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Mr. Tom Clarke (Coatbridge and Chryston): I intervene mainly because my hon. Friend referred to me. Last night I did my duty as an elected Member of this United Kingdom Parliament and as my constituents would have expected me to do. Those who would seek to influence me not to vote on, for example, Northern Ireland matters—particularly, if I may say so with respect, if those people represent the Conservative and Unionist party—should recognise that they are playing right into the hands of the separatists.
On the point made by my hon. Friend, I have not always supported the Government; I opposed them on incapacity benefit. [Hon. Members: "Give way."] However, and here I conclude, the point came when Lord Ashley of Stoke and I, who, if you like, led that rebellion, accepted, as Lord Ashley said, that the
democratic House had spoken. He accepted that judgment, and it is time that that wisdom was replicated in another place.
Mr. Bell: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. By way of an intervention he made a better speech than I could. I am grateful to you for your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker.
My right hon. Friend made a valid point which I made earlier, and if I may I will repeat myself. Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends voted with the Conservatives last night as a matter of conscience. They expressed their wish and their will, and they opposed their own party. However, what we are now debating is a motion through which the unelected upper House can seek to impose its will on an elected Chamber. Two of my hon. Friends have already said today that this is a question of the constitution, and I am sure that all my colleagues will now vote with the Government—I urge them to do so.
Mr. Hawkins: The hon. Gentleman is looking at how the role of the upper House as a revising Chamber may affect this motion. Does he accept that the practical reality is that, because of the Government's tight guillotines, the upper House is now the only House that has the opportunity to debate matters such as those arising from the Criminal Justice Bill, in full?
The Government could have all bar about three clauses of their huge Criminal Justice Bill by agreement with the democratic Chamber, so is not the other place entitled to claim that it is doing its job as a revising Chamber by saying to the Government that they can have 305 clauses of the Bill if they just take out the three that many of the hon. Gentleman's colleagues do not like any more than we do?
Mr. Bell: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, but I reiterate what the Leader of the House and the Secretary of State for Health have said. Certainly in the case of the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill, if not the Criminal Justice Bill, these questions go to the heart of Government policy. I surmise, without straying too far from the motion, that if the Government had lost the vote last night, it would have been a matter for a vote of confidence in this Chamber. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) would have been the first to call for that, and I would have supported that call.
What the Lords are doing is not revising. We have already been told that 90 amendments have been accepted by the Government. What we are seeing now is a policy put forward by the Government, and supported by a majority in this House, being contested and rejected by the Lords, creating not a constitutional crisis but a constitutional difficulty. If, under the terms of the motion, the House sits on Monday and Tuesday, we should take all that into account.
Mr. Burns : With regard to the Bill dealing with foundation hospitals, will the hon. Gentleman bear it in
mind that those policies were not in the Labour party manifesto, and they were rejected by the Labour party conference in October?
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. We are not discussing the merits of the subject matter of legislation.
Mr. Bell: I always seek your protection, Madam Deputy Speaker, but if I may, I shall make a brief response to the hon. Gentleman. Every Queen's Speech that I have listened to over the past 20 years has said, "and other Bills will be presented to you". Those Bills were not always in the manifesto.
Mr. Tom Harris : Is my hon. Friend aware that, once again, the other place has voted for the amendments on jury trials and fraud? Does that not confirm exactly his point that the powers of the other place have to be curbed in favour of maintaining the supremacy of this Chamber?
Mr. Bell: I am making this speech as a humble barrister. I did not get into the debate on jury trials, and I will not get into it now. However, the only examination that I ever passed with any distinction was one on constitutional law, and the lesson that I learned from that was that the other place must always yield to the supremacy of this Chamber. What we are seeing now is a usurpation of that right and a lack of dignity and respect for this Chamber, as my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley said. Last night, this House—certainly 590 of us, if not 650—were ready to sit here to resolve any conflict between the Lords and this place, and the other place refused to do its constitutional duty. Without straying too far from the motion, I can say that that is a challenge to this House, and it is a challenge that I take up, first as a Member of Parliament, secondly as a barrister and thirdly as someone who did well in constitutional law.
Mr. Heald: Is it not right that there should be a process, which is continuing, of trying to produce a Bill that is satisfactory to all parts of the House? What is wrong with the other place saying, as it did last night, "Let us have a pause for reflection—a cooling-off period—and see if we can go that extra mile"?
Mr. Bell: It is not "The Green Mile"—the film that the hon. Gentleman may have seen, as I have—to which he refers. He gives me the opportunity to mention a cooling-off period. The House of Lords is a revising Chamber—a Chamber intended to send matters back, to make recommendations and sometimes to cool off the emotions of this House. That function has hitherto been exercised fairly well. But, as the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) said yesterday, when a debate has been going on for almost a year in this place and the other place, and when, a day before prorogation, after the House and the Government have indicated that they will not yield on matters of substance on Government policy, the other place turns that down, creating the need for the motion before the Chamber today, possibly requiring
Parliament to come back on Monday and Tuesday, that is not revising. It is not cooling off. It is, if I may use the vernacular, cocking a snook.
Mr. Bryant: Is it not just downright recidivism, for that matter?
Mr. Bell: If I spoke about recidivists, I would be getting into the Criminal Justice Bill, and I do not wish to exercise that right at this moment. I see, even in a short space of time, a repetition of the proceedings before the Parliament Act 1911, when the other place sought to interfere with the taxation powers of this House. In 1949 the law was changed again because of the intolerable delays that the House of Lords created in the nationalisation programme of a Labour Government. We are now seeing a third attempt to usurp the functions of an elected Government. That never happened under the Conservatives, even though there was a cooling-off period and many amendments were moved. The Tory Government were defeated many times and the legislation returned to the House. There was a cooling-off period, but there was never a motion such as the one before us to be debated two days before prorogation. That is a challenge to the supremacy of the House.
Mr. Blunt: Was that not because the Government then were wise enough to negotiate a compromise with the other House in order to get their legislation through?
Mr. Bell: The former Conservative Government and the present Government have both sought to clarify issues with the Lords, sought to amend or improve their legislation with the Lords, and by and large were successful. Whether the principle of the Bills was accepted is another matter. By accepting 90 amendments to the present legislation, the present Government have shown themselves prepared to fall over backwards to please the House of Lords and to take into account what the Lords said. We come back to the point made by the Leader of the House: this is a challenge to our supremacy. Those on the Conservative Benches—I see many in the House, I see Chairmen of Committees, and I respect them—understand the principle of supremacy and the challenge to this House. I should be surprised if they continue with that challenge by supporting the other place.
Mr. Tom Harris: Opposition Members criticised my hon. Friend earlier for suggesting that more Labour peers should be created in order to get the Government's manifesto commitments through the other place. He has been in the House long enough to remember that in 1990 the Conservatives made sure that every single hereditary peer in the country—people who had never once attended the House of Peers—were drafted into the House of Lords to push through the poll tax legislation. Does that not show utter contempt for the democratic process of both Houses?
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