House of Lords
House of Lords (Alternative Second Chamber) Bill [HL]
(1 day, 16 hours ago)
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Baroness Smith of Llanfaes
That the Bill be now read a second time.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, at its heart, this is a simple and modest Bill. It asks the Government to do something that they have already promised to do: to consult on proposals for replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second Chamber and then report transparently on what they have heard. But it does something else that is just as important. It requires the Government not just to consult but to respond. It requires Ministers to tell Parliament and the public what they intend to do next, because the purpose of the Bill is not to produce another report destined for a shelf in Whitehall. We have plenty of those already. The purpose is to make sure a process begins, and, crucially, that it keeps going. The ball must keep moving.
The future of this House has been debated for longer than most of us can remember. Every political party has, at one point or another, argued that the House of Lords should be reformed, replaced or abolished altogether. We have never been short of ideas, and we have never been short of debate, but we have been short of action. That is why this Bill matters. The Government were elected on a manifesto commitment to replace the House of Lords with an alternative second Chamber that better represents the nations and regions of the UK, and to consult on proposals for achieving that aim. This Bill simply seeks to give effect to that commitment.
One promise remains outstanding, and no clear plan has been put out for delivering it: the commitment to consult on the future of the second Chamber itself. If the Government remain committed to that pledge, why should consultation be delayed indefinitely? If it was important enough to place in the manifesto to the electorate, why should Parliament hesitate to begin delivering it?
I come to this debate from a rather different perspective from many who have spoken on these issues over the years. I am the youngest Member of your Lordships’ House and I come from a working-class background in Wales, which is not traditionally the route by which people arrive here. This is also my first Private Member’s Bill. My own views on the constitutional future of Wales are no secret. Some may find it curious that someone who supports Welsh independence has chosen to bring forward a Bill about reforming a Chamber within the UK Parliament, but I see no contradiction. Whatever constitutional future we each believe in, we should all want the institutions that exist today to command public confidence.
Like many people from communities across Wales and beyond, my route into public life was anything but conventional. A lot of my politics is shaped by my experience of growing up as an unpaid carer for my father, and my focus was—and continues to be—how we improve people’s lives. The way decisions are made and who makes them plays a big part in that. Westminster was not part of my everyday conversations growing up. It felt distant—something that happened somewhere else. I suspect many people still feel exactly the same today. Experiences like that shape the way that you see public institutions. They make you ask who is represented, whose voices are heard and who feels left out altogether.
For me, that is what this Bill is really about. Growing up on Ynys Môn, this place could not have felt further away. In fact, my noble friend Lord Wigley was the first Member of your Lordships’ House I had ever met, and what a formidable advocate he is for Cymru. Having now spent more than two years here, I have a far greater appreciation of the work the House does and the contributions made by Members from all sides and none. But I still think that many members of the public have perfectly reasonable questions about how this House is put together.
Being appointed by former Prime Ministers is not a process that most people would immediately recognise as a modern form of democratic accountability—neither are Bishops, specifically from the Church of England, having 26 reserved spaces in a place that scrutinises new laws for us all to live under. We should not be surprised when people ask questions about an institution with more than 800 Members carrying titles such as Lords and Baronesses. We can explain the work that we do here and rightly point to its value, but we should also understand why some people look at this place and think it belongs to another age. I suspect that, for some people, the only Lords and Baronesses they have encountered are the ones they have seen in “Bridgerton”.
Public institutions are strongest when people feel that they have helped shape them. They are weakest when people feel that decisions are being made for them rather than with them. As a Welsh Member of this House, I am conscious that debates such as this can sometimes sound like Westminster talking to itself. But they are not. These questions matter in Holyhead and the Highlands, in Cardiff and Carlisle, and in Belfast and Birmingham, because they are ultimately questions about who has a voice, who feels represented and who feels heard.
The Wales I grew up in is the Wales that voted for devolution. A previous Secretary of State for Wales, Ron Davies, famously described devolution as a “process, not an event”. That is a helpful quote to consider when we look to make change here, too. Our communities have changed and expectations have changed, yet when it comes to the second Chamber the debate often feels stuck in the same place. Whether one supports independence, federalism, further devolution or the union in its present form, there is a legitimate question about whether Parliament’s institutions properly reflect the nations and regions they are intended to serve. That is not a question that should be answered exclusively here within the walls of Westminster.
Some may reasonably ask why we need another consultation when this issue has already been examined by countless commissions, committees and reviews. That is a fair challenge, but the answer is simple. Too often, Lords reform follows a pattern, which we are all quite familiar with. A report is written, conclusions are reached and then everything quietly grinds to a halt. The Bill seeks to break this cycle. It requires the Government not only to listen but to come back and explain what happens next. In short, it seeks to keep the ball moving.
We saw evidence of how strongly people feel about these questions when the Bill received its First Reading earlier this year. Some noble Lords took the unusual step of voicing opposition to what is normally a procedural stage. I mention that not as a criticism but as an illustration. People care deeply about the future of this House and, where there is disagreement, my instinct is not to narrow the conversation but to widen it.
Noble Lords will hold very different views about the future of this House. Those disagreements are fair, but this Bill does not ask anybody to abandon their convictions. It asks a much simpler question: should the public have a voice in determining the future shape of Parliament? If we cannot agree on the answer, surely we can agree on that as a question. That is why the Bill provides for wider public engagement, including citizens’ assemblies and other deliberative approaches. Change should not be something done to people; it should be something done with them.
Before I conclude, I thank those who have helped to inform my thinking as I have brought forward my first Private Member’s Bill. In particular, I am grateful to the Electoral Reform Society for its continued advocacy and campaigning on people’s democratic rights. I am also grateful to my fellow officers on the APG on House of Lords Reform, who include Members in the other place representing Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and the Greens. I also wish to thank the students of the politics lab at Edge Hill University, some of whom are here today. Their involvement is a reminder that conversations about the future of our democracy should belong not exclusively to politicians and constitutional experts but to the people who will inherit that future too.
