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However, I agree with most of what the noble Lord said so comprehensively about the right to roam and the openness of the arts. When he said that, I thought about the local library in my home city of Swansea. When I was a boy, the local library was full of stygian gloom and one was afraid of entering into it. Now it is gloriously open-with children before screens, comics and so on-and it is a joy to enter. What a change. My noble friend also mentioned the triumphs of the new deal, the minimum wage and the way in which the sclerotic constitution of this country has been radically altered over the period. In his theme of openness he mentioned the freedom of information legislation, which, of course, is a great inconvenience to government but which is, nevertheless, a key part of our democracy, with crucial new rights.
I think also, of course, of the technical advances we have made. We may dislike e-mails but, since having had the good fortune to come down this Corridor from the other side, I notice that my former colleagues down the Corridor are besieged by the e-mails which dominate their lives. Nevertheless, e-mails link them to the citizens and people they represent in a proper way.
My noble friend's second theme was that of tolerance. The cause of tolerance has also taken great strides over that time, as evidenced by the speech that the Minister, John Denham, is going to make today. For example, the way in which racism was tolerated when I was a boy is no longer acceptable; and the jokes which were then acceptable are no longer funny. I refer to the new Ipsos MORI survey carried out for the Equality and Human Rights Commission which underlines that trend and shows that Britain is becoming a more racially tolerant society. The picture overall is very optimistic.
The reason for these changes is partly a new multiculturalism and a new attitude on the part of our people, but legislation has played a part, too. The great milestones and landmarks in the history of tolerance have been laid by Labour Governments, from the Race Relations Acts of 1965 and 1968 through to
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I shall not dwell at length on democracy. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, mentioned the devolution which came about post-1997 and which means that we have brought power closer to the people, with some problems that have emerged. Nevertheless, there is no turning back and I think there is a welcome acceptance now of the devolution settlement. So often-this is perhaps the only partisan thing that I shall say-the Conservative Party will oppose any reform until it becomes a tradition. I recall even as a young Member of Parliament for a rural constituency, Monmouth, seeing the enormous upset over the introduction of breathalysers in 1967. I received sackloads of pro forma, signed documents which stated discreetly at the bottom: "Published for and on behalf of the Licensed Victuallers Association". I think that I had only two letters in favour, both from Protestant pastors. Yet who now would want to turn back the clock and stop the controls over drinking and driving?
Following the theme of the noble Lord, Lord Patten, I sound one note of caution, about what I call managing the pendulum. One of the challenges to emerge in the midst of all the positive changes that have been made during the past 10 years is that of the swinging pendulum. When the pendulum has swung too far in one direction, there is naturally a public reaction against it and a danger therefore that the reforming zeal of those seeking correction will swing it too far in the other direction. Perhaps the best example of this in our history was the Charles II revolution after the Cromwellite period in the 1650s-perhaps I could designate myself as a moderate Roundhead. It is important to understand the stresses which have been generated as a result of some of the changes-I think that my noble friend was prepared to accept some of those. I am pleased that it is now clear that the Government are prepared to look again at 24-hour drinking, for example. Moreover, it is said in today's press that they are ready to fix minimum prices for alcohol in an effort to curb binge drinking, which is a part of "set the people free" and where the pendulum has swung too far.
It has been seen in the Equality Bill that the Government have not really understood the role of clerics, pastors and others. However, it is seen also, although this is not directly to do with the Government, that there are ways in which the Christian faith has been marginalised; for example, the nurse who prayed for a patient, the teaching assistant who shared her faith with pupils, and the Christian registrar. Many more examples can be given, some of which the Bench of Bishops have mentioned. I think of the attitude to the Roman Catholic adoption societies, where a reasonable compromise could have been reached.
I raise these concerns, but, overall, I readily acknowledge the welcome advances made by the Government. I am sure that we all acknowledge that this country is still a very good place to live. There are queues at Calais of people wanting to come here; there are no queues at Dover to leave this great country.
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Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I remind noble Lords about the speaking time limits, otherwise my noble friend Lord Davies will have no time to reply.
