Examination of Witnesses (Questions 53-89)
Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP
13 OCTOBER 2010
Q53 The Chairman: Good morning everyone
and good morning Deputy Prime Minister. Thank you very much for
coming to the Constitution Committee. As you know, we hope that
this is going to be the beginning of a regular series of conversations
between the Committee and you, because, as you said in your memorandum
to us, for which many thanks, you have described your programme
for political renewal as ambitious. We are very grateful for the
memorandum setting that out. We are particularly pleased that
you were able to come on a Wednesday morning, which as we all
know is Prime Minister's Questions day. We recognise that you
will have to leave at about ten to 12. We have a rather ambitious
timetable in that time, so if we may we will plunge straight into
some questions that we wanted to raise with you. We would like
to look at both the strategy and the principles behind your programme
of constitutional renewal, touch on the two Bills that you have
already introduced into the House of Commons and spend some time
on the House of Lords as well. If I may, I would like to start
straight away. As I said earlier, noble Lords will have read your
helpful memorandum to us that you sent earlier. What do you identify
as the principles of your constitutional reform proposals and
how do you respond to those criticisms that have been made in
the other House that they are piecemeal—the word "cherrypicking"
has been used—and have been introduced to Parliament without
adequate preparation and prior consultation?
Nick Clegg: First, thank you very much for allowing
me to appear before you today. I think everybody agrees that these
issues are of great significance, so the experience and insight
of this Committee will be invaluable to us as we further develop
and refine, and we hope strengthen and improve, the proposals
that we have published already and are set to publish in the future.
So I am really very grateful for this opportunity. You asked for
a description of the principles of our approach. I think the starting
point is quite simply that there is a gap between the nature of
British society and the character, design and architecture of
the political institutions that are supposed to represent and
reflect that society. What do I mean by that? I hope that everybody
would accept that some very significant social, demographic, economic
and cultural changes have occurred in recent decades that have
made British society less diffident and deferential in its character,
its politics much less rigid and class-based than it used to be—the
old tribal affiliations and loyalties of community and family
with party have dissolved and broken down. The spread of information
technology has empowered people to gain access to information
that previously was not available in the way that it is now. People
have become used to exercising their rights as consumers in a
much more demanding way than has previously been the case. As
citizens, there is a much greater emphasis on empowerment, on
control and on people being able to shape their own choices in
their own way. Those very profound cultural and social changes
in our view must be reflected in the way in which the political
institutions that represent, reflect and seek to impact on society
are organised. I hope most people would accept that there are
features of our present political arrangements that are secretive
or centralised, in which people do not necessarily feel that their
voices or views are properly represented. We have arrangements
in our electoral system that, with other forces, have led to a
growing trend of mass abstention, with people in a sense absenting
themselves from the political process altogether. The 2001 and
2005 general elections were the first times that more people did
not vote than voted for the winning party. We have inadequate
and still unreformed party funding arrangements. The House of
Lords debate has been raging for a century or so now. It is not
directly accountable to people. In other words, there is a gap.
Now, that gap of course was dramatised in a manner that I do not
think anyone could have expected at the time of the expenses scandal.
That, of course, had its genesis in some very particular and specific
issues to do with the administration of expenses by MPs, but I
think it reveals something wider and bigger, which is a loss of
public faith in the way in which our political institutions reflect
and express their views and articulate them in a representative
democracy. What we are seeking to do, very simply, is to start
trying to close that gap. That is why there is an emphasis in
everything that we are proposing on greater accountability in
the manner in which we conduct ourselves and the way in which
politics is conducted, greater legitimacy in the political institutions
that seek to represent people, and breaking up excessive concentrations
of power and secrecy. Whether it is the power of recall, whether
it is fixed-term Parliaments, whether it is giving people the
right to have a say over the electoral system, whether it is pushing
forward with House of Lords reform, whether it is reforming party
funding, all those things together represent a significant step
towards greater legitimacy, greater accountability and greater
openness in the way in which our politics is conducted. Do they
individually or collectively represent a perfectly formed constitutional
moment? No, I accept that there is always messiness on the edges
of these things, and it is worth emphasising, on many of the proposals
that we are making, yes they are controversial and yes they are
big, but many of them also go very much with the grain of debates
that have been raging for a very long time. All three parties
committed themselves unambiguously to House of Lords reform at
the last general election. It is a debate we have been having
for 100 years. We will return later during the Session to the
details and so on, but there can be no doubt about the continuity
of that strand of thinking. Two of the three main parties at the
last general election advocated fixed-term Parliaments. Again,
that is something that has been debated for a long time. The Alternative
Vote system, which I hope people will have the ability to express
their views on in a referendum, was first debated and voted on
over 100 years ago in Westminster. So there is a mix of revolution
and evolution, of change and stability, of change and continuity.
It might not look entirely neat if you try to map it out in a
pristine way, but collectively it represents a very significant
step towards closing that dangerous gap between the changes in
society and the lack of reform or changes in our political institutions.
Sorry I have gone on a little bit at length, but I think it was
important.
The Chairman: No, that is very helpful.
The argument that you are making is that the evolution of these
issues enables you to introduce things fairly rapidly.
Q54 Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank:
Deputy Prime Minister, in the first paragraph of your paper you
refer to the transfer of power from the Executive to Parliament
and from Parliament to the people. But is it not the case that
this is no such movement at all? If we have fixed-term Parliaments,
power will move away, because there will be less access for voters.
For example, since 1945 I think we have had 18 general elections.
If we have a five-year Government, we shall have 14 over the same
period, so people will have much less opportunity. Is it not a
rather cosy arrangement? It is very interesting that there will
be no Second Reading vote against. Members of Parliament will
now feel a degree of security for five years. Is that desirable
and is it not rather contrary to the argument? As a very short
supplement, if I may, one of the other possibilities—I am
really asking whether it was considered—is given that we
have moved very much to a presidential system, when you change
your Prime Minister you almost change your President. Would it
not have been possible, or did you discuss it at that time, to
have a general election after a change of Prime Minister, as we
had, for example, when Mr Brown succeeded, and it has happened
on many other occasions? Would it not be better now to have general
elections once the Prime Minister has been changed?
Nick Clegg: Let us go back, if I may just for
a minute, to first principles on this Fixed-term Parliaments Bill.
What are we trying to do? We are seeking to remove from the Executive
and from the Prime Minister of the day the ability to play politics
with the timing of the election. That is the basic motive of this.