I do not stand here today claiming to have all the answers—I have my own views about the future and other noble Lords will have theirs—but surely the future shape of Parliament is not a question that Parliament should answer alone. The Government promised to consult on that future; this Bill simply asks them to honour that commitment. But it also asks for something more: it asks that consultation be followed by actual action. The people we serve deserve a voice in that conversation, and they deserve to know that, once they have been heard, something will happen as a result. As someone who grew up on a council estate in Ynys Môn, who never imagined that I would one day be standing here introducing a Private Member’s Bill in this House, I find it very difficult to argue against giving people a greater say in decisions about the institutions that govern them. This Bill asks for no more than that—not a conclusion, not a blueprint, just a conversation, and a commitment that once this conversation has taken place it will be followed by a clear statement of what comes next. If we cannot agree on the answer, surely we can agree on the question. After decades of debate, that hardly seems too much to ask for. I beg to move.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
I congratulate the noble Baroness on the draw and on presenting her first ever Private Member’s Bill. In the 37 years I have been in Parliament, I have never presented a Private Member’s Bill, so I particularly congratulate her both on this opportunity and on the, as ever, passionate and articulate speech that she just delivered. It does not mean that I think that she is right, but I think that she is correct in bringing this forward, which I suspect is why that those of us who are here to debate it this morning have forgone the dangers of not being able to reach the regions and nations of Britain, because of the weather, in order to contribute to an important debate.
Like the noble Baroness, I am very pleased that students are with us in the Gallery. When I presented the ideas on reform of the upper Chamber to students at the University of Sheffield, we always started off with the presumption that they wanted democracy in the form of election of some sort or another. By the time we concluded the debate, they were not so sure, because this is a very complex and difficult issue. If it were not then what the noble Baroness described as the equivocation over a century would not have taken place. It is precisely because no one could actually come to a conclusion on what the legitimate alternative might be that we are here today.
Like the noble Baroness, I am from a deeply working-class community—we have to say it, don’t we: from a council estate—in my case, in the north of Sheffield. Yes, people used to look bewildered at the ermine. By the way, in those days—because I am old, and I am getting older, like the rest of us—there were no life Peers. When I looked at the hereditary situation in the House of Lords, no wonder I was bewildered and thought, “God, I’ll never get there, and if I do, I’ll probably want to abolish it”. Well, I am here and I do not want to abolish it, but I do want to reform it.
My noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton, who is speaking later, was the chair of the Retirement and Participation Committee, and I served under her. We looked at some of these broader issues. We did not have a Bishop on our committee—as a Methodist, I have no intention of going into the issue of the abolition of the hereditary principle of the Church of England having representatives here—but, apart from that particular grouping, we were well represented across the House.
It was interesting to have that debate. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith: by all means let us set up a constitutional commission. Let us have the open debate about what we would replace this House with. If, as my friend the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, proposed in the commission that he led four years ago, it focuses on the regions and nations, which the noble Baroness mentioned, and would therefore be much more a constitutional Chamber, I have a very simple message: there is a House that is entirely representative—minutely representative—of the regions and nations of the United Kingdom. It is the House of Commons. It represents, in relation to geography and population, the nations and regions, and it speaks for them.
It is true that we could be more representative in this House. It is true that Prime Ministers of all persuasions, when they say that they are going to widen the scope of the representation of English regions, of Wales, of Scotland and of Northern Ireland, should do it. I am relieved, despite the fact that we have moved in the opposite direction in the past two years, that those who have entered this House from London and the south-east are of the highest possible quality. Good job—otherwise I would be deeply offended by the way we have ignored the Labour manifesto of 2024. But there we go; there are other bits of it that I do not agree with as well.
This morning, let us agree perhaps that there is a dialogue to be had and that we could, through a constitutional commission, examine the impact of changing fundamentally the representation of this House on the workings of the House of Commons, on devolved regional strategic authorities in England and on our relationship with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That would be sensible, not least because the House of Commons would have to change dramatically. In the last Session before the general election, 2,400 amendments were moved by the Government to improve and alter Bills that had been partly scrutinised but were mostly nodded through the House of Commons. Having spent 28 years there, I know its strengths and its weaknesses.
I never made a pledge from the council estate or when I was in the House of Commons that I would not enter this place, so I feel fairly secure in saying: let us try to get it right for the future, not simply by having a list system—which is what it would be if we had direct election—in which the political parties would determine who was at the top of the list and who arrived here.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, who is, if I may say so, a living embodiment of why it is a good idea that we move forward and reform the House of Lords rather than abolish it. It is similarly a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness who introduced this legislation. I applaud her courage massively and recognise the passion and the articulation with which she spoke and presented her case. I have looked very closely at the draft legislation that she proposed and her case is to abolish the House of Lords, not to reform it. This is where I part company with her most materially.
The noble Baroness presented her case with articulation. She spoke of reform as being a process and not an event. I agree very much with that; it is true and that is why I cannot go along with the thesis that it is a good idea to abolish the House of Lords and to present a blank sheet of paper and say, “What do we do next?” This is essentially what the noble Baroness is proposing.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, that reform is necessary, and the noble Baroness is to be congratulated, perhaps, on presenting us with a precipice as to what happens if we do not reform. There will be a growing clamour for abolition, and that would be a mistake. There are people in the public who think we are here every day in our ermine. I meet them and they say, “Have you been in your ermine today”? I have been in my ermine three times: once on joining here, once for a presentation of the Queen’s Speech, as it was then, and once when a noble friend was introduced to the Lords. No more than that. There is a misunderstanding of what we do.
I looked at the evidence closely and recently attended a talk by constitutional expert Ian Dunt, who is very much on the left of politics, not the right. I anticipated that he would lambast the Lords and say that it should be scrapped, but he did not. He said that if there is one part of the constitution that should be reformed and essentially left more or less as it is, it is the House of Lords. He said that because, successively, we have acted as a bastion for opinion when the House of Commons has got it wrong; we have done that over a succession of issues where opinion runs high, such as student fees, Brexit and Rwanda. This House gives a chance to represent a different view from the elected Chamber, and that is important.
The work we do not just in the House but in Committee is important, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, has said, with thousands of practical amendments to improve legislation. That role of scrutiny is vital in everything that is done in this House. But tackling the great growth of subordinate legislation is something that we do, too. These things are worth retaining.
That does not mean that we should not be reforming the House of Lords. I will say a bit about some of the strands that that represents, if I may. I recognise the work that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, has done on this, which was the total opposite of self-serving. The work was not to her advantage or that of the people on the committee; they did it based on what is best moving forward for this House. I strongly support the work that they have been doing—it is to be applauded.