3.45 pm
Lord Borrie: My Lords, in terms of government priorities, I have no doubt that the economic well-being of people in terms of jobs and value for money in the shops as well as the greater advancement of international trade deserves to come out at the top. However, my noble friend Lord Harrison has done a most useful task in initiating a debate on the much wider issue in which government policy can also be very important-namely, how to improve the kind of society that we generally live in.
One Bill that the Government are bravely trying to get on to the statute book before the magic date of a general election is the Equality Bill. To my mind, that is a tremendous example of the Government trying to build on many decades of government success in combating the blot of discrimination in various fields in our society. The Equality Bill marks a broad level of that achievement. On the narrower level, as has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, is the Civil Partnership Bill. That is an example of a sign that we have progressed to a more tolerant society than used to be the case. Of course, the examples that several have given already of free entry to our museums and national galleries demonstrate that our heritage in art and culture is meant to be available for all to have access and enjoy. Those changes are all examples of a civilised approach, to use a general term, to the kind of society that we want to live in.
Just over 50 years ago, Tony Crosland published his influential book, The Future of Socialism. At the request of the then general secretary of the Fabian Society, now more generally known as the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, I did the index to that book-and, of course, if you do an index to a book you have to read it so thoroughly that you get a bit bored with it. I was certainly most influenced by that book. Tony Crosland was once described by his rival intellectual in the Labour Party, Dick Crossman, as the Labour Party's only other thinker. What struck me, more than anything that Tony Crosland said about the economic situation, was what he said on broader matters. The language may seem a little old-fashioned now, but he called for action to be taken to,
- "widen opportunities for enjoyment and relaxation, and to diminish existing restrictions on personal freedom".
"We need not only higher exports and old-age pensions, but more open-air cafes",
and later closing-hours for public houses. Those are the types of things that the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, mentioned. Sadly, Crosland died young, as noble Lords will recall, when Callaghan's Foreign Secretary in 1977, but he lived to see some of the reforms that he wanted carried out during the lifetime of the Wilson Governments of the 1960s and 1970s, for which his colleague Roy Jenkins deserves quite a lot of praise. This example has not been used in this debate, but he would certainly have been pleased to see the end of the Lord Chamberlain and the censorship of theatre productions in 1968.
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At times, I am a bit concerned that my party gives the impression not of promoting personal freedom but of adopting a more negative approach, sometimes seeking to ban anything of which it disapproves. Hunting with dogs was mentioned-and I noted the gentle way in which the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, mentioned it. Even when a ban of some sort is justified on health grounds, for example, such as the ban on smoking in public places, we should examine very closely and perhaps more than we have the extent of the ban and the possibility of deleterious side effects. I believe-and this is a purely personal view-that the smoking ban has improved the health of many and enhanced the comfort of many more who have been unwilling, passive smokers for many a long year. However, I am not at all sure that we needed, for example, the latest Health Act to go further by imposing restrictions on the display of tobacco products.
More generally, my own view is that Labour and Labour Governments, irrespective of whether some of their members later joined another party, have enhanced personal freedoms-in the course of this Labour Government, particularly through the Human Rights Act. We need to keep the desirability of personal freedom and tolerance at the forefront of our consideration of all legislation that comes before Parliament. Some legislation has to be restrictive, imposing bans, but let us never forget the other side of the question: which personal freedoms may be lost as we move on?
3.51 pm
Lord Judd: My Lords, preparing for this reflective debate, so thoughtfully secured by my noble friend Lord Harrison, I turned to the Oxford dictionary and looked up "tolerate". It is described as,
Meanwhile, "tolerant" is described as,
Is that enough? Surely there is room for an even more positive approach. What about compassion, caring and solidarity? We talk a great deal about the poor, the handicapped, the young, the elderly and the excluded, but in our managerial society how often do we talk with them, listen to them or respond rather than prescribe? Is it not high time to ponder these aspects of our mercenary culture? Do technological developments invariably empower, or do they sometimes disempower?
