reform of the second Chamber. First, there is broad agreement on the role of the second Chamber: it should be charged with revision of legislation, independent scrutiny of Executive decisions and deliberation of public policy.
Secondly, there is broad agreement on the relative status of the two Chambers. It has been a feature of all reports on Lords reform that the House of Commons should remain pre-eminent. It is common ground among all Members of this House that the right to form a Government must depend on the ability to command a majority in this place. This Chamber must remain the crucible in which Governments are forged and reputations are made or broken.
The Joint Committee helpfully sets out the conventions that buttress the relative status of the two Houses. Those provide the House of Lords with the right to question and to delay legislation but not to veto it, nor to challenge any part of the mandate in the manifesto on which a Government are elected. I am glad that the Joint Committee will return to the question of how those conventions can be entrenched in any future constitutional settlement.
The last area of agreement is comparatively recent, but I understand that it is now a common agreement between the two Front Benches: both sides of the Chamber now agree that the hereditary principle has no place in a modern Parliament. Whatever principle of composition may be adopted, few people now argue that it should be based on the privilege of birth. There are a few who are still doing it. Last month, Lord Trefgarne, chairman of the Conservative peers in the
other place, chided the Joint Committee for ignoring the case for the hereditary principle, which he claimed
- "represents the best random selection process".
As the Joint Committee reasonably points out, there are other ways in which reasonable people may conclude that the House of Lords is not truly representative. For example, it remains a rare unrepresentative corner of modern Britain in which the Conservative party is still the largest single party. The Government fully accept the principle set out by the Joint Committee and repeated by its Chairman this afternoon that no one party should dominate the second Chamber. I understand that the Conservative party also supports that principle now that it is in opposition. It is no doubt a matter of deep regret to it that, for 18 years, it never chose to put that principle into practice. It may be helpful, as we approach how to go about choosing between the options on the basis of that agreement, if I deal with procedure before I turn to the areas of controversy.
The Joint Committee has given us options for a more representative second Chamber. No one can fairly accuse it of not giving us enough options. Indeed, it has given us seven different options from which to choose, covering the entire spectrum of alternatives for reform. As the Joint Committee requested, the Government have provided an opportunity today for a general debate on the principles canvassed in the interim report. That will be followed on 4 February by an opportunity for the House to choose between all the options on a free vote.
We shall follow precisely the Joint Committee's recommendations on how those votes should be organised. Each option will be put to the vote in turn. All options will be put to the vote. Members should recognise that it is possible for them to vote for their second or third preference without prejudicing their first preferred option. Voting will not stop just because one option has secured a majority, and they will be free votes.
I do not come to the Dispatch Box today to make the case for an all-appointed House or any other House. The Government will not express a collective view on which option should be chosen. Given that this issue has profound implications for the future of Parliament, it is right that it should be Parliament that resolves what a reformed second Chamber should look like.
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