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21 Jan 2003 : Column 212—continued
Sir Patrick Cormack: On the one hand, the hon. Gentleman argues for a House a hundred strong but on the other hand, he argues for more people than presently take an active part to take such a part. Maths is not my greatest subject, but I think that he needs to follow the national curriculum more closely than he has.
Mr. Tyler: I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman has completely lost me. I think that he has lost the plot. What I have been arguing is that the more elected members there are who are effectively full-time legislators, the more likely it is that one will gain good cost-benefit from them. Whether or not he agrees, he cannot deny that it is a fact.
The Select Committees, both of our House and the Joint Committee, have very carefully studied all the material brought before the two Houses over many years. They have unanimously recommended that a mixed-membership House can be a practical possibility and bring a real step change to the quality of the work we do collectively in this building in holding the Government to account.What is more, the Committees have both identified a centre of gravity—a centre of gravity that crosses all party boundaries and to a large extent, as the Leader of the House emphasised, is also reflected among the public at large.
Unlike the 1968 debacle, when Mr. Foot and Mr. Powell managed to combine forces—the most unholy alliance, surely, in the history of Parliament—the two parliamentary Houses will, I hope, be able together to make real progress now, because there is no excuse on grounds similar to the situation then, as we have a degree of consensus, a centre of gravity, on which we can make real progress. I hope that we shall now make it.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Before I call on the next speaker, I remind the House that Mr. Speaker placed a 10-minute limit on all Back-Bench speeches from 2.30 this afternoon, so that will apply from now on.
3.14 pm
Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley): I thought that the issues before us today were quite clear until the Liberal spokesman intervened. I am really confused now. I shall try to get back on to a straight line.
I first confess that my preferred option is the revolutionary one. I support abolition. If a unicameral system works well in Sweden and in New Zealand, as I saw recently, and now also for domestic legislation in Scotland, why should it not also work here? That option is not currently on the agenda, however. For those of us who favour abolition, the next best option is, paradoxically, a fully appointed chamber—
Mr. Fisher: What about a fully elected chamber?
Mr. Foulkes: I shall come to that; it is what I am going to talk about.
I favour a fully appointed Chamber as the next best option, provided that the method of appointment is clear and transparent, as the Committee recommends. May I underline to the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) that to say that is not to support the status quo.
I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) that any element of election to the second Chamber is inevitably a threat to the primacy of the House of Commons and will undermine the position of individual elected Members. Just as we can learn from success in Scotland, as we have on pre-legislative scrutiny—as the Leader of the House knows—so we should also learn from the mistakes there. I am thinking, for example, of the list MSPs, a system now universally criticised. List MSPs, elected through party lists in eight regions of Scotland, cherry-pick the high-profile issues; they challenge the position of constituency MSPs, and indeed MPs, and build up a profile and a platform to stand against constituency MSPs in their constituencies.
Elected members of the upper House—let us call them senators for the sake of argument—would do the same. Those senators would interfere in the work of individual MPs, and if they had been elected more recently, as the Liberal spokesman suggested, and on a superficially fairer electoral system, as the Liberals would argue, they would claim a more recent and stronger mandate than the individual Members of Parliament. Members who vote for an elected second Chamber will be creating a huge rod with which to beat themselves. Such masochism may be heroic, but it is also daft.
Mr. Foulkes: I give way to the daft—to the right hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Forth: I am grateful to the right hon. and charming Gentleman.
Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that somehow the Americans have rubbed along not too badly for 200 years with two different chambers, the upper one of which has rather more recently become directly elected, largely because of the difference both in constituencies and terms of office? Is that not now very much on offer?
Mr. Foulkes: One of the main reasons for disaffection with the democratic process in the United States is the gridlock between the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The Commons as an institution—not just as individual Members—will be challenged by the upper House, which could claim new legitimacy and new authority. Since it is also the majority party in the Commons that forms the Government, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, imagine the constitutional turmoil that could arise, especially if the second Chamber were to be elected more recently and by the system advocated by the Liberals.
We may imagine that we can keep asserting that the Commons is supreme, but huge possibilities of both legal and political challenge open up. If we are to have a second Chamber, it should be complementary to, and not compete with, the Commons. If the vast majority of its members were chosen through the new open and transparent mechanism, we would ensure representation from all walks of life or backgrounds or parts of the country. And paradoxically, a better gender balance and fairer representation of ethnic minorities would be more readily obtainable through an appointed system than has so far been the case with elections.
