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Lord Skidelsky: My Lords, I apologise.
Lord Renton: Clause 1 is plain enough, but it is fairly far-reaching and we should bear that in mind. Clause 2, strictly speaking, is not necessary, but it has the advantage of removing doubts which might arise. Those are the only two clauses of substance in the Bill.
Those are the only points I wish to make. I hope that the Government, my own Front Bench and members of all parties, in considering the future composition of your Lordships' House, will bear in mind that its powers and the powers of the other place should be related to the talent, experience and expertise available in each House.
8.58 p.m.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, we may be suffering from a certain amount of "reform fatigue" when we get to further discussions on the future of the House of Lords. After all, we had two days of debate last week in which there were no fewer than 81 speakers, of whom I was the 79th and the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House was the 81st. Nevertheless, the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, has performed a useful service by introducing his Bill—although, as he admitted, the Bill is, in effect, a peg on which to hang a debate rather than a Bill introduced with any hope of proceeding into legislation. The noble Lord has performed a useful service because last week's debate was overwhelmingly concerned with composition, whereas this one is primarily concerned with the function and powers of the second Chamber. My noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby said last week that reform of your Lordships' House must be considered in the context of reform of Parliament as a whole. I believe that almost everyone agreed with that sentiment but almost everybody devoted themselves largely to considering the composition of the House. In this evening's short debate, we have had the chance to consider the House's functions and powers.
My noble friend Lady Williams made it clear that we want an extension of the functions—rather than powers—of the House. We could usefully perform many functions that we do not. Most obvious among
them is the creation of a Select Committee for scrutinising treaties. There is the possibility of non-legislative participation in debates on fiscal issues. There is a great deal of taxation expertise in the House. It is unfortunate that there is no possibility of that expertise being used in debates on budgetary issues. I am not suggesting for a moment that we ought to have any powers over money Bills but at least it should be possible to establish a Select Committee to look at fiscal and budgetary issues.There is a strong case also for a Select Committee that would undertake proper scrutiny of secondary legislation and to strengthen the scrutiny of European legislation—matters raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton.
Different factors come into account when one considers a clawback of powers to block or delay legislation. I believe that particular debate was settled by the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 and that it would not be appropriate at this stage to reopen it. I do not believe either that this House wants to challenge the primacy of the other place. No suggestion was made in last week's debate that we would wish to do so. We certainly do not want to restore any possibility of legislative gridlock.
One of the anomalies in the Bill is that a measure introduced relatively late in the second Session of a Parliament would take longer to reach the statute book than a measure introduced early in the third. That is a minor matter. There may be a few constitutional issues on which this House should have a power of veto or the power to call a referendum. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson of Lymington, that there is a strong case for entrenching the existing powers of your Lordships' House—including the power of veto over any attempt to lengthen the life of a Parliament—by requiring the consent of this House as well as that of the other place before any such provision could be enacted.
Extending a general delaying power for Bills introduced in the first two Sessions of Parliament goes well beyond that proposal. I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky. Whatever might have happened if there had been no First World War and an elected second Chamber had come into existence in 1916 or 1917, that was a long time ago. Far too much water has passed under the bridge since then. It is too late to claw back additional delaying powers over those that your Lordships' House has now.
The noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy, referred to the views recently expressed in an article in The Sunday Telegraph by the Leader of the Opposition, which—as I understand it—represent in substance the Conservative Party's official line. I strongly agree with the view expressed by Mr. Robin Cook in the quotation given by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts—that membership of the second Chamber should represent the way in which the electorate voted, not the way in which those votes were transmuted into seats in the other place. That would simply create in this House a clone of the other place. While we welcome the
conversion of the Leader of the Opposition to the idea of a mainly elected second Chamber, the methods of election that he proposes are unacceptable.A first-past-the-post election based on counties of unequal size, with a balance tilted towards rural areas, would give the Conservatives a substantial and effectively permanent advantage in elections to the second Chamber. In normal times, they would preserve—although perhaps not continually—the Conservative majority that has existed in this House since time immemorial. That is not a democratic system and we would be entirely unable to support it.