That should be joined with something on appointments. I recognise that that was not part of the brief that the committee had on attendance and retirement, but we need to look very closely at what is happening on appointments. More people have joined than have left the Lords in this Session, although we have lost the remaining hereditary Peers. There have been more appointments made and we need to look at the role of HOLAC and put it on a statutory footing. We should alter the way that appointments are made, and I agree that probably the way forward is a commission to look at appointments. That should come with some urgency.
This House has totally changed over 80 years. The noble Lord mentioned the Life Peerages Act 1958. Until then, all appointments to this House were hereditary. That is only 80 years ago. Now, all appointments to this House are life peerages. Effectively, the hereditary principle was abolished in 1999, although we retained—I think this was a mistake—the hereditary by-elections. I say this with due respect; I know that the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, is speaking later, so there is nothing personal in this. I recognise that many of those who have joined through that route are worthy of their appointments, but it was very much a Gilbert and Sullivan or Heath Robinson sort of construct, in a very British way. If we had not had the hereditary by-elections, we would have seen the remaining hereditaries wither on the vine, and that would have been a way forward. Anyway, that is history.
What is important is to look at the principle of appointment to see whether we should do something for the nations and regions in terms of appointments: they are underrepresented in this House, that is quite true, and that would be a way of putting it right. I personally agree with the Bishops and the Archbishops, though I think we can extend that to other religious leaders; I think that would strengthen our House, constitution and country. That is something worth looking at.
I have struggled with the principle of an elected House of Lords. It is difficult to deny the importance of elections. We have elections for the other place. However, I recognise—and it is strengthened by my participation in this House—that there are loads of Peers, many of whom are here today, who would not dream of standing in elections, and they probably would not be returned if they did. But they strengthen this House immeasurably. We risk losing that very valuable element, especially on the Cross Benches, which includes many lawyers, retired diplomats, trade union leaders and so on. They are people who would probably not stand in an election. Do we want to risk that? It is something that needs to be looked at on balance as to whether we have an elected element but retain appointments so that we are able to play to the strength of a House of Lords with all the expertise that conjures up.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for bringing forward this legislation. It is an important piece of legislation, at least to focus our minds. I do not think the way forward is to abolish the House of Lords and ask what we do next, which is essentially throwing all the pieces up in the air. That is not the way to go about it; we do not need revolution, but we certainly need evolution—and quickly, in my humble opinion.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth; his calm, measured tones are always difficult to follow. I also welcome the introduction of the Bill by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. She was very clear and put forward a very powerful argument for why the consultation is needed.
Noble Lords will notice I am slightly croaky today—I am not the noble Lord croaker—but I will endeavour to get through this. It was also great to hear the interjection by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. The noble Lord and I have known each other through Sheffield politics for well over 20 years. I have been rather worried recently because we have agreed more than we have disagreed, but I am now going back to our normal knocking 10 bells out of each other, as we do in Sheffield politically.
I should own up: I am on the traditional liberal wing of the Liberal Democrats, and we have been waiting for rather a long time for this kind of debate and for reform of the House of Lords. It was the Parliament Act 1911 that promised a second Chamber on a popular, rather than hereditary, basis. That was 115 years ago. I would guess it is probably the longest-running temporary arrangement in British public life. I welcome the progress so far in this Parliament: the hereditaries have gone, but some have returned quite rightly on their own merit, and the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, will be speaking later.
However, that is only tinkering. We have swapped the accident of birth for the accident of who you know and left the Prime Minister’s patronage exactly where it was. A promise to consult without a date attached is the constitutional equivalent of “The cheque is in the post”. The Liberal Democrat position is long-standing: a fully elected second Chamber, chosen by proportional representation, speaking for the nations and regions of the United Kingdom; the primacy of the Commons will be preserved. But this Bill asks only for a consultation. After 115 years, that is hardly a leap in the dark.
Why an elected Chamber? As a matter of principle in a democracy, I believe the right to make law comes from the people. Not one of the Members of this House, no matter how eminent or detailed we are in legislation, has been chosen by the public to sit here. Not one of us can be held to account or removed by them. That is why this House defers to the elected Commons. It knows it has no mandate. An elected second Chamber would be stronger, not weaker, and it would scrutinise with authority and not, as sometimes we do, with an apology.
I am from Sheffield, like the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. When the Electoral Reform Society last analysed this House by region, just under 6% of Peers lived in Yorkshire and the Humber, whereas 24% lived in London and 21% in the south-east. For the poor north-east, it was 3%; for Wales it was 4%, Scotland 7% and Northern Ireland 2.5%. A Chamber meant to speak for the whole country looks more like a London dinner party, and Yorkshire rarely gets invited.
I want to be fair, though, to the Cross-Benchers. Their Members are recommended by the House of Lords Appointments Commission through an open, merit-based process and many are people of real distinction who add to your Lordships’ House. But look how thin this safeguard is: the commission is asked to find just two non-party Peers a year, it has no veto and no say over numbers, and the Prime Minister can still nominate Cross-Benchers directly. In 2020, the Prime Minister overruled the commission’s advice. In other democracies, expertise advises; it does not hold a lifelong right to legislate.
On the party Benches, it is starker. The commission checks propriety, not merit, and suitability is left to the party. In July, with the previous Prime Minister preparing to leave, 26 new life Peers were announced in one of his final acts. Five of these places went to my own party, so we claim no clean hands, but while this system exists every party uses it, and that is exactly why it must go. A panel that can improve patronage is not one that can supply a mandate. We elect our councillors, our mayors and our devolved Parliaments as a matter of principle. Only at the top of the system do we hand out seats by appointment, which is unusual in any other bicameral system in the world, bar one.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, I will skip along now to the Bishops’ Benches; people would be very surprised if I did not. In 26 cases, some of our Members are here by job title. Again, they contribute to the work of the House, but, as a matter of principle, nobody voted for these 26 Bishops. They are here because of the posts they hold in the only institution in the whole country that is guaranteed places in Parliament. The 2021 census found that 46% of people in England and Wales described themselves as Christian and over 30% said they had no religion at all. The Church’s own figures put average Sunday attendance in 2024 at just under 1% of the population of England, so 1% attend the Church, but 26 seats are guaranteed automatically in the UK Parliament.