Consider diversity. I am bewildered when people whom in many ways I respect deny the concept of a multicultural society, as if there is something inherently wrong with it. Diversity is one of the richest assets in the human story and the nature of creation. God forbid that we become a stunted bog of mediocrity and homogeneity. The exciting challenge is to make a success of multiculturalism, to celebrate it and not to dismiss it. It is on the foundations of lively diversity that we can build a healthy and vigorous social dynamic
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The Motion refers to democracy. It seems to me that the viability of democracy depends on a creative tension between imaginative, visionary leadership and strong, well informed accountability. Is part of the public alienation from politics perhaps related to the extent to which politicians have become increasingly perceived as a closed, professional class? Is there not a need to ventilate that and open it up? Society is a matrix; could we miss a gigantic opportunity if we fail to reform this House into a second Chamber that convincingly reflects that matrix rather than into a pale, carbon copy of the Commons, with membership in effect largely coming through the existing, relatively narrow political machinery? In the same context, it is encouraging that the debate is no longer about whether but how we move to a more convincingly proportionally representative electoral system.
The success of democracy is also related to the quality of education. Is this now trapped in an overutilitarian approach? Do we need to reassert the importance of education as an end in itself in terms of the quality of life and the fulfilment of the individual? Must we not prioritise, producing self-confident, well informed and, one hopes, constructively critical citizens? It is vital to stem a trend towards blurring the distinction between consumerism and citizenship. We may indeed receive more questionnaires than ever before, but citizenship is about drafting the questions.
Of course, we must have effective management, but a flourishing political democracy is about spelling out and debating the objectives for which the management is required. Yes, good, qualified people in the engine room are essential, but the destination must be clear and the vision of those on the bridge is indispensable. Management cannot be an end in itself if we are to enhance the quality of our civilisation. Values desperately matter. We must see the objective as being when people are stimulated to want to vote, not when they are induced to do so by one device or another.
I am convinced that one of the great achievements of the present Government is devolution. In an age of globalisation, people badly need a sense of identity, but the challenge is to ensure that with that sense of identity the effective national and international co-operation, without which humanity is doomed, is generated. Perhaps a next step in our own constitutional evolution will prove before too long to be a federal United Kingdom. There is the West Lothian question to be resolved; it cannot be swept under the carpet.
Where I believe the Government deserve very positive recognition is in having demonstrated that constitutional change in the cause of a better-quality democracy is possible. The beginning of a better ethnic mix among the Members of this House is a very good example. Yes, of course, there are inconsistencies, each step reveals new contradictions and certainly we have a
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3.57 pm
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for initiating this debate. In recent years I have spent a lot of time looking at the state of British democracy, having had the honour of chairing, first, Charter 88, which played an important role in the Government's constitutional reform programme when they came to office in 1997, and then the Power inquiry for the Rowntree Trust, which reported in 2007.
I believe that Britain is probably one of the most tolerant, freedom-loving countries in the world. The strength of our democracy comes from many values: respecting the right of others to live as they please, so long as they are causing no harm; a healthy scepticism about state power, which keeps our politicians on their toes; a belief in the right of others to express their views freely, which gives rise to our free press; and in recent times an increased desire to see light shone in dark corners to flush out systemic abuse. We have one of the finest judiciaries in the world, with no hint of corruption. We have a rich civil society, which comes from a willingness of people to volunteer in millions of ways to improve the lot of others.
The list of good things is long and others have contributed to it in the debate, but that is not to say that everything is perfect within our system. In recent times our democratic system has taken something of a battering, with profound public concern and disillusionment after the allowances scandal and, before that, the scandal of loans for peerages and the taint of corporate lobbyists possibly being able to influence policy. There is political disengagement, particularly among the young, which is a serious threat to democracy. Much of it comes from a sense that politicians are unable to hold the Executive to account and from people feeling that they themselves have very little power and that their voice is not heard.
I have taken part in this debate to convey some good news. Last weekend, as a follow-on from the Power inquiry, a campaign called Power2010 held a deliberative poll. It was an unprecedented experiment in deliberative democracy. It was unprecedented because we have never before had an experiment on such a scale here in Britain and because the issues, rather than coming from government or some campaign group, were put forward by the public themselves. The poll was overseen by a team of political scientists from Stanford University led by Professor Jim Fishkin. He is the global maestro of such processes and has used his methodology for deliberative polling in bringing reform to different parts of the United States, Canada, Greece, Japan and, more recently, even China. He has been involved in deliberative polling in the European Union and in Australia.