9.7 p.m.
Lord Saatchi: My Lords, it is my great pleasure to conclude on behalf of Conservative Members this wonderful debate on an important subject. I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Renton of Mount Harry on the simple and careful drafting of his Bill and on his impeccable timing in bringing forward this measure at a moment when he knew that your Lordships would be focused on reform of the House.
I say right away that we want to see a stronger and more secure upper House. We hope that the Joint Committee on the reform of your Lordships' House—if it is formed as we hope that it will be; the noble Lords, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, Lord Hylton and Lord Roberts, also said that they would like to see such a committee established, as did so many other speakers last week—will consider my noble friend's proposal as an important contribution to their deliberations. I assume that the Government will want to lend the same kind of support to it in principle because it conforms with the views of the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House that the new House of Lords is more democratic, more legitimate and better equipped to do its proper job of holding the executive to account.
My noble friend Lord Renton of Mount Harry has introduced a modest Bill to give effect to that aim or at least to test its sincerity. The Bill proposes to disapply the Parliament Act 1949 for the first half of a Parliament. In other words, for the first half of a Parliament the House of Lords would have a greater period of delay than for the second half, when the 1949 Act would apply.
That arose because after the 1911 Act Members of your Lordships' House still had the power to frustrate legislation approved by the Commons in the last two years of a full Parliament's life. During debate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, and the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, both drew attention to the fact that both Acts were, as the noble and learned Lord said, "responses to immediate imperatives" and as the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky said, to "historic accident".
I believe that it is worth taking a moment of your Lordships' time to describe what actually happened which, I believe, only the noble Lord, Lord Renton, himself will be able to recall. In his memoirs the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, described exactly what happened and what were the Government's motives with the 1949 Act. He wrote:
- "The Government attached much importance to the achievement of its purpose of nationalising the iron and steel industries within the life of the current Parliament. A Bill brought forward for the first time during the 1948-49 Session would not benefit from the protection of the Parliament Act 19ll. It was [he says] with this immediate and particular objective in view that the Labour Government brought forward its Parliament Bill which proposed to amend the existing Act of 1911 by reducing the delaying period from two Sessions to one".
During the Bill's passage, Lord Salisbury moved an amendment which declined to give a Second Reading to the Bill,
- "for which the nation has expressed no desire".
- "We believe that the power of a second Chamber to refer back to the electorate doubtful measures which deal with issues of the first importance is absolutely vital to the survival of democracy. We believe that that power provides probably the most essential safeguard in the constitution . . . and that equilibrium can be maintained only by some power of delay".—[Official Report, 27/1/48; cols. 644-47.]
This debate tonight has been about the proper scope of your Lordships' power of delay, but it is only one of several issues recently raised in your Lordships' House concerning the Parliament Act. In the past 12 months this is actually the second Bill and the third debate that we have had on the subject of the Parliament Act.
The first of two Bills seeking to amend the Parliament Act was introduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, and received its Second Reading on 19th January last year. I am most grateful to him again this evening for pointing out the "serious omission" on entrenchment that he detected in the White Paper.
It was only a week after that on 24th January that the second debate was initiated by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, calling attention to the Parliament Act in the light of constitutional changes.
The third such debate was on the Second Reading of a Bill which I had the privilege of introducing into your Lordships' House; namely, the House of Lords (Financial Powers) Bill, which brought about a redefinition of a money Bill for the purposes of the 1911 Act so that the present blanket disqualification of the House of Lords in public finance is partly lifted.