We are told that the Bishops speak for the nation, as they do on many important issues, and not just for the Church. But the record shows they also speak for the Church: during the passage of the equal marriage Bill, the previous Archbishop of Canterbury welcomed the Church of England’s quadruple lock on marriage and argued to protect it. In 2023, eight Bishops, including one who then sat in this House, signed a submission asking the Government to exempt the confessional from mandatory reporting. Again, that issue has been raised recently.
We have seen a number of occasions when the Bishops have stood up and asked for special privileges in VAT concessions on reforming and doing up churches. When the hereditary Peers Bill came before us, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield, who I admire greatly, spoke against the amendments to reduce the number of Lords spiritual. Turkeys, I am told, do not vote for Christmas, and it seems that Bishops do not vote for fewer Bishops. This is no criticism of the faith or the individuals, but nobody should sit in our legislature by virtue of a job in one church.
I support the Bill and urge the Government to give us a firm date for consulting, rather than a vague nod to do so.
Lord Burns (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, for the opportunity to discuss House of Lords reform again. I enjoyed her introductory remarks and agree that this is a very good opportunity to begin to discuss some issues that go beyond the particulars that some of the committees have looked at.
Over the past decade, I have consistently made the case for reform. I have argued for a limit on the size of the House, a balance of new party appointments which reflect the most recent general elections and 15-year term limits for new Peers. Sadly, we have seen no progress on these proposals. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, there has been a shortage of action. Despite the removal of the hereditary Peers, the House is roughly the same size as it was 10 years ago, when we started work on the Lord Speaker’s committee. The Prime Minister of the day continues to determine the total number of appointments and their allocation by party. New Peers are being appointed at an age that could see them being Members of this House for 40 years, even with a retirement age of 80. No one outside Westminster can begin to understand how these arrangements make sense for a legislative Chamber.
I understand the complexity of the issue, but I am disappointed that successive Prime Ministers have shown little interest in reform of these elements of our system. Instead, the Government have a manifesto commitment to replace the House of Lords with an alternative second Chamber that is more representative of the nations and regions. They have said that they will consult on proposals, and, rather cleverly, today the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, has taken on that job for them and brought forward this commitment to a consultation in her Bill. Personally, I remain committed to the proposals from the Lord Speaker’s committee and hope they will be considered, among other options.
The requirement that the House should be more representative of the regions and nations could be added fairly simply. The responsibility for meeting them should be placed on each of the party groups and HOLAC. On its own, this does not require major reform. However, when we looked at this, I was astonished to discover how difficult it is to determine where people come from. Is it where they were born? Is it where they now live? Is it where they were educated? Is it somewhere between all these areas? Nevertheless, it does not require major reform and does not seem to me, on its own, to be an argument for fundamental reform, compared to some of the other issues that we have discussed.
In any consultation with the public about reform—despite what the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said about his interaction with students—I am confident that the most popular option would be some form of appointment by election. There might be debate about the details, but my reading of public opinion is that it clearly favours the legitimacy of election-based appointments.
Under the terms of the manifesto commitment and this Bill, the Government must publish a document setting out alternatives for consultation. In my remaining remarks, I will suggest some factors that I hope the Government will consider if they get round to setting out these alternatives. First, in any consultation, it is hugely important that the Government should be cautious about any change to the powers and purposes of this House. Experience shows that the Commons is very wary that increased legitimacy for this House could undermine its own primacy. The safest approach is to accept that the present powers and purposes of this House are appropriate and to place emphasis on the experience and independence of Members. Any consultation should clearly state that the primary role of the second Chamber is legislative scrutiny and encouraging the Government to think again on certain issues. Earlier this week, there was a debate in the House of Commons about House of Lords reform and the issue about the primacy of the House of Commons surfaced from a number of the contributors.
My second point is that if elections for Members are included, the system should be as different as possible from the Commons system. Therefore, for a second Chamber, my view is that a proportional representation would be most suitable. I say this in tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith: the recent Welsh Senedd system offers such a model for a limited proportional representation system. It involves regional constituencies with multiple Members where voters choose between the parties and determine the number of seats that each party wins. These seats are then allocated by the parties from a closed list of candidates. Like the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, I am not a fan of closed lists, but essentially this seems to me to be a hybrid system of election and appointment, which may be suitable for this House. The overall numbers would be determined by election rather than by the Prime Minister, but leaving the selection of individuals effectively in the hands of the parties. This would also address the Government’s concern about underrepresented regions and nations in the second Chamber.
The next question is whether separate elections for the two Houses are necessary, or whether they should be held together. I favour simultaneous elections for both Houses because it would be very difficult to generate much interest among the electorate in separate elections for a Chamber with relatively limited powers.
The third major issue that keeps cropping up for me is the mechanism for Members leaving. In an elected system, of course, this would involve term lengths. The straightforward approach would be to have the same term length as the Commons. During a general election, all party members would leave and stand for re-election or retire. However, as the scrutiny role emphasises experience, options could also include longer terms for Members of the second Chamber. Members could serve for two Parliaments, say, with half of the House standing for re-election at each general election. A third option would be to serve for three Parliaments, with a third of the House standing for re-election. The third option is, broadly speaking, my own choice, and would—this is no coincidence—over time deliver a result very close to the proposals of the Lord Speaker’s Committee for the political parties, but with the democratic element.
The fourth major issue is the role and handling of the Cross-Bench Members. I will leave the detail of this for another day, but noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that I hope the Cross-Bench Members remain a significant proportion of the House under any option, with appointments generally being made by HOLAC. I agree with the criticism of what has happened in recent years in the way that Prime Ministers have limited the role of HOLAC and the number of appointments it is allowed to make, taking on the job of making appointments to the Cross Benches themselves.
The focus of my contribution on Lords reform over the past decade has been to try to make the existing arrangements work more effectively, avoiding the relentless underlying increase in the size of the House, and I have not given up hope that we could see significant changes yet. However, if there is no change to the Prime Minister’s power to make appointments and there are no term limits, it will become increasingly likely that more fundamental reform is going to take place.
Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the very thoughtful contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on bringing forward this Private Member’s Bill.
I am the first to acknowledge that Governments—and, more to the point, the public—face challenges that may feel a good deal more pressing than constitutional reform, not least the cost of living. But it would be wrong to assume that there is no popular interest in our constitutional arrangements. On the contrary, people hold clear views on Lords reform, and it is fair to say that the majority believe there is some room for improvement.