Last weekend, 130 people came together-a representative sample of the United Kingdom put together by YouGov by boiling down our nation into a large hall. They came together to discuss, debate and learn about how our democracy works and to consider
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The results were extraordinary. They showed us that when people are given good information they make sensible, well informed decisions. That was not new to me, because I have practised for many years in the courts-I am a trial lawyer-and I have considerable experience of juries. One of the things that juries have taught me is that the public can be trusted so long as they are given good information and allowed to debate outcomes in a safe and reassuring environment.
Changes can very easily be knee-jerk if you simply ask the public's opinion without giving them good information. That is when there is intolerance and when serious risks are posed to our democracy. ID cards are a good example. When first asked, "Do you want ID cards?", a significant percentage of the public said yes. After the debates that have taken place, the reflection is very different. When polled before the process last weekend, people were keen on all manner of populist solutions. Yet when they discussed the options, heard the arguments and were able to ask questions of experts in the field-mainly professors of politics-they often came to very different conclusions. The results of the outgoing poll after two days of deliberation were nuanced, conscientious and very different from the views expressed at the beginning.
Noble Lords can find the results on the Power2010 website, where one can vote on the reforms, which this cross-section of the public ranked in order of priority. The purpose is to create a set of five key reforms to take to the political parties and candidates at the next election. It was interesting that at the top of the poll came the strengthening of Parliament. People did not want some mad reform; they wanted a strengthening of Select Committees, more free votes for Members of Parliament, more parliamentary time for MPs' Bills and-would you believe it?-less use of statutory instruments. Most of them did not previously have a clue what a statutory instrument was, but when they found out they started thinking, "Of course there are circumstances when they are useful, but they should not be overused". That was interesting. They wanted voting at weekends, on a Sunday-why not? They wanted "None of the above" to be on the ballot paper. They wanted a strengthening of local government.
The people were dissuaded from an English Parliament. They were not happy about that idea. When it was pointed out that Scotland has a population of only 5 million, Ireland only one point whatever million and Wales three point something million, that England
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I just say to your Lordships that a way in which we can enrich our representative democracy is by allowing people's voices to be heard on important issues. That, I think, is certainly better than turning too readily to referenda. The good news for your Lordships-I want to say this before I sit down-is that reform of the House of Lords was not very high on the public's list of priorities. When they heard the experts' different views and understood our role, they thought that it was much more complex than it had at first appeared. They did not want an elected House as a knee-jerk reaction; they wanted more reflection on it. I suggest that a deliberative poll might be the way of taking this matter forward and having the public properly debate the issues.
Over the past 12 years, the Government have done many positive things on creating tolerance and they have many things of which to be proud. However, the protection of our democracy means that we have to be constantly vigilant. We have to find new ways of retuning the vibrancy of our democracy and we have to make real efforts to regain public trust.
4.06 pm
Lord Mitchell: My Lords, God bless the British public: it seems that there will be no reform of the House of Lords. I thank my noble friend Lord Harrison for his introduction to this debate, which was full of content, uplifting and, on a very gloomy and grey day out there, very cheery.
In 1964, as a very excited 21 year-old, I left London for New York. I had been accepted for a postgraduate degree at Columbia University and I could hardly contain myself. One of the first things that struck me on my arrival was that I had dropped into the centre of the world's greatest melting pot. I had never seen such a melange of faces, colours, languages and restaurants-each community with its own strong sense of identity, culture and political power.
For a Jew, New York was a wonder to behold. Jews have a strong presence in that city and in those days more Jews lived in New York than in Israel. I was staggered at Hanukkah to see the local branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank with menorah candles in the shop front. That was unheard of in London. Had I been Irish, Puerto Rican or Afro-American, I am sure that I would have had a similar sensation. It made me feel very provincial, having left a London that then was very white and very homogeneous. Sure I was Jewish, but we were a small minority nestling in the outer reaches of north-west London.
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