Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for introducing this Bill, which has provoked yet another interesting, provocative and high-quality debate on the future of our House. It is the third such Bill in the current Session, and I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate.
I start by placing on the record that the Government recognise the value of this House and the vital role that noble Lords play in scrutinising legislation and holding the Government to account. In his powerful speech, my noble friend Lord Norton produced clear evidence that it is not just the Government who think that the House does a good job; the public agree that the House of Lords performs its function well.
In mentioning my noble friend Lord Norton, I pay tribute to the work of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, which I attended until I was barred from so doing. It has done sterling work in trying to find a consensus, and I am sure that it will submit its own proposals to the noble Lord, Lord Burns. It suggested the cross-party committee that the Lord Speaker has just set up, to which I will refer in a moment.
The Government are not unsympathetic to the aims of the noble Baroness’s Bill, which would introduce elections to the House of Lords—a measure that was included in each of the three main parties’ manifestos at the last election in some shape or form and in favour of which I spoke many times in another place when I was, as the noble Lord, Lord Low, said in somewhat disobliging terms, a career politician. However, the Government are clear that comprehensive reform of this House is not a priority in this Parliament.
Noble Lords have debated numerous Bills to reform this House, including two other Private Members’ Bills in this Session alone, but none quite like the Bill before us today, as the noble Baroness herself said. The Bill makes provision to introduce elections for 292 Members of this House to sit and vote. The noble Lord, Lord Low, pointed out that that is fewer than the 450 proposed by the coalition and he explained why it might be too low a figure.
Although life Peers and the Lords spiritual would remain Members of this House, they would no longer be entitled to vote, and the 92 excepted hereditary Peers would be removed altogether. However, taken as a whole, the Bill does not address the size of the House. Indeed, by adding elected Members while maintaining the right of all existing life Peers and Lords spiritual to sit, the size and therefore the cost of the House would increase. My noble friend Lord Caithness took us through a mathematical formula that explained that the number could reach 1,300 by 2030.
Another proposal was for two classes of Member. I have to say to the noble Baroness that that got the thumbs down during the debate. Almost everyone who took part voiced doubts about having voting and non-voting Members, including my noble friends Lord Norton and Lord Caithness, the noble Lord, Lord Beith, the right reverend Prelate and many others. Here I pay tribute to the work of the Bishops’ Bench in our proceedings. If I lived anywhere near Norwich, I would head for the cathedral every Sunday for a further glimpse of the evocative language that the right reverend Prelate uses to make his case.
I had difficulty with another point in the Bill: how the Cross-Benchers arrive in the second Chamber. This was touched on by the Leader of the Opposition. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said that the Cross-Benchers would then have a democratic mandate, but it is not clear what exactly that mandate would be because, as we have heard, the Cross-Benchers do not have a distinctive view on any subject. I am not quite sure how they would campaign during an election without getting drawn into party-political debates. I am not sure whether they would want to campaign against each other, as they would have to do under some electoral systems. It seems to me that the strength of the Cross Benches is that their Members are here for what they know rather than what they believe.
We then had some discussion on the noble Baroness’s points scheme for survival into the next round—a combination of voting and speaking. I think that the Whips on the Front Benches would welcome this proposal—we would be through with flying colours. However, as was referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, it has the perverse incentive of encouraging people to boost their performance in the three qualifying years. The noble and learned Lord put forward his own points system, including giving bonuses to people who vote against their party—not something that I would endorse from the Dispatch Box. If I could add my own suggestion, I would subtract points for long speeches.
The Government are clear that the size of the House needs to be reduced. As noble Lords are aware, in the last Parliament the Government introduced the House of Lords Reform Bill 2012, which sought wide-scale reform. Like the Bill before us today, it made provision to remove hereditary Peers and introduce an elected element to the upper House. As the noble Lord, Lord Beith, said, the Bill received an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons at Second Reading—and not just because I introduced that debate as Leader of the House. However, the Bill was withdrawn because there was no consensus on its subsequent passage through the other place. Noble Lords who have sat through our more recent debates on this topic will recognise that there is still no consensus in this House as to what reform should look like, an impression that has been confirmed by today’s debate.
In such circumstances, there is no prospect of introducing comprehensive reform without it taking up large amounts of parliamentary time. There are many other pressing legislative priorities to deliver over this Parliament, not least implementing the result of the EU referendum. The noble Lord, Lord Beith, and the Leader of the Opposition reminded us of the substantial task ahead in giving proper scrutiny to the primary and secondary legislation that derives from that. None the less, the Government remain open to the idea of pursuing pragmatic, incremental reforms where they are clearly able to command support across this House, just as we did in the last Parliament.
In response to the Leader of the Opposition, my noble friend Lady Chisholm has outlined several times the reasons why the Government feel unable to support the Private Member’s Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott.
Where measures can command consensus, the Government have worked with noble Lords to introduce some focused yet important reforms. With government support, the Bill sponsored in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Steel—now the House of Lords Reform Act 2014—enabled Peers to retire permanently for the first time and provided for Peers to be disqualified where they do not attend or are convicted of a serious offence. The following year, through what is now the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015, the Government supported the Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. It provided the House with the power to expel Members in cases of serious misconduct. I was privileged to steer that Bill through the House of Commons. These were important reforms that have made tangible changes to the culture of the House and, as suggested again by the Leader of the Opposition, that is the spirit in which we should proceed.
The Government welcome the Lord Speaker’s decision to establish a cross-party committee of Back-Bench Peers to explore practical and politically viable methods by which the size of the House could be reduced and we look forward to hearing its recommendations, which the Bill before the House today would of course pre-empt. Many noble Lords have come forward with suggestions that could be put before the noble Lord, Lord Burns. I refer to the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Low, about an expanded role for the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission, and the proposals set out by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, which he described as simple, although I might beg to differ on that. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, has legendary skills in seeking consensus. I think that he was brought in to resolve a dispute over the Wild Mammals (Hunting with Dogs) Bill and last year he was involved in discussions about the Trade Union Bill, so we have hopes that his skills will pull a rabbit out of this particular hat.
In summing up my remarks, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for pursuing this important matter and to those here today for their contributions to the debate. However, I conclude by saying that the Government believe that now is not the time to attempt comprehensive reform of the House given our other more pressing priorities. As we have seen in the past, and speaking from personal experience, if reform of this House is to succeed, we must be able to work constructively together to make progress. That means focusing on pragmatic, incremental changes that can command consensus across the whole House. Although the Government are not able to support this particular Bill, we look forward to working constructively with noble Lords on alternative ways forward.