The gap between how the public perceive this House and how the House sometimes regards itself is striking. Opinion poll after opinion poll shows staunch support for change. Labour’s manifesto reflected this imperative. It set out commitments first for incremental reforms, including the removal of seats for hereditary Peers, a mandatory retirement age, participation requirements and ways to make it quicker and easier to remove disgraced Peers. The public believe that such changes are long overdue, but progress still feels painfully slow. Labour’s manifesto reflected mainstream public opinion when it asserted that the right to inherit a seat in the Lords was “indefensible”. Yet we spent many long, late hours in this place while some tried to do just that.
Labour’s manifesto also committed to substantive reform. It commits to
“replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations”
and to consulting the public on proposals. This is not about changing this House’s core function—a reformed second Chamber would continue to play its vital role in scrutinising the Government and improving the quality of legislation—nor about undermining the primacy of the House of Commons. However, to protect that primacy it does not automatically follow that this House should remain wholly unelected; rather, we need to ask why the UK is alone in having the only second Chamber in Europe that has no part democratically elected, whether directly or indirectly.
Opinion polls show strong opposition across the board to a House of Lords selected primarily through patronage. There is roughly equal support, in the polls I have seen, for some form of elected membership and the appointment of Members who are genuinely independent. Of course, it is perfectly possible to design a system that provides for both. In his first major speech on the workings of the House of Lords in July, the Lord Speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, counselled caution, saying that Labour’s case for substantive reform should be considered carefully. That is good advice, but the Lord Speaker went on to warn that rewiring the system risked blowing “a constitutional fuse”. However, as any decent fire officer will tell you, the consequences of not upgrading an ageing, outdated system are far more serious than just blowing a fuse. That is true for the Lords both metaphorically and quite literally.
This week I attended the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, where we heard the long view from Professor Alvin Jackson of Christ’s College, Cambridge. Drawing on examples from across Europe, he presented a historical analysis of why some union states endure while others fall apart. Key factors include whether there is a willingness to engage with modernisation and constitutional reform; whether bigger partners are ready, and generous enough, to share power across the union; whether there are sustained efforts to build a shared vision and identity that can bind diverse populations together; and, critically, whether institutions are fit for purpose to support that shared endeavour. No doubt there are different views on the future of the union and on whether Gordon Brown’s specific proposal to replace the Lords with a senate is the right one, but Labour is committed to better representation of the nations and regions. Perhaps we could take the opportunity to consult on how to deliver much fairer representation of women and Black and ethnic-minority communities too.
This Bill proposes a framework and timetable for consultation, including with devolved Governments and constitutional experts and potentially through citizens’ assemblies. Of course, not all expertise, wisdom and practical experience resides in this place. It would be quite wrong for unelected Peers to mark our own homework or effectively wield a veto. It is not the job of the Lords to obstruct, delay or dodge its own reform. We cannot be sure what conclusions the proposed consultation would reach, but we do know that the public want parliamentary institutions that better represent their interests and are more accountable to them, because at the heart of this debate is the need to rebuild trust in democracy. The definition of democracy is that authority rests with the people, so it is high time to ask the British public how politics can best serve them.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, and I agree very much with most of her points. I am grateful to her for her forthright views. I am also grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett, Lord Bourne, Lord Scriven and Lord Burns, for their constructive contributions and look forward to other colleagues addressing this House.
I am glad to speak in support of this Bill and congratulate my colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, on her good fortune in coming out of the ballot, on her choice of topic on which to introduce a Bill, and on her truly excellent Second Reading speech this morning. In proposing what some noble Lords may regard as a radical step, the noble Baroness has presented an opportunity for the Chamber to consider a matter that should be of concern to all of us as democrats. She has done so in a modest and reasonable manner, to which no one might take offence, and she has avoided being overtly party political, so it probably remains for me to clarify some of Plaid Cymru’s views on these matters.
Clearly, this Bill may not appeal very much those who believe that our second Chamber is perfect beyond question. But I suspect that, in their hearts, an overwhelming majority of Peers and the general public accept that, in a modern democracy, it is impossible to justify a Chamber composed of Members who have been chosen by the Prime Minister of the day when they took their seats, with a complete absence of geographic balance. The fact that we have finally done away with the hereditary principle in no way validates the composition of this Chamber.
The usual justification of the present system is that it brings to the legislative process individuals of great and wide-ranging experience who would not put themselves forward for election. I wholly accept that there are Members here with immense experience in the world of academia, the law, science, industry, agriculture, the arts, the Armed Forces, diplomacy, government and much more. But many of these highly respected cohorts of experts will admit, if pressed, that their expertise may indeed have been substantial at the height of their careers, but that may have been a decade, or two or three, ago. It will not have passed unnoticed that it is the youngest Member of this House who has brought forward this Bill today.
There is also a geographic imbalance that must cause concern to those who believe that Westminster’s system of government should be acceptable to all parts of the United Kingdom. No comprehensive figures are available for the geographic parts of the UK that Members of this Chamber regard as home, but based on limited data the Library’s brief suggests that about half of all Peers live in London and south-east England, making it grossly geographically distorted.
This brings me to the party-political dimension. My party, Plaid Cymru, is the governing party in Wales’s Senedd. Up until 2006, Plaid refused to nominate representatives for consideration to this Chamber because of the non-democratic nature of the House of Lords. The party changed its mind when the Government of Wales Act 2006, in granting primary lawmaking powers to the then National Assembly, wrote in a proviso that every single application for the use of those powers on devolved subjects such as education or housing would have to be approved by order by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. In other words, the undemocratic second Chamber at Westminster could veto the wishes of our democratically elected National Assembly on devolved matters that solely and exclusively related to Wales.
We were told by the then Labour Chief Whip that, if we agreed to nominate suitable people for the second Chamber, we could expect to be allocated three Members. On that basis of assurance, the party, after a lot of heart-searching, agreed to make nominations and held an internal party election in which three Members—former council leader Janet Davies, industrialist Dr Eurfyl ap Gwilym, and me—were duly nominated. We were led to believe that we would be ratified quickly and that the three of us would take our seats here. But, lo and behold, by then there had been a change in Labour’s leadership: Tony Blair had stepped down and Gordon Brown had replaced him, and no way was he going to appoint any nationalist to this Chamber. He was as good as his word, and none of us were appointed.