I agree that some discretion should be left to the Prime Minister and to other party leaders to make direct nominations, as at present, to maintain flexibility of action. It is right to spell out the fact that the role of the second Chamber should also be different from that of the Commons, reducing its powers to thwart the wishes of elected members but clarifying and perhaps enhancing its role in debating, advising, reporting and scrutinising the work of government.
In reality, we have a straight choice between election and appointment. The compromises of part-election are the worst option, with the invidious outcome of two classes of members—elected and appointed. My right hon. Friend said that we had it at present with hereditary Members. There would be an entirely different division and there would inevitably ultimately be pressure for a fully elected option.
Therefore, I urge the House not to be lured by the false and misleading argument that democracy would be enhanced by having two elected Chambers. In my view, it would lead to an undermining of the position of individual MPs and to a constant battle between the two Houses, with resultant constitutional chaos. We should do what we know to be right, and not what is seen to be politically correct.
3.19 pm
Mr. Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe): I rise to make the case for parliamentary democracy. In this Chamber, that should be as easy as making the case for early release to the residents of Wormwood Scrubs. However, I have the feeling that, as the debate goes on, we will find that there is considerable dissension from the basic principle on which innocent people might believe we were all elected to this House.
I begin by making it clear that I am as big a radical as the right hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes). My ideal would be a 100 per cent. elected upper House, but I shall not devote too much of my limited time to that option, as I am a realist. I agree with all those who say that we must not allow the best to be the enemy of the good when it comes to sensible reform. Therefore, I would also support an upper House in which the elected proportion was 80 per cent., or even
60 per cent., if necessary. However, for the reasons that I shall give, I would be very disappointed if the proceedings in this House, which will guide the Joint Committee's work in the future, resulted in an upper House that was anything less than 80 per cent. elected.Surprisingly, given that my view is so radically different from that of the right hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, my motives in advocating a largely elected upper House are to strengthen Parliament's control over the Executive. In the public interest, that should be our only guiding motive underlying this debate. I agree with all those who say that it is rather urgent that we address this matter. I do not believe that people are refusing to vote because there are too many elections or because they are weary of politicians and have lost interest in the issues involved. The perception of the electorate is that Parliament matters less and that the Executive are all powerful. People are troubled by the belief that there is little that they can do by way of democratic elections that will have a significant effect on their daily lives. That is why parliamentary reform is a matter of some urgency.
It is inescapably true that, in the years that I have been in the House, the power of the Executive has greatly increased. Modern Executives are much bigger and more all-embracing than they used to be. I regret to say that the power of Parliament—or at least of this House of Parliament—has steadily lessened. There is no conspiracy behind that: I am not saying that anyone intended that to happen, and I do not want to make a party-political point. I have been a member of the Executive longer than I have been without office in this House, but there is no doubt that today's House of Commons is far weaker in its influence on Government and on public affairs than the one that I joined. We need to deal with that matter.
I accept that dealing with the problem that I have set out involves reform of this House as much as of the upper House. That is outside the scope of this debate, but hon. Members have unknowingly allowed too much control over the process of holding the Government to account to pass out of their hands.
In many respects, I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). This unaccustomed outbreak of unity among Opposition Members should not alarm Labour Members, as there are plenty who disagree with both my right hon. Friend and me about reform of the House of Lords. I agree with my right hon. Friend that the failure of the Leader of the House's recent and well-judged attempt to give back to the House control of the composition of its own Select Committees at least was extremely unfortunate. However, that debate is for another day.
I reject the idea that an elected and therefore stronger upper House will somehow weaken the Commons yet further. Again, I do not have to repeat at great length the arguments against that idea, as only one strong dissenting view has so far emerged. I have never understood the proposition. A stronger upper House would complement this House. The Commons is not being asked to give up any of its privileges. If it wishes, it can entrench its own supremacy, and underline existing conventions and relevant legislation by insisting that the
Commons alone can determine levels of taxation and public expenditure. We could leave the upper House with a delaying power only, which could be overridden by the Parliament Acts and which would not amount to an absolute power of veto on legislation. That would be quite sufficient. The fact that Governments would be formed according to their majorities in this House would make it clear that the Commons is paramount in the nation's affairs.I am sure that the right hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley is an assiduous constituency Member. However, I thought he sounded a little concerned about the risk of personal competition if a more assiduous representative of constituents in his part of Scotland were elected to the upper House. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman has nothing to fear, but Members of this House might benefit from a little competition occasionally. It is not unknown for some to follow the Whip so faithfully and to be so loyally dependant on the patronage of their leaders and the docile following of supporters in safe seats—which certainly exist in parts of south-central Scotland—that the quality of representation declines. A little competition in that respect would do no harm.
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