Governments have been distorted, paralysed, hobbled and handicapped
over and over again by the capricious manner in which Prime Ministers
have played cat and mouse with the British people and with the
Legislature about when elections should be held. We saw it most
recently in 2007. That is debilitating to good government; it
destroys good government. It is humiliating to the Legislature
and the Parliament. It makes a complete mockery of the relationship
between the Legislature and the Executive. And in public policy
terms, it certainly prevents difficult, long-term decisions being
taken, because everything is refracted through that short-term
objective. We are trying to take that power away. This would be
the first Prime Minister who deprived himself of that margin of
manoeuvre, that freedom of movement. If you count up over the
last several decades, by my count there were 17 elections, but
I defer to you if there were 18 elections. By the way, I note
that I think about 10 of those Parliaments since the war were
over four years in length. Of the last five Parliaments, three
have been five-year Parliaments. It is a combination of providing
a length of time, five years, with which people are familiar and
which allows Governments at least four of those five years—maybe
not the last year—to get on and govern properly for the
benefit of the country, together with taking away from the Executive
the ability to capriciously time the election for nothing more
than political self-interest. That provides a degree of stability
and transparency to the political system which outweighs the self-evident
fact that if you did that over a period of time, people would
be voting less frequently. How can I put this? I do not think
there is a scientific link between frequency of elections and
quality of Government. I do not want to create a diplomatic incident
here, but if one were to look at other democratic systems elsewhere
in Europe where we have had a rash of elections, often many of
them in one calendar year, it is not necessarily an indication
of an improved quality of governance. Do I think that changing
the Prime Minister should automatically lead to general election?
I hope the arrangements that we will put in place will make it
nigh impossible for a Government to trigger a general election
for its own purposes. It could go through the farce of trying
to engineer a no confidence vote in itself, but I think it would
be rumbled by the people pretty quickly if it sought to do that.
It really is up to Parliament to decide. If it felt that it did
not have confidence and it wanted to allow the people to have
a say at the point at which a new person became Prime Minister,
it is entirely free to do so under the existing no confidence
provisions, which we have never advocated touching in any way.
Q55 Lord Norton of Louth: Just on
your written submission and the basic principles, you say that
the basic goal of the changes is to restore faith in politics.
I am wondering about the link between that and the proposals themselves,
not least in terms of the evidence base for them. To what extent
is it your hope that this will have that effect, or is there an
evidence base to the proposals that are brought forward?
Nick Clegg: The evidence base is of course as
much one of judgment as it is of empirical data. Yes, it is an
unambiguous judgment on our part that reducing the power of the
Executive, seeking to boost the power of the Legislature, making
the Legislatures more directly accountable to people, making the
manner in which political parties operate and fund themselves
more transparent, giving people the right to recall or sack their
MPs if they have been shown to commit any serious wrongdoing,
collectively introduces the mechanisms by which people can exercise
greater control over politicians. Whether people will then do
that, whether they will, in a sense, take up that invitation—well,
horses and water spring to mind. We can only do so much to make
sure that our politics is reformed in a way that would allow a
revitalisation of political faith in politics, which I think has
significantly withered on the vine in recent years.
Q56 Lord Norton of Louth: I just
wondered how much the fixed-term Parliaments proposal fits into
the list that you just gave. You left that out.
Nick Clegg: I think in terms also of diminishing
the prerogative of the Executive, which is of course what fixed-term
Parliaments do.
Q57 Lord Norton of Louth: Indeed,
I am just thinking, in relation to restoring faith in politics,
whether that would have an impact on the people out there, which
is essentially what you are getting at.
Nick Clegg: My own view, and of course there
is always a degree of subjective judgment about this, is that
people were in a state of despair in 2007, when they did not know
when the general election was going to be. There was this constant
shadow boxing—is he going to call it or is he not going
to call it? Everyone knew that the whole country was on tenterhooks
for one person to decide, for reasons that were self-evidently,
unsurprisingly and, if you like, understandably driven by political
self-interest. I take it as a given that that erodes public trust
in politics
Q58 Lord Norton of Louth: Was there
not at the time a desire for an election? What is now being said
is that you will not have one and you will have to wait the fixed
term.
Nick Clegg: I accept of course there are circumstances
in which the desire for a general election, to press the reset
button, is so great that something needs to happen. That is why
the Bill is very clear that there are two mechanisms to do that.
One is the conventional, existing power of no confidence by a
simple majority and then—no doubt we will debate this—a
period of 14 days during which a Government can be re-formed and
confirmed by Parliament or a general election is triggered. The
other is a very high threshold, set at two-thirds—we initially
proposed 55 per cent, as you will no doubt remember—for
a power of dissolution. We have set it very high precisely to
avoid any suspicion that any Government of the day could basically
fall on its own sword in order to bring us back to square one
and have elections timed to suit the Executive of the day. If
that pressure builds up, there are mechanisms that would allow
that to unfold.
The Chairman: I think your answer to
Lord Norton's first question suggested that you were proceeding
on the basis of judgment rather than evidence. That brings us
to the whole question of public consultation on these measures
and pre-legislative scrutiny. I think a number of members of the
Committee have questions they would like to put to you on that.
Q59 Lord Pannick: Deputy Prime Minister,
the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee
strongly criticised you for not publishing the Bill in draft for
pre-legislative scrutiny.
Nick Clegg: Which one?
Lord Pannick: The Fixed-term Parliaments
Bill. How does that promote public confidence in Parliament? How
does it promote accountability and legitimacy—the aims that
you refer to—not to publish in draft? What is the rush?
Nick Clegg: First, we did look at alternative
mechanisms by which we could make a commitment to holding the
election in 2015 and then having a more leisurely approach towards
legislating to establish that on a continuing principle. For various
reasons, we were given the strong advice that this would create
a limbo situation with, in effect, a non-binding, non-statutory
commitment to the 2015 date and that it was better to proceed
towards legislation straight off. So we did look at alternatives
and we consulted widely with all the institutions that have a
constitutional role in all this. It was very strongly felt in
various quarters that we needed to proceed with legislation and
there was not an interim step that would allow us to create that
space. So it was not for want of trying to schedule it differently.
Secondly, the principle of fixed-term Parliaments has been argued
and made over a very long period. It was argued and made formally
by two of the three main parties that stood at the last general
election. The outgoing Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, made the
case in favour of fixed-term Parliaments in very trenchant terms
in his latter stages as Prime Minister. So it is not a new issue
of principle; it has not been sprung on people new. Of course,
what matters now is the degree of scrutiny that it is subject
to as the legislation passes through both Houses. On that we are
very clear. We want to make sure that it is subject to the greatest
possible scrutiny, which it rightly deserves. I think that balance
between the constraints that we are operating under, the precedents
set by the extensive arguments about the virtues of fixed-term
Parliaments, the overt political case made by the majority of
political parties, including in their manifestoes at the last
general election, combined with the opportunities we have in both
Houses to subject to scrutiny as it passes the Bill through at
various stages, I would like to believe that all those things
put together are reasonable and are certainly not evading proper
scrutiny and review.