It was only after David Cameron became Prime Minister that I was offered a place here. My two colleagues were left in suspended animation. It was March 2024 before we were allowed a second Member, and my noble friend Lady Smith of Llanfaes was elected by Plaid Cymru’s National Council to join me here. We now have a Plaid Cymru Government in Wales, with 44 Members of our Senedd elected last May, but are still denied reasonable representation in this Chamber.
Let me make it clear: while the ultimate objective of Plaid Cymru as a party is an independent Wales, which at that point would cease sending Members to either the House of Commons or the House of Lords, Plaid accepts that in the interim, Wales should have the strongest possible voice in any Chamber whose decisions affect the well-being of the people of Wales. We believe that this Chamber, while it has a legislative function over government portfolios relevant to Wales, should have a statutory number of seats from Wales, with Members democratically elected from within Wales to occupy those seats.
While we believe that Wales itself does not need a second Chamber—small countries such as New Zealand or Denmark do perfectly well with a unicameral system, as do almost half the countries in the world—we accept that the workload at Westminster indeed requires two Chambers of Parliament. However, we believe that they should both have democratic answerability. This Chamber should be directly elected on a regional system of proportional representation, and while any part of the governance of Wales is undertaken at Westminster, Wales should have a full voice in both Chambers. A reconstructed second Chamber could still be seen as a revising Chamber, albeit one with greater legitimacy, and the other place could still have primacy, or an appropriate system of resolving conflict between the two Chambers could be established, as happens in other bicameral Parliaments. That is where we stand, but we are totally prepared to participate here for as long as any public policy or legislation affecting Wales is decided here, and we would take a positive stance towards the reconstruction of the House of Lords into a democratic second Chamber and play a constructive role ourselves in that legislative process.
My noble friend Lady Smith of Llanfaes has emphasised, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, that all she is doing is facilitating the Labour Government to fulfil their election commitment to replace the present Chamber with
“an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations”.
If Prime Minister Burnham takes steps to fulfil that election pledge, we will engage positively with him and his Government in that process.
Today’s Bill tries to secure a more democratic system of government at Westminster. The Bill is modest, but potentially far-reaching in its consequences. As such, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Smith of Llanfaes on presenting it, I commend it to the House and I urge noble Lords to give it a Second Reading today.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the mellifluous contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, although invariably we disagree. I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, on bringing this Bill forward. She is above all consistent and principled. She came into this House pledging to work for the abolition of the House of Lords, and she is as good as her word. It takes some principle to support something that is against your own fiduciary interest, so I commend her for that, but I have to say that this Bill is a missed opportunity. It is a legislative vacuum, because it really does not address the key issues in this half of our bicameral legislature. We could be debating many other important issues for reform: the NHS, social care, the prison system or welfare, not constitutional reform, notwithstanding the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady.
The Bill presupposes the answer from the outset, the answer being abolition, and it gives quite wide-ranging, sweeping powers to Ministers to set up a process with little detail or vision. One has only to look at Clause 1(2)(e) and (3)(a) to see that. As others have said, including the typically astute noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, we already have a people’s assembly and it is called the House of Commons.
We all know that the same old people will be mounting their hobby horses in this campaign: Unlock Democracy, the Electoral Reform Society, the Fawcett Society and, of course, the Guardian. The House of Lords is way down the list of voter salience and voter concern. We have already experienced the unedifying chaos of piecemeal reform with the removal of the hereditary Peers, which would make a Central American banana republic blush as dozens of new Labour Peers have been ennobled while long-standing, experienced hereditary Peers—mainly Conservative ones—have been kicked out. In fact, I sometimes think that there is not a member of the constituency Labour Party in Islington or Camden who is not a Member of your Lordships’ House.
The Bill fails to address the case for meaningful incremental reform on attendance, on the potential abuse of leave of absence, on the role of the Lords spiritual or on improving the role of this House in, for instance, confirmation hearings for senior civil servants and quango leaders, or the scrutiny and oversight of international agreements and treaties, analogous with foreign jurisdictions and Senates, such as the United States. These are all areas that could be enhanced without reducing the proper, predominant, constitutional role of the elected House of Commons.
The Bill is also silent on powers, composition, election method and our relationship with the other place. I have to say, I think it is virtue signalling in legislative form. We need only look back to 2012 and Nick Clegg’s proposals for a 15-year, one-off, non-negotiable term in a de facto Senate. That did not work; there was no consensus, which is why it fell, and of course the rest is history.
The public do not really care about this issue. There is no real, definitive, empirical evidence that this is a matter about which the public are significantly concerned. It would be a bunfight and a race to the bottom among the perennially angry activist class. An elected House or Senate of the regions will result in a House of compliant placemen from party lists, donors, careerists, cranks and the unemployable, with fewer appointments on meritorious achievement, skills, knowledge and lived experience.
The dirty secret is this: the Commons will never allow the Lords to impinge on its authority via a competing mandate, even if the Lords aspire to be elected. I speak as a sinner who is repenting—I look at the Bishops’ Bench as I say that—and as someone who had a pretty jaundiced view of the Lords as a Member of Parliament but now genuinely appreciates and understands its integral role of making the Commons better: a Commons that frequently fails by poorly and inadequately scrutinising drafted primary and secondary legislation. We need only think of the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill earlier this week: dozens of amendments were put forward but, because of the guillotine, they were not considered. The other place does not have the time to do that.
In this Parliament, the House of Lords has challenged the over-mighty and arrogant Executive where the Commons has had to acquiesce on, say, Chagos, the then Employment Rights Bill, the social media ban for under-16s, and the Financial Services and Markets Bill. There were—the Whips will probably wince at this—208 defeats in the 2024 to 2026 Session. The alternative is a House of apparatchiks with some kind of a mandate that will set it at permanent war with the Commons. That is a recipe for gridlock and a constitutional impasse. We would not invent the present Chamber as it now is, but it works to meet its constitutional obligations. The Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, the Blairite settlement of 1999, the Life Peerages Act 1958—all have acted to establish the proper and well-understood conventions and constitutional proprieties.
One only has to look at the superb work that has been undertaken in the past two years on the terminally ill adults Bill. Whatever your view on that, the House of Lords came into its own as the finest example of a proper scrutiny and oversight Chamber in pointing out the very evident and egregious flaws in that Bill—and we know what happened thereafter.
