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Mr. Andrew Tyrie (Chichester): Everybody knows that things did not pan out in February quite as had been intended, including those who may have opposed or supported an all-elected Chamber. That was partly because there were so many votes on offer, and a good number of people for whom this is not the most important issue in the world got somewhat confused between all the options. What the Government now propose is a take-it-or-leave-it single option. Why do the Government not offer three or four options—such as an
all-elected, largely elected or all-appointed Chamber—and put it to the vote? The Minister and the Government will thereby see that there is overwhelming support in this Chamber for a largely elected House. If the Government do not do that, will not the public be able to see that that side of the Chamber, or at least the Government seeking to lead that side of the Chamber, has now concluded that it does not want any kind of democracy in the second Chamber, and that this side of the Chamber offers the only way in which the public, who want it, can get it?
Mr. Leslie: I do not wish to give a history lesson to the hon. Gentleman, but back in February, the Joint Committee proposed seven options. Indeed, there was also an option on a unicameral second Chamber, which was defeated. An all-appointed second Chamber was defeated, an all-elected chamber was defeated, 20 per cent. elected was defeated, 80 per cent. elected was defeated, 40 per cent. elected was defeated, 60 per cent. elected was defeated and 50 per cent. elected was defeated. There was therefore no consensus at that time. Those options were chosen by the Joint Committee, members of which come both from this House and the second Chamber. It is therefore perfectly reasonable for the Government to respond in some way to that situation, bringing forward those reforms that are necessary and that can be achieved.
Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley): May I congratulate my hon. Friend—[Interruption.] May I congratulate him on coming up with a solution that maintains the primacy of this elected House of Commons and gets rid of the last vestiges of power of the descendants of robber barons? Will he give me two assurances? First, will the statutory appointments commission be required to take account of geographical representation, particularly Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? Secondly—[Interruption.] I am happy to stay here. Notwithstanding the great improvement in the composition of the second Chamber, will he assure me that we will not give it any more powers to scrutinise Finance Bills?
Mr. Leslie: My hon. Friend is clearly very popular in the Chamber, and I am glad that he provoked such a welcome to his question. I agree, as do both sides of the House—at least there is some consensus on this point—that the House of Commons should be supreme and that the elected Chamber should have primacy. When it comes to composition, however, we still have no consensus. On the statutory appointments commission and whether it would have regard to the make-up of society, the consultation paper proposes that one option could be for it to consider not just issues such as the balance of men and women, ethnicity and so forth but the geographic representation of the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. On his second point, I reaffirm the important principle that the House of Commons should have supremacy on financial matters. The privileges that we have had are well and long established, and I know that the other place will not wish to interfere with those important principles.
John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross): Is the Minister aware that for a great many of us
who are genuinely and fully committed to reform of the other place, this proposal is a fudge that is the worst of all worlds? The core question is the legitimacy of the other place. As long as we can say that it is unelected and therefore illegitimate, it will simply not work. Will he not understand that there is only one valid appointments commission, and that is the people, through the ballot box?
Mr. Leslie: I think that the hon. Gentleman is in the unique position of having served in both Houses, so he knows a certain amount but not, clearly, everything that needs to be known about these questions. He expresses his view, and hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber express different views. Some prefer the composition to be more elected and some prefer it to be more appointed. His view did not prevail, however, in the votes that we had in the House of Commons—[Hon. Members: "Yours didn't."] Nor did my personal view prevail, and I am quite prepared to accept that. What should we do? Should we move forward or continue to have hereditary peers in the second Chamber? I do not believe that that is acceptable and I hope that my hon. Friends and other hon. Members will agree.
Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire): As the Government are in a mess over House of Lords reform and the Commons has rejected seven different options and given no steer on what should happen, is the Minister on the lookout for alternative ideas? Tony Benn wrote a pamphlet in the late 1950s, when he was known as Anthony Wedgewood-Benn, in which he suggested that the Privy Council should become the second Chamber. That would have the distinct advantage of sending all the right honourables along the Corridor and leaving the rest of us here to get on with some serious business.
Mr. Leslie: My hon. Friend seems to be bidding for a place on the Joint Committee. As I said, we are happy to discuss any proposals that come forward with the Joint Committee. I am not sure whether the former right hon. Member for Chesterfield would be best placed to devise a consensus across both sides of the House. The Government are not in a mess, as my hon. Friend suggested. The House of Commons remains divided, so we must make progress as we can.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): Given that it is the Minister's misfortune to present the hypocritical sophistry that passes for Government policy on this matter, and in the light of his failure effectively to respond to the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) or the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), will he have a last stab at explaining to the House how it can be democratic to proceed with the less popular option of appointment rather than the more popular option of election?
Mr. Leslie: By the time that the hon. Gentleman got to his question, he had raised a specific point on how we can step towards a more democratic second Chamber. Yet, we found ourselves in a situation in which neither the House of Lords nor this House would support such a move. We must ask whether the retention of hereditary peers would mean that the second Chamber would be
more or less democratic. I believe that retaining hereditary peers, who are there by virtue of their birth, would be less democratic and that they should go.
Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle): My hon. Friend will be glad to hear that I shall support the Bill on the ground that I do not want to go back to my constituents or local Labour party to tell them that I voted to keep hereditary peers. In February, I voted for a 100 per cent. democratically elected Chamber and a 100 per cent. appointed Chamber because I do not believe in the hybrid system. I went to hear the statement in the other place and Lord Strathclyde, the leader of the Conservatives, threatened to use hereditary peers to interrupt Government business because he did not agree with the policy. Does my hon. Friend agree that the killer comment came from Lord Marsh, who sits on the Cross Benches? He reminded the other place that the Conservative party had a majority in this House and the other House for 18 years yet did nothing about reforming the House of Lords, so we should take no lessons in democracy from Conservatives.
Mr. Leslie: It is interesting that Opposition parties have made not one proposal to try to rectify the balance of the political composition in the second Chamber or to suggest that there should be more Labour peers, who are in a small minority in the second Chamber. I heard Lord Strathclyde's comments and I trust that I should not interpret them as meaning that he would obstruct parliamentary business, because that would be inappropriate. It is possible to take steps toward a final stage and, especially, a consideration of composition, but for the time being, we must recognise that we are where we are and that we need to get rid of the hereditary peers. I am glad to have my hon. Friend's support.
Mr. Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield): As one of those who has adamantly opposed any form of election to the second Chamber and is therefore intrinsically more sympathetic to the central thrust of what the Minister has said than many of his Back-Bench colleagues, may I tell him that I am not happy about the idea of the appointments commission either? Why would it be intrinsically better for the power of appointment to be taken away from the Prime Minister, who is democratically accountable, and given instead to a unaccountable and unelected commission that is currently composed of a building society grandee, a governor of the BBC and an activist from Islington?
Mr. Leslie: We want to create a new statutory appointments commission. One of our proposals is that the commission should make its appointments free from the Prime Minister's patronage or interference and that the number of appointments that it makes should reflect the numbers of seats won or votes cast in a previous general election. That would represent a step toward a more legitimate appointments process. I urge the hon. Gentleman to investigate the proposal more closely because, of course, it is supported by the Conservative Front Benchers.
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