Q60 Lord Pannick: What are these
constraints that require urgency? The coalition has a very healthy
majority. It believes that there should be a five-year Parliament,
unless you all fall out. There is simply no urgency.
Nick Clegg: Dare I say, I feel that people are
slightly pointing in different directions on this. Part of the
reason why we are being urged to get on with it is that people
say, "Well, we don't trust you. You can say that you're going
to have an election in 2015, but you might fall out or you might
decide that you want to time the election for your own purposes.
I slightly feel that we are in a cleft stick on this one. I think
broadly speaking there is a fairly strong cross-party consensus
in favour of fixed-term Parliaments, if one looks at the response
from the Committee on Constitutional Affairs in the House of Commons
and so on, notwithstanding the reservations about process. If
we were to say that we were going to informally commit to having
a fixed-term Parliament but not introduce it in a belt-and-braces
fashion until later, I would probably be sitting here answering
questions such as, "Well, hang on a minute, aren't you going
to end up breaking the very rules that you are piously declaring
lie behind the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill?" We are trying
to strike the right balance, which is to get on with it and to
show that we believe in this for ourselves as much as for any
succeeding Governments, and to create the space and time necessary
for the scrutiny that you quite rightly said a measure like this
deserves.
Q61 Lord Goldsmith: Could I press
a little further on that? The question is why you should not make
a declaration—not necessarily an informal declaration of
the intention to remain for five years; it could be a very strong
and formal declaration by the Prime Minister. As you have quite
rightly explained, the present system is such that if the Prime
Minister chooses not to declare an election for five years, unless
there is a vote of no confidence that is what is going to happen.
I do not see why, if the Prime Minister had said that in a formal
way—if he had gone back on it, that would have said a lot
about his credibility, I suppose—that would not have been
sufficient to give the coalition the security it needs, while
allowing adequate time for the people and Parliament to debate
these fundamental changes about fixed-term Parliaments.
Nick Clegg: It is partly because one is making
claims on not just the prerogatives and powers of the Prime Minister,
but also the role of the Monarch in deciding when elections are
triggered. One is treading on relatively sensitive ground for
that reason among others. Therefore, an informal understanding
would leave a great deal of ambiguity on issues of constitutional
significance. The judgment that was reached, which I think was
the right one, was that it was better to try and get this right
in a binding fashion, not evading scrutiny in any way, given that,
as I said, there is a fairly strong case already made politically
that this is a desirable measure. If no party had advocated fixed-term
Parliaments in the past, if the previous Prime Minister had not
expressed his strong support for it, if we had not been debating
it for decades, if it was not common practice in many other democracies,
I accept that it would have been so out of the blue that one would
have needed to find different ways of starting to walk before
one runs on this. But I think the case has been made more solidly
than your question implies. One is by definition making claims
and alterations to the prerogatives that exist not just for the
Prime Minister but also for other very important parts of our
constitution. It was therefore felt better to do this formally
through the front door rather than informally through the back
door.
Q62 Baroness Falkner of Margravine:
Would not a declaration of intent, rather than the route that
you have chosen, which is to put a Bill on the table, have also
resulted in endless speculation, as we saw last night, about whether
it will stick or not, creating an element of instability? Was
your aim not only to lead by example, but also to build some stability
into a new system that people were not familiar with?
Nick Clegg: As I say, we really looked at this.
I will be very open with you. It was my original intention that
that would be the better way to proceed. Firstly, we did not entirely
appreciate the knock-on effects on different parts of our constitutional
arrangements, which created understandable nervousness that one
is then consigning everybody, not just this Government and this
Prime Minister, but everybody else involved, into a slightly ambiguous
territory, which made many people feel uncomfortable. There are
also the political realities that I mentioned earlier, which is
that had we done that, there is no doubt in my mind that we would
now be accused of trying to have our cake and eat it, of talking
about fixed-term Parliaments but not seeking to make it binding
on ourselves. But that was not the major consideration. The major
consideration was the need, given the high degree of political
support for this measure, to do it properly and thoroughly rather
than doing it through a halfway house first.
Q63 Lord Hart of Chilton: It became
apparent that a five-year fixed term would result in a clash with
elections to the devolved institutions in 2015 and then every
20 years thereafter. Mark Harper stated in the Second Reading
debate that the Government intends to continue its dialogue with
the devolved Assemblies. How is this dialogue getting on?
Nick Clegg: Well, I have recently been in Edinburgh,
Cardiff and Belfast and met with all the leaders of the devolved
Administrations and with the Presiding Officers in two of the
devolved Assemblies. It is worth pointing out, incidentally, that
that coincidence of devolved elections and a general election
in 2015 could very well have occurred anyway, regardless of who
was in power now and whether they had fixed-term Parliaments.
If the new Government, let us say of a different political composition
and not tabling a Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, had none the less
decided to run its full term, you would have had that coincidence.
In a strange kind of way, it sounds as though I am trying to eke
virtue out of a difficult situation, but the good thing is that
we are identifying this up front. In other circumstances you would
have this coincidence, but in a much more unplanned way. We have
now identified that there is this coincidence. I accept as a matter
of principle that there is a material difference between the coincidence
of two elections to two Legislatures that produce two Executives
and the coincidence, for instance, of local or devolved elections
with a simple yes or no referendum question. I am sure we will
come to that separately during our deliberations. The former is
more complex. The latter is more straightforward, because the
yes/no answer to a referendum question is a much more separable
issue. There is undoubtedly some potential for overlap and some
degree of confusion if one has two elections for Legislatures
on the same day. We are consulting people and trying to see whether
there are workable or desirable alternatives. The clash or duplication
of elections was kind of baked in the cake one way or another
anyway; it is just a question of whether people think that the
issue is big enough that we need to take remedial action. As you
say, under the current arrangements it would occur every 20 years.
The discussions are still ongoing on whether that is an acceptable
coincidence or one that needs to be avoided.
Q64 Lord Hart of Chilton: When do
you think these discussions are going to reach a conclusion?
Nick Clegg: I hope fairly soon, for the simple
reason that I do not think that it would be right to ask people
to vote next May in the devolved elections without knowing, bluntly,
what they are voting for. So I think we need to get on with this.