The Puritan zealots abolished your Lordships’ House during the Cromwellian interregnum, but even they brought it back with Charles II: a legislature that was at the heart of the Glorious Revolution and the publication of the Bill of Rights, the abolition of the slave trade and, more recently, the blocking of 42-day detention for pre-charged terror suspects. Such a body should not be slowly killed off by a consultation portal peopled by angry misfits and anarchists in their parents’ bedroom. This Bill could have been a catalyst for an interesting and important national debate. Regrettably, it feels like a tick-box exercise hiding the blushes of an already over-powerful Government, and yet another of their broken manifesto promises.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I add my voice to the swelling paean of praise for the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes. Peers on all sides have commended her for her courage, which is true but also very telling. It presupposes that she knew that her Bill would be unpopular here, which the debate has indeed borne out, yet it is worth reminding ourselves that almost all the political parties are in favour of changing the existing composition of the upper House. It is one of the paradoxes of our system. Everyone is in favour of it on paper, yet somehow it never becomes a proposal. I remember that, when I was still a Conservative, I asked the then party leader, David Cameron, when he was still in opposition, whether he would get around to his technical manifesto commitment to a different upper House. He said, “Yes, that will be a fourth-term issue for us”.
That has been the approach of all parties. I understand it. I am enough of a small-c conservative to get the argument that if you do not need to change, you do not change. None the less, it is based on shaky foundations. The basic argument against reform of this place, which we heard very eloquently expressed just now by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, and which was flagged up by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, is the primacy of the House of Commons. We are told that if there were any elected element in this House, it would be intolerable and would create constitutional gridlock.
The noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, points out that every other country in Europe has an elected element in its upper Chamber, and that does not lead to constant constitutional gridlock—other than sometimes in Belgium, where I lived for a bit. In other places it works remarkably well, because you can define the function of an upper House, set out its powers and then consider its composition. Form follows function. Therefore, you could set out for this House to have strong powers of delay, block and veto, but weak powers of initiation, for example. Whatever it was you then decided on, you could draw up a plan for composition accordingly.
On the “form follows function” basis, of all the systems that we could have, the one where the Executive appoint one of the two legislative Chambers is the weakest. I will not get into what alternatives there are. We have heard loads of them. You could have a single long non-renewable term, you could have it elected through a different voting system, you could have the Bundesrat or regional system that Gordon Brown’s proposal was getting towards, or you could have it chosen by lot, like a jury. Almost any of them would be better than having the Executive appointing half the legislature.
It is worth reminding ourselves of what these Parliaments are for. If you look between the windows up there, you will see these rather hunky medieval figures in chainmail. They represent the bishops and barons who forced King John to agree to the great charter. They are put there for a reason: to remind us of the primary purpose of this Chamber, which is not to legislate, not to sit on committees, not to make speeches and not even to represent people; it is to prevent the Executive from exceeding their powers.
The conciliar form of government by bishops and barons that we had in this country from 1215 onwards was primarily about ensuring that even the King had to obey the law like everybody else. Everything else we do is secondary; everything else is a nice bonus. We are here to stop the Government breaking the rules or exceeding their powers. Therefore, you have to say: is there any stranger way of composing the upper House than allowing that Government to nominate its Members? I realise that this is going to be unpopular here, because all noble Lords are beneficiaries of that system. None the less, would anyone, from first principles, try to argue for that system?
I am sure noble Lords are bursting to tell me that if we went down the road of defining the functions of this House, we would be opening the door to a written constitution, and that all these other chambers that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, alluded to have some kind of supreme court and some kind of division of powers laid out on paper. As we were reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, at the end of the debate yesterday, in this country we have been talking about whether there should be some codification of our constitution for at least 400 years. It is nice to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, who was responding at the very end yesterday, is back in her place so early this morning.
This is a very old debate. A number of anomalies have crept in, of which this Chamber is not the foremost. There are real questions over how the devolution settlement is working; if we had been able to foresee where we are now in 1998, I wonder whether we would have done it in the way we have. There are real issues about the way our voting system—designed, and extremely effective, when there were two parties—is creaking under the weight of a five-party system. Above all, there are issues about the growth of judicial review and the power of the Supreme Court that were never foreseen at the time.
There is a case for looking at all these things in the round, through the tried and tested form of a royal commission. I do not want to anticipate where it would go; all I am saying is that it is no longer viable to say that there should be no change or reform. Perhaps the greatest statement of Toryism spoken in Parliament was from the second Viscount Falkland, who famously said:
“When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change”.
It is often forgotten that he was talking about the composition of Parliament—specifically, about whether bishops should sit in the House of Lords. It was very inspiring conservative and Tory sentiment, but it led to ruin; it was followed by a civil war, then a military dictatorship. I prefer Edmund Burke’s approach, when he said:
“A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation”.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, although whether the noble Lord would say the same about me if our positions in the list were reversed, I cannot say. I am sorry to say that I was not in the Chamber when the noble Baroness introduced her Bill. I congratulate her on it being her first. I double-checked the date, and 3 June was the day I returned to the House after a few days’ absence. After five years of serving in your Lordships’ House in many capacities, including as a Deputy Speaker, I suppose I had passed the audition.
I was sorry to learn from the Library briefing that some noble Lords apparently indicated that they did not want the Bill even to receive a First Reading. Noble Lords will know that that is against the spirit, custom and practice of this House, not to mention what is set out in the Companion. Although I do not agree with every aspect of this Bill, I nevertheless hope it gets its Second Reading and is considered further in Committee. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes—I apologise if that pronunciation is wrong—for having brought it forward. We should not be afraid to discuss the future of this Chamber and the possible alternatives that lie before us.
The Bill advocates consultation. Incidentally, I notice that Clause 1(3)(b) says provision should be made for contributions from members of the public to appear on a website. The news this week of the corruption of the PHP software that governs so many websites around the world is a reminder that you cannot always take websites for granted. Anyway, I am grateful for the chance the noble Baroness gives the House today to talk about the future. Of course, this is the second constitution-related debate in two days—the other being the debate yesterday initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich—so this House has had the luxury of considering the constitution of this country twice in a week.
My first point is to argue the need for a second Chamber of whatever kind. I do not think that a unicameral legislature would be a step forward given our political history as a country, and nor would it represent a democratic step forward. I am in favour of a bicameral legislature. Despite the noble Baroness’s criticisms of the Chamber as presently constituted, and whatever the demerits of our House, it is far preferable that we are here than that we are not—or far preferable that something is here as a second Chamber rather than not.