The question is: why have all these Bills concerning the Parliament Act suddenly appeared in the past 12 months? I believe that it is simple. As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, explained, with its changes to the composition of your Lordships' House,
- "the balance of power has been disturbed"
The result is that Members of your Lordships' House, as tonight with this Bill, have focused their minds on two particular aspects of the Parliament Act which set the balance between the two House during the last century. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, showed, during the course of the Second
Reading of his Bill—the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, reminded us of exactly the same point tonight—that the Parliament Act 1911 was,
- "an interim measure . . . pending a constitutional change".
Tonight my noble friend Lord Renton and the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, reminded us of a second relevant aspect of the history of the Parliament Act 1911, which is that its raison d'etre was the hereditary nature of the composition of the upper House. The then Prime Minister, Mr Asquith, made that crystal clear by introducing the Parliament Bill into another place in 1911. However, as was clearly expressed by my noble friend Lord Renton and the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, the Government have now removed the hereditary Peers. They have gone. The Government have cut this House in half in the most dramatic change in 600 years. For the first time, elected Peers are to be introduced.
Yet I fear that the Government's response to calls for changes in the powers and functions of this House will be the same tonight as it has been previously. Even when those calls come from all sides of this House, even when the case is argued as superbly as it was by my noble friend Lord Renton, even when it is argued with images as clear as if they were two blades of the same scissors, the point that composition and powers go together is met with a blank on the part of the Government. I hope that my noble friend's Bill will not receive the same dusty answer as others of us have received.
The view of the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House, which he expressed on the previous occasion when we debated this subject, is that:
- "Essentially nothing has changed that requires any modification of the Parliament Acts".—[Official Report, 24/1/01; col. 299.]
Is it not a real mystery that a Government who so despise the forces of conservatism, and who are led with such distinction in this House by the noble and learned Lord—a self-confessed questioner and radical—should be so anxious to uphold history and tradition that they use the events of 100 years ago as the basis for their policy? Why are they so resistant to change? Is it not because, in the mind of the Government, the real analogy is not with cups and saucers, but more in line with the words of Hartley Shawcross in 1946:
- "We are the masters now"—
The trouble is that if the servant is dressed up in smart new clothes, he may start to think better of himself and think less of his master. The bad luck for the Government in terms of timing is that, just as the servant has been given his new, modern dress, the master has begun to look a little faded around the edges. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, reminded us of the low esteem in which Members of another place are now held. So, splendidly, did the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, in last week's debate, when he said:
- "The House of Commons has recently reduced itself to a lower level in public esteem, a less effective watchdog of the executive . . . than I have ever known, whether in my own direct experience of 54 years in Parliament or in my modern historical writing and reading".—[Official Report, 10/1/02; Col. 701.]
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, summed the matter up perfectly. He said that we now have the most uncontrolled Ministers in the western democratic world. So the master may have inadvertently participated in one of the oldest stories in literature, which tells children of the mayhem caused when geniis leave bottles and Pandora's Box is opened. This is why the Government are so keen to keep a lid on this debate as on all three predecessor debates. That is why they wish to keep the Parliament Act unchallenged, its iconic status intact.
The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, said that the Government's motives were barely concealed. Perhaps I may bring them out into the light. The Prime Minister's view of the Parliament Act can be summed up in a syllogism: "I like to be in control. The Parliament Act gives me control. The Parliament Act is good".
You can make a House of Parliament more legitimate and you can give it more power; or you can make a House less legitimate and give it less power. But what you surely cannot do is to make a House more legitimate and simultaneously reduce its power—which is what the Government are proposing.
The power of delay is a crucial one. We should be grateful to my noble friend for drawing it to our attention by introducing his Bill. I hope that the Joint Committee, when it is formed, will consider it worthy of its consideration.
9.19 p.m.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I am also most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, for introducing the Bill. I had a nightmare the other evening and I woke up thinking that a day might pass without us devoting our attention to the subject of greatest interest to many of us—our own future. Fortunately, he has saved me from that gloom.
I am sorry to tell the noble Lord, Lord Renton, that I think that he has inadvertently fallen into error. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, is still alive, so he can remember the passage of the Parliament Act 1949 as well.
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