As I say, over the last few weeks I have visited all the devolved
Assemblies and discussions are ongoing. There are no easy answers,
as there rarely are on these things. Each proposed solution that
I have looked at presents all sorts of dilemmas of its own, but
we are actively looking at these different options.
The Chairman: As you say, we will come
back to the immediate question of the referendums clash when we
come in a few minutes to the Parliamentary Voting Systems and
Constituencies Bill.
Q65 Lord Norton of Louth: We have
dealt with the principle of fixed-term Parliaments, but there
is also the issue of the actual term itself. You have opted for
five years rather than four and have said that that flows with
some of the founding texts of our unwritten constitution. I wonder
what those texts are. I also wonder about the principle, relating
to what you were saying earlier. Could you not argue that people
might have more faith in Parliament if they had an opportunity
to vote for it every four years rather than every five years?
Nick Clegg: Again, you are going to find this
exasperating if you want empirical evidence, but these are not
scientific matters. I find it very difficult, prima facie, to
assume that four is better than five. I defer to you, because
I suspect that you know the text much better than I do, but if
one looks at the 1911 Act it is certainly written into that. I
accept there are slightly overblown claims about the Septennial
Act, but let us not go down that route. As I say, I think there
is a pattern of five-year Parliaments, at least recently. Certainly,
since the war there has been a pattern of Parliaments lasting.
As I said, I think 10 of the 17 or 18 since the war have lasted
more than four years. Of the last five Parliaments, I think three
of them have been for five years. The last Parliament was five
years. I think there is another consideration that we have touched
on in the context of the fixed-term Parliament discussions earlier,
which is that, given the tendency for Governments to be somewhat
hamstrung and paralysed for a considerable period before a general
election is held—at least a year or so before a general
election, matters are overshadowed by pure politicking rather
than good governance—in terms of good governance you are
in practice talking about a Government that can get on and do
difficult things, and heaven knows I know about doing difficult
things this week above all other weeks, for about four years.
Do I think four years is an unreasonable period for Government
to get on and govern in the national interest before it starts
turning its mind to the little matter of whether it can get re-elected?
I think that is a reasonable balance to strike. If one goes to
four years, one is talking about a three-year period in which
Governments are not blighted by their own sense of mortality,
if I can put it like that. That strikes me as a rather short period.
For all of those factors, we have tended to settle on five years.
Q66 Lord Norton of Louth: I can see
the argument about balance—governance against popular desire
to vote more frequently—but would there not be a case, coming
back to the earlier point, for consulting on this to see what
people think? There may be a preference to return to the Triennial
Act. Should you not consult and see what people think would be
the optimum length?
Nick Clegg: As I said, during the passage of
the Bill I am sure this issue will come up. It has already come
up a great deal. People will no doubt marshal their own evidence
to support one claim or another. I would equally question, empirically
if you like, that people are straining at the bit to vote in elections
more frequently. I accept the political reality that there are
circumstances that have nothing to do with timing or with three,
four or five years, but are to do with events, mishaps, catastrophes,
recessions or scandals, when you get pressure and people want
a line drawn under a Government and a chance to start again. If
that reaches a critical point, there are provisions in the Bill
that would allow the Legislature—not the Executive, crucially—to
give expression to that pressure. That is the right way round.
I have never met anyone who says to me, "Well, I kind of
like voting every four years." I am being facetious, but
I think it is more driven by whether circumstances are such that
people feel that the Government has lost its way to such a degree
that it has lost public confidence. If that is the case, then
their representatives, MPs in the House of Commons, can trigger
a vote of no confidence.
The Chairman: Did you want to ask a further
question about no confidence votes, Lord Norton? I think Lord
Hart felt his question had been answered.
Lord Hart of Chilton: No, I think it
was.
Q67 Lord Norton of Louth: This follows
on from what you were just saying, because there is a provision
in the Bill to trigger a vote of no confidence and a potential
dissolution motion. On the no confidence provision, how confident
are you on the encompassing nature of the way the Bill is drawn.
There is a difference between a vote of no confidence, a vote
of confidence that is lost and, say, the Government saying on
the Second Reading of the European Communities Bill, "If
we lose this, the Government goes." Would those cases be
encompassed by the Bill?
Nick Clegg: I think this is a really important
area and it is a classic example of where we could perhaps work
away at the Bill if necessary, to strengthen or clarify it. We
have tried to provide clarity in the Bill. I do not have the verbatim
words, but we have referred to the passing of a no confidence
motion. The implication of your question is what that means for
motions that are not carried and therefore express a lack of confidence.
I start from the point that we want to try to provide as much
clarity as possible about what a no confidence motion and process
looks like, but equally it is for the House and the Speaker to
make his and its own determinations about what they consider to
be a motion of no confidence. In a sense, we have provided the
tramlines in this draft Bill, but at the same time, I clearly
want to retain as much flexibility and autonomy as possible for
the House to decide for itself how it then interprets that. That
is exactly the kind of thing that now needs to come out in the
scrutiny that the Bill will receive.
Q68 Lord Norton of Louth: The other
aspect to it is the linking provision in terms of a dissolution
motion. Do you think the Bill is sufficiently well drawn to prevent
circumstances, which you occasionally get elsewhere, where a Government
might try to engineer its own demise in order to trigger an election?
Nick Clegg: So far I have found it quite difficult
to think of means by which you could legislate to stop Governments
committing harakiri. The purpose of the Bill is to prevent or
diminish the ability of the Government of the day to play politics
with the timing of the election. My own view, in terms of practical
politics, is that if a Government sought to do that it would be
so transparent and so self-evidently grubby and self-serving that
it would not do that Government any good at all. The final court
of opinion, of course, is what the electorate would do, and I
think they would be very unforgiving. The German case is often
cited. I think it was Chancellor Schröder; I cannot remember
what year it was. I am not sure of the exact parallels. Can you
exclude the theoretical possibility? I think it is pretty difficult
to do that. Can you exclude it in practical political terms? I
think you pretty well nigh can.
Q69 Lord Norton of Louth: I agree.
The Bill is drawn to prevent the German case. You have put that
hurdle in, but you moved from 55 per cent to two-thirds. What
was the rationale for that?
Nick Clegg: The rationale was that at first,
quite understandably, there was a lot of anxiety and suspicion
that this would allow this coalition Government to determine the
timing of the election. I was very clear that we needed to remove
that beyond any doubt. Two-thirds is a threshold used in other
Legislatures. I think I am right in saying that it is in the Scotland
Act, which was passed by the previous Government when they established
fixed terms for the Scottish Parliament. So it is not without
precedent, which I thought was useful. People will be familiar
with it. I freely admit that if one wants to play the mind game
of imagining circumstances in which a Parliament would collectively
decide, across party lines, it would self-evidently be rare. I
can just imagine circumstances in which there is such a sense
of crisis in the country, or such a haemorrhaging of legitimacy
in the whole political class—the expenses scandal, plus,
plus—that there is a collective decision that we cannot
carry on with this and we have got to start again. It is for those
kinds of exceptional circumstances that that provision has been
drafted.
The Chairman: Thank you. I think we are
going to have another opportunity for the Committee to meet Mark
Harper, specifically on this Bill, in a few weeks. I hope we will
be able to return to some of the points that Committee members
have raised. I think we should now turn to the other Bill, the
Parliamentary Voting system and Constituencies Bill.
Q70 Lord Crickhowell: Deputy Prime
Minister, I return again to the question of consultation and pre-legislative
scrutiny. The Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee
last week produced one of the most critical reports by a Select
Committee that I have read in a very long time. It centred on
this point. Its criticism was not so much about whether you were
discussing something that other people had been discussing for
a very long time, or whether the general principle was right,
but that successful legislation, particularly constitutional legislation,
is dependent on detail. The Committee identified a string of points
on detail that it suggested had not been adequately thought through
and consulted on. We have had a report from the Electoral Commission
saying that it needs six months to prepare the electorate for
the referendum vote, but now it seems wildly improbable, particularly
in the light of the issues raised by the Select Committee, that
a Bill can be got through this House and completed without significant
changes by 5 November. That raises one issue. The committee also
identified, in the Welsh context, a situation that as far as I
know—and I take an interest in the affairs of Wales—has
not been consulted about or discussed, and of which people are
hardly aware. I refer to the fact that the Bill will reduce the
number of Welsh Members of Parliament by more than a quarter,
while the reduction in the rest of the country is just over 7
per cent. That will have devastating consequences for the nature
of the Welsh seats, and for whether they connect in any way with
historical or social groupings. Apparently you overlooked a rather
important requirement that you will have to change. At the moment,
the seats have to coincide with the seats for the Welsh Assembly.
That change certainly will need making. The Committee report suggests
that you will have to change the 10 per cent discretion on size
and geography and, among other crucial points, it states that
if you reduce the number of Members of Parliament without reducing
the payroll vote, you are increasing the power of the Executive
and weakening the power of Parliament. These are all fundamental
constitutional issues. Why are we not having the kind of widespread
consultation that the Select Committee in the other place thinks
is highly desirable?
Nick Clegg: I will take each of the detailed
points quickly and in turn. As you rightly said, they are all
important. I will start with the fundamental issue of pre-legislative
scrutiny. I am very open about this. If we want to introduce these
changes before the next general election, we must move fairly
rapidly in order not only to hold a referendum but also to allow
the boundary commissioners to do their work according to the timetable
set in the Bill. They are due to report in 2013, in time for parties
to select their candidates so that we can then hold the elections
of 2015 on redrawn boundaries, and possibly, if the referendum
is successful, on the alternative vote as well. So there was retrospective
time pressure that was very difficult to escape from. Secondly,
we have been very keen to address all of these detailed points—and
I will come to all of them—in the discussions on the Floor
of the House. Because of the constitutional significance of the
Bill, it is being read in Committee on the Floor of the House
and it has received—as I saw myself yesterday, and with
the votes that were held—very substantial scrutiny. I will
take the points that you mentioned in reverse order. On the issue
of the number of Ministers, the suggestion is that if you cut
the number of MPs from 652 to 600, which is a cut of just shy
of 7.7 per cent, you should have a 7.7 per cent, or at least a
commensurate, cut in the number of people who are on the government
payroll. There is a strong argument that says you must look at
this and adapt the number of people who are on the government
payroll so that you do not get a lopsided imbalance between those
on the payroll and those holding them to account. I totally accept
that. It is something that I am very keen to work on and it is
an issue for the next Government, not for this one, so we have
a bit of time. There are lots of different ways to do it and we
are open to suggestions and amendments. The issue of principle
is one that we do not contest in any way. You mentioned 10 per
cent. I think that you were referring to the fact that the boundary
changes will be made with a variation of 5 per cent on either
side of the ideal quota. By the way, it is worth remembering that
218 of the existing 650 seats already meet that quota. Already,
more than a third of the seats are comfortably within it. Sometimes
people make breathless allegations about the boundary review,
as if it is an act of constitutional vandalism. Already, a third
of MPs are comfortably within the quota. Many of the allegations
are somewhat synthetic. None the less, we consulted with the boundary
commissioners in great detail and they were unambiguous. We set
the figure at 5 per cent because they said: "If you set it
at any less than 5 per cent, we will not be able to use ward boundaries
as the building blocks for our boundary review, and if you want
us to do it by"—I forget the exact date—"October
or December 2013, we must be able to use wards as the continued
building blocks of constituency boundaries. We can do that to
within 5 per cent on either side of the threshold". So this
was not capricious. We have spent a lot of time talking to boundary
commissioners and they have confirmed that in their view it is
doable. On the issue of Welsh representation, we are moving to
decouple the link between the number of MPs and the number of
Assembly seats. We have already recognised that problem and are
moving to decouple the link, because clearly it would be unacceptable
to retain it if there was a significant drop. The issue in Wales,
and across the board, comes down to one of principle. Do people
think that the number of votes in the constituency impacts on
the value of those votes? I think that they do. It was the Chartists
who first campaigned for equal value for equal votes. It was a
great progressive cause. The argument was that it was wrong that
in the mandate given to people who are representing the public,
somehow your vote is worth more in one place than it is in others.
I do not have a good head for numbers, but the variations are
striking and wholly unacceptable. A constituency on one side of
London may have roughly 60,000 electors and another one just a
few miles away may have 85,000. In Wales, because of history and
all sorts of reasons, there is a particularly marked overrepresentation.
Wales has 40 seats at the moment. One either works on the basis
of the principle of trying to equalise constituencies so that,
broadly speaking, votes are valued in the same way across the
whole of the United Kingdom, or one does not. I admit that that
is a principle that one either agrees with or does not, but if
one does, it is very difficult to escape the conclusion that there
will need to be changes in the number of Westminster seats for
Wales. You asked finally about the about the Electoral Commission.
We would not have proceeded with this—it would have been
deeply irresponsible—if we had felt that we would be putting
the Electoral Commission in an impossible position by asking it
to deliver a referendum in May. It has indicated that if we proceed
as we hope to, it is not a statutory rule that Royal Assent must
be received six months before the referendum, and it can start
giving guidance to returning officers and others who will be responsible
for the conduct of the referendum from about six months before
the referendum will be held. The Commission is confident that
that is manageable. As you know, it has issued a report saying
that the combination is possible. There are risks—we are
trying to mitigate them and are working with the Commission to
do so—but it is manageable.
Q71 Lord Crickhowell: I will not
pursue the points in detail, but I have one final question about
the rush. You have explained that you want to get this through,
and say a change to equal constituencies is desirable. You say
a third will not be affected, but I will read the comments of
the Select Committee of the other place. "The review the
Government is proposing will mean that every prospective parliamentary
candidate, current Members of the House included, will not know
until 18 months before a general election in 2015 what the boundaries
will be of the constituency they intend to contest, or if indeed
they will have a constituency to contest". In every constituency
they will have to reconstitute the associations and organisations
and create them afresh. Surely that is hardly the way to close
the gap between society and political institutions, which at the
beginning of this meeting you said was your objective.
Nick Clegg: It is precisely for that reason
that we are proceeding backwards. We accept that anyone who has
stood for Parliament, myself included, knows that the longer the
period of time that one has to work in the community that one
seeks to represent, the better. We have tried to make this happen
in a way that is both manageable and proper, but also as quickly
as possible, precisely to make sure that the 18-month period referred
to by the Committee's report is not shortened any further. I refer
to the 18-month period from the point at which the candidates
know the final shape of their constituencies for the general election.
That is exactly the case I am trying to make. There are real constraints
at the other end of this process, if one works backwards from
2015, which not unreasonably have led us to the conclusion that
we must move forward. I will make one further point. Yes, boundaries
will be redrawn, and no doubt in some places—although it
is up to the boundary commissioners to decide this—some
of the changes will be extensive. But in many other parts of our
nations it will be a not wholly unfamiliar process for MPs such
as myself who are constantly subjected to boundary changes. We
have a system that we are not altering in any way. Independent
boundary commissioners arrive at their own independent views.
The shrill accusations of gerrymandering are wide of the mark.
The Government are not going to do this; it is the independent
boundary commissioners. All that we are asking is this. At the
moment, the boundary commissioners have a series of criteria that
they need to meet in their work. The criteria are listed in legislation.
They must have regard to community relations, to community cohesion,
to history, to the character of an area, to the disruption that
might be caused and to an equal status for votes up and down the
country. All that we are doing is taking one criterion that already
exists and saying that all the other criteria need to be pursued
with a view to meeting that. Sometimes people forget that the
criterion already exists: we are just giving it a degree of primacy
that presently it does not enjoy in the work of the boundary commissioners.
Q72 Lord Goldsmith: Deputy Prime
Minister, I will ask you one more question about the timing of
the referendum. Given the timing issues that we have in this committee,
I will be specific in my question. You are well aware not just
of the issues that the Electoral Commission has raised, but also
of the concerns expressed by the Scottish First Minister, the
Welsh Assembly and others about the coincidence of having elections
there on the same day as the referendum. Given that your fundamental
aim is to increase the confidence of people in politics and in
the political process, although others say that it is possible
for people to keep the two issues separate and still a vote on
the same day, why take the risk of having the votes on the same
day? Have you considered moving the referendum vote to another
day, and if you have, what is the reason for not doing so?
Nick Clegg: My first point may sound glib, but
it is not intended to be. Whatever date you pick, someone will
disagree with it and claim that it is a breach of faith. Some
people just do not like this referendum. They will come up with
a thousand and one reasons why the date or something else is wrong.
There is only a limited amount that one can do to counter the
infinite reasons that people will give for saying that it should
not occur. On the issue of the date, I fundamentally disagree
with the premise that it is somehow wrong to ask people to tick
a box to say yes or no to a very straightforward question when
they are already being invited to vote. Roughly half of the people
who were elected to the House of Commons in the 2010 general election
were elected at a time when there were local elections on the
same day. Over time, we constantly have referenda and elections
that coincide. I will turn it round and ask people what possible
justification there is for spending around £30 million of
additional public money on holding the referendum on another date
when my experience is that many people would accept the convenience
of being asked to take a judgment on this wholly separate and
discrete issue at a time when they are voting in local elections.
Some 84 per cent of people in England, and everybody in the devolved
nations, will be entitled to vote next May anyway. Of course I
understand the politics of this: it is a great way for people
to score points and catch headlines. But the issue of substance
is whether there is something fundamentally wrong in principle
in asking people to do two things rather than one. For the life
of me I have never understood that. To put it bluntly, it is disrespectful
to people to assume that it is too complex to ask them to vote
on a referendum on the same day as they are being invited to vote
anyway.
Lord Goldsmith: It was the Electoral
Commission that first raised this question. You may be right to
point the political finger at others.
Nick Clegg: To be fair to the Electoral Commission,
it previously said that there was a case for coincidence, but
that it should be handled and prepared properly, and judged on
a case-by-case basis. When the Commission looked into the evidence
from around the world for its own report, it changed its position.
Initially it was more antagonistic. As you well know, there was
a very unhappy experience in the Scottish elections in 2007.
The Chairman: The incidence of spoilt
ballot papers increased by 6.5 per cent.
Nick Clegg: Yes, but as the subsequent research
and analysis by the Electoral Commission and others showed, the
particular problem there was the extraordinary complexity of the
ballot papers for the local elections, which were physically very
difficult to handle and extraordinarily difficult to understand.
What we are proposing to do in May is wholly different. It will
be a very short question with a simple yes or no box. We have
looked very carefully at the report produced after the difficulties
in 2007, and none of the difficulties identified—this has
been confirmed by the Electoral Commission—prevails for
the coincidence that we hope will occur in May.
Q73 Lord Pannick: Deputy Prime Minister,
you emphasise the need to focus on principle and substance. Is
there any principled justification for confining the referendum
question to a choice between first past the post and the alternative
vote, and for giving people no say on whether they might prefer
a system of proportional representation?
Nick Clegg: We could have a separate debate
on the virtues of electoral systems going by this or that acronym.
I have always been open about the fact that there are other systems
for which one can make a compelling case. But at the end of the
day it is important in a referendum to present people with a clear
choice, rather than with a multiple choice question. That is what
we are seeking to do. All the experience is that referendums are
best conducted, and most easily understood by people, if there
is a simple choice between two alternatives that requires a simple
yes or no answer. It does not at all detract from the wider case
for other forms of electoral reform. I lead a party that has long
campaigned for a different variant of electoral reform. For all
sorts of obvious reasons, the alternative vote is the alternative
that was arrived at in negotiations between the two coalition
parties, and indeed was the one option presented by the Labour
Party in its manifesto at the last general election. So there
is an obvious head of steam in favour of that being the alternative
presented to people. You asked about the issue of principle. Can
I call this a principle? It is certainly a pragmatic principle
that in a referendum it is best if one keeps the question simple,
clean and not susceptible to—
Q74 Lord Pannick: What about two
questions? "Do you want change?" and "If so, do
you prefer A or B?".
Nick Clegg: My view on that variant is that
the first question, "Do you want change?", is self-evidently
implicit in the answer to the second. I suppose that it would
accommodate people who say, "Yes, I want a change, but not
this particular change". But then they would end up voting
against the proposed change in any event, so you would arrive
at the same outcome.
The Chairman: Thank you. We turn now
to House of Lords reform.
Q75 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Deputy
Prime Minister, today the House of Lords is essentially an appointed
legislative Chamber. Do you agree that as such it brings a unique
mix of expertise and experience to the revision and critical evaluation
of proposed legislation?
Nick Clegg: Undoubtedly it does, but it lacks
democratic authority. While one might seek to try to separate
those issues, as I sought to explain earlier, we now inhabit a
political and social culture that is less tolerant of experience
and insight, considerable though clearly it is, without greater
legitimacy. The bar of legitimacy has been set much higher than
it was 100 years ago when this was first being debated.
Q76 Lord Irvine of Lairg: I will
focus on what we agree about. You accept that in today's appointed
House of Lords there are Members with vast experience—as
businessmen, farmers, lawyers, accountants, academics, scientists,
faith leaders, doctors, nurses, trade unionists, former civil
servants, former Cabinet Ministers, local government leaders,
former heads of the armed services, to name but some. I appreciate
that you have a point about democratic legitimacy, but do you
agree that the House of Lords, as is, brings huge collective experience
to the benefit of Parliament as a whole?
Nick Clegg: That is undoubtedly the case. The
question is, how can one make sure that that experience, expertise
and wisdom is made available to decision-makers in government
and in legislatures if arrangements were to change? I do not accept
the premise that if we were to proceed with reform of the House
of Lords, as committed to by all political parties, somehow all
of that experience would disappear like a puff of smoke. Good
government is only ever good if it draws on wisdom and experience.
I also note, pragmatically, that this is one reason why in the
transition arrangements for reforming the House of Lords, it is
essential to keep that experience and expertise, so there must
be generous and thoughtful transition arrangements which will
ensure that the experience is not dispensed with overnight and
that there will be perhaps long periods of time during which it
will still exist during the handover between one configuration
and the next.
Q77 Lord Irvine of Lairg: I follow
that, but let us suppose that the House of Lords were to become
wholly or mainly elected. Do you accept that it would then cease
to provide that unique benefit to Parliament derived from its
collective experience?
Nick Clegg: Actually I do not accept the premise
that if someone is elected, their experience, wisdom, insight
and intelligence are somehow, as night follows day, of a different
quality to those of others. Of course I accept that if one is
elected, there are political pressures that can lead to short-termism
and decision-making that is understandably driven through the
prism of the need to retain public support. Where we probably
start to part company, gently and in as civilised a manner as
possible, is over the idea that something is either this or that—that
all experience and wisdom will be lost from how a Government or
legislature acts if one includes more directly elected legitimacy,
or that those who are directly elected somehow are not capable
of either drawing on their experience or possessing it in their
own right. Dare I say that there are also Members of the House
of Commons who in their own right have considerable experience
in law, the military services and academia?
Q78 Lord Shaw of Northstead: Is the
revising character of this Chamber its primary purpose at the
moment, or are there other important features that are required?
If one looks at the wisdom that is already in the revising Chamber,
can one believe that most Members of the House of Lords, or people
in similar positions, would be prepared to stand for elections?
Is it not inevitable that almost certainly future elected Members
of the House of Lords will be people who have failed to get into
the House of Commons?
Nick Clegg: When one looks at bicameral systems
around the world, of which there are many examples, there is only
one other example in the developed world of a second Chamber that
is wholly appointed. That is in Canada. All other bicameral systems
are either wholly or largely elected. All bicameral systems struggle
with the dilemma of making sure that the second Chamber does not
become an echo chamber for the politics of the lower House. There
are a number of ways in which bicameral systems over a long period
of time have insulated and insured themselves against that. It
can depend on the term of office or the timing and manner of elections.
The mandate can be very different. If one looks at the Bundestag
and the Bundesrat, or the Senate and Congress, there are discernible,
visible and easily understood differences of mandate and character
in bicameral systems that we should seek not just to emulate but
to retain, because that is one of the great virtues of the division
of labour between the two Chambers at the moment.
Q79 Lord Shaw of Northstead: Does
that mean that the electoral system adopted in the House of Commons
would be repeated in elections to the House of Lords, or will
there be another system? Will the same voting system be used?
Nick Clegg: We committed in the coalition agreement
for this Government to advocate elections to the House of Lords
based on a proportional system, such that the Chamber is proportionally
reflective of British society. Interestingly, those people in
the Conservative Party who are otherwise antagonistic to proportional
electoral systems for the House of Commons have argued that the
Commons, because of the constituency link and the creation of
the Executive, is in a different position and that therefore having
different electoral systems make sense. Again, that is consistent
with bicameral systems elsewhere in the world. There are different
electoral systems and different timings of mandates, and very
quickly the public come to regard the two groups of elected politicians
not as inferior or superior but genuinely as of different quality
and character, which is what we have already. Looking at bicameral
systems elsewhere, I genuinely think we can retain this with a
wholly or largely elected upper House.
Q80 Lord Shaw of Northstead: Do you
feel that our duties should go wider than they do at present,
when we are largely a revising chamber?
Nick Clegg: The functions of restraining, reviewing
and scrutinising the Government of the day, and acting as a counterbalance
and a check on the work of the House of Commons, in broad terms
are what we should seek to retain. But we should add greater legitimacy
and democratic authority.
Q81 Lord Pannick: Deputy Prime Minister,
do you accept that Cross-Benchers play a valuable and distinctive
role in the House of Lords? If you do, will you assure us that
when your proposals are brought forward, they will preserve a
place for Cross-Benchers in the House of Lords?
Nick Clegg: Self-evidently, Cross-Benchers play
a very valuable role in the present arrangements. Clearly, if
one were to move to a wholly elected House of Lords, that assurance
would not be possible. It would be possible only if one had a
largely elected House of Lords. That is precisely the kind of
debate that I hope the Joint Committee that will be established
to scrutinise the Bill when we publish it will be able to explore
in considerable detail.
Q82 Lord Pannick: Do you have a view
on this that you are willing to share with us?
Nick Clegg: My view, as a starting principle,
is that a wholly elected House is the best way forward. I am only
repeating something that I have said for a very long time. But
I am equally aware that if one looks at the debate on House of
Lords reform over not just decades but a century, one reason why
progress often has not been made—the chair is more familiar
than I am, for example, with the events of 1998, when reform was
promised and we were told that it would lead seamlessly to the
next, bigger reform—is that we make the best the enemy of
the good. While I have my own principled views that democratic
legitimacy is best secured through a wholly elected House of Lords,
equally I understand that people have different points of view
that must be listened to and debated. I do not want to create
ideological rigidity. I want to see reform proceed as much as
possible on a cross-party and consensual basis. That is my personal
view, but I realise that idealism often bumps up against pragmatism—in
political reform as in other areas of life.
Q83 Baroness Falkner of Margravine:
I will stay with the issue of independent Peers, the Cross-Benchers.
In the current Committee that you have established with the three
political parties looking at House of Lords reform, there is no
presence of independent Peers. Earlier you mentioned the word
"generous". Why did you not feel that it would be right
to include them in these conversations from the outset? My other
question refers to what was discussed earlier about expertise
in the House of Lords. Do you accept that in the changes you envisage,
there would be a greater impetus on the political parties to have
a broad array of skills and experience behind them, and that a
proportional system would facilitate the task, so that it would
be possible to have a diverse House of Lords in terms of expertise
and skills through the list system if we had a reformed Chamber?
Nick Clegg: On the first point, the feeling
was that the key thing to do was to get a Bill out there and make
sure that it was subject to the fullest degree of scrutiny, including
of course by Cross-Benchers. It is not for the Government to say
this, but my hope is that a Joint Committee will be established
that will take the time that it believes is necessary to subject
the Bill to examination. The Bill gets the ball rolling. Given
that all three political parties at the last general election
unambiguously supported Lords reform, it seemed only right that
in order to get the ball rolling, the parties should agree on
what Bill they felt was appropriate, and then other parties—in
the different sense of the word, and including Cross-Benchers—would
have unalloyed rights of scrutiny in the Joint Committee. That
is exactly how we will proceed. I hope that that strikes the right
balance between fulfilling the clear political momentum on House
of Lords reform from all political parties, getting a product
that we can look at and wrestle with rather than repeating the
familiar pattern of talking about it in abstract year after year,
and making sure that it is subject to meaningful scrutiny. I hope
that we have struck the right balance. If we were to proceed,
as I hope we will, towards a House of Lords wholly or largely
elected on a proportional system, one could envisage the unfamiliar
prospect that the House of Lords would be considered to be more
representative of contemporary Britain than the House of Commons.
It would be a magnificent act of leapfrogging by one House over
the other.
Q84 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Let me
be the first to acknowledge the magnificence of that, Deputy Prime
Minister. In the questions I put to you earlier, I was not suggesting
that the House of Lords was a unique repository of experience
and wisdom. On the contrary, I accept that the House of Commons
has these qualities in very substantial measure. That brings me
to a key question. What value to the existing legislative process
would an elected House of Lords add to the elected House of Commons?
Nick Clegg: It would mean that the function
of restraint, overview and scrutiny would enjoy a degree of democratic
authority that currently it does not. It would reinforce rather
than weaken, diminish or undermine the extraordinarily important
role that the House of Lords already deploys.
Q85 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Why not
simply have a unicameral system and spare the country in these
dire times the cost of two elected Chambers?
Nick Clegg: People are used to a bicameral system.
They like the idea, as you rightly implied and we agreed, that
in the House of Lords one has a House that is not subject or susceptible
to the same venal day-to-day political pressures as people at
the other end of corridor, and that is able to provide a degree
of perspective, restraint and scrutiny that otherwise would not
exist.
Q86 Lord Irvine of Lairg: What realistic
assurance can you offer that an elected House of Lords would be
able to fulfil the functions that you imply are provided less
well by the existing elected House of Commons?
Nick Clegg: Let me be clear: I am describing
the fundamental virtue of a bicameral system—I do not believe
in unicameral representative democracy—which is that it
introduces additional checks and balances to the way in which
the Executive behaves, and the way in which lower Houses behave.
This is a desirable thing in the democracy. I start from the premise
that a bicameral system is a good thing for those reasons. Our
bicameral system would be significantly strengthened if the second
Chamber, the upper House, had the democratic authority that it
lacks. In answer to the earlier question, the devil is in the
detail. It is so important in terms of mandate, electoral system,
period of office and so on that one has something that is utterly
distinct from the lower House. If what we end up with is just
a poor cousin of the House of Commons, that would be a woeful
outcome. It is not beyond our wit, and it is something that is
common to bicameral systems elsewhere in the developed world,
to avoid that danger.
Q87 Lord Irvine of Lairg: The Chairman
rightly has her eyes on the hands of the clock. I will ask just
one short question. If there is great hostility in the House of
Lords to the legislation that is eventually brought forward, and
it is voted down by the House of Lords, will the coalition Government
contemplate using the Parliament Act to get it through?
Nick Clegg: It is far too premature to speculate
about the use of a blunderbuss—
Q88 Lord Irvine of Lairg: Why?
Nick Clegg: Because we are at the early stages
of a debate, of which this is part. I hope that the debate will
become richer and deeper over time. Scrutiny from the Joint Committee
will be extraordinarily important. We should all recognise that
this is something that the country has been debating for around
a century. The last general election was unique in that it was
the first time that all political parties were unambiguous in
stating that House of Lords reform should proceed. I hope that
we can proceed on as consensual a basis as possible, rather than
immediately speculating on the use of blunderbuss alternatives.
Q89 Lord Irvine of Lairg: But if
consensus is not achieved, are you ruling out the use of the Parliament
Act?
Nick Clegg: The Bill has not even been produced
and the arguments are still at an early stage. I am an optimist—I
have to be in my line of work—and I genuinely believe that
the arguments that we in the coalition Government are deploying
are strong. I hope that today I have given some intimation that
we want to pursue those arguments reasonably and not in a dogmatic
or rigid fashion, and that therefore over time we will arrive
at greater agreement than many people often assume.
The Chairman: Deputy Prime Minister,
we can assure you that the debate will become, in your words,
richer and deeper. We thank you very much for your time. You have
covered an enormous amount of ground and given us a great deal
of help. We look forward to future conversations of this kind
with you.
Nick Clegg: Thank you very much.
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