One reason I have for saying this is that our current two-House Parliament is struggling to do its job of scrutinising legislation as it is. I pay tribute to the work of Members of the other place. They work hard, they are dedicated to their constituents and they have enormous pressures on them, not least in this social media age. But it is also true, partly as a result, that they are failing properly to scrutinise legislation—with results that we can see here.
Noble Lords might have been present on the recent evenings when my noble friend Lord Rooker has moved an amendment on the committal stage of government Bills. He has argued that this is because he wants to draw the attention of the House to the extent to which some Bills have had negligible scrutiny in the House of Commons. As a result, this House has an even greater job of work to do, and the Commons may have the mistaken impression that we are making their lives harder by returning Bills to their Chamber with so many amendments when it is, in fact, the reverse. My noble friend has made some good points. Government of all kinds, and I do not mean just the current one, have found it convenient and expedient to use the House as a way of inserting sometimes substantial amendments to their own legislation—my noble friend Lord Blunkett and the noble Lord, Lord Burns, have alluded to this very point during this debate.
The essence of the Bill is to consult stakeholders on the replacement of the House of Lords with an alternative second Chamber. When it comes to possible alternatives to this House, as has been said already, there is no shortage of possible suggestions. The form of your Lordships’ House was an issue that first arose after the rejection of Lloyd George’s Budget in 1909. For many years—maybe still—at Labour Party conferences you could pick up postcards from that era, which depicted a battering ram against the doors of the House of Lords and were designed to foster support for the abolition of this House.
Proposals for reform have arisen since. I almost hesitate to draw your Lordships’ attention to some of them, but perhaps I may refer to a Fabian pamphlet entitled The Privy Council as a Second Chamber, published in 1957, nearly 70 years ago, by the then Member of Parliament for Bristol South East. It argued that because Privy Council membership relied heavily on public service and political appointments, rather than the then existing system of inherited peerages, shifting second Chamber duties to the Privy Council would eliminate almost all hereditary Peers while retaining experienced public servants. Such an approach did not find favour at the time, although, in constitutional terminology, I believe I am right in saying that the Cabinet remains, in formal terms, a committee of the Privy Council.
In the late 1960s, further reform proposals for the second Chamber were defeated by what was then called an unholy alliance between Michael Foot and Enoch Powell. There was the House of Lords Act 1999, which took the first decisive step towards removing hereditary Peers, and the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act earlier this year completed their removal. Meanwhile, further reform of the House itself arose in the coalition Government of 2010. The detailed proposals put forward for reform, including different options about the proportion of a second Chamber that might be elected, were debated and considered at length, but in the end no single option found favour and the proposed reforms lapsed.
One lesson that can be learned, as some of us explain when we take part in the excellent activities of the Learn with the Lords programme, is that debates about an alternative second Chamber have been going on for so long, and I am afraid that they will continue to do so. One problem that will never go away is how you reconcile the differences between an elected House of Commons and a more legitimate alternative Chamber, possibly an elected House of Lords. The Bill is silent on that matter, and yet that question lies at the very heart of any case for any alternative second Chamber. If you want to know why this is such an important issue, you have only to look at countries such as the United States and the difficulties that arise when two chambers on Capitol Hill disagree with each other—we will have to wait to see whether that reappears.
I know that the Bill is only what you might call a paving Bill to consult on possible future alternatives. However, I am struck by the fact that although Ministers in all the devolved bodies are to be consulted under the terms of the Bill, it does not, unless I have got this wrong, extend to the Parliaments and Assemblies themselves. Perhaps the noble Baroness, when she comes to wind up, might tell the House why the consultation was only for Ministers rather than the actual Assemblies.
All the same, it would be unrealistic to debate the Bill in Committee without considering the crucial issue of how differences would be reconciled between the two Houses. I do not want to go anywhere near the time limit, but I would like to take the opportunity to insert in this debate some of the ideas being discussed among noble Lords about ways in which the House might be reformed that would not need legislation to take effect. These ideas arise from the work of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, so ably led by my noble friend Lady Hayter, who has left her place, and the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. One of its regular members, the noble Lord, Lord Burns, has already addressed us. These are changes we could make that would require not legislation but only debate and agreement, by this House and for this House, to put into effect.
In what ways could we act to make us more effective? I will give an example. One suggestion that arose yesterday was that the House of Lords Appointments Commission should be put on a statutory basis. The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, who chaired the commission in the past, said yesterday that he was nervous of such a proposal because it might trigger judicial review as to the basis upon which Peers are appointed. This is a major problem, given the House as it is and its size, and we have no control over the powers of the Prime Minister to create peerages. No one has any control over that.
There are other ways in which we could reform, though perhaps I had better curtail the other examples I was going to give. Using the 2014 Act, we could establish a mechanism to identify and assist those Members for whom retirement might be appropriate. We are officially awaiting proposals from the Government on the removal of peerages, which is a separate issue and has not been done by Parliament since 1917. We could improve the way we scrutinise Bills. I am in favour of not just more pre-legislative scrutiny but more post-legislative scrutiny, which would be a very good thing. There are detailed, rather technical, amendments that could be made. We could tighten the rules on degrouping, which occasionally has been used as a tactic to prolong debate. There are a range of other things, but in view of the time I will pass over the next six or seven wonderful pages of my notes.
In conclusion, I entirely appreciate that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, wants to use the Bill to trigger a debate about alternatives, and the Prime Minister has already indicated that he would like to embed the concept of devolution more strongly in our constitution. It may be that proposals to that effect will be brought forward. Time will tell. But the House should not be afraid of this Bill. I for one look forward to Committee and very much hope that the House will give it a Second Reading.
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)
It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and to express my entire agreement with him that we have to take the Bill forward. First, may I briefly add to what all noble Lords have already said about the excellent way in which the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, introduced the Bill and the ingenuity of the approach that has been taken. Because it is a very narrow Bill, I have only eight points that I want to raise—do not sigh, this is a lawyer speaking, so they are bound to be long.
The first is a lawyer’s point. The Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, so ably pointed out, is about replacement. Should we consider that the consultation should include reform? There was a debate about the difference between replacement and reform when, in 2003, the then Government announced their desire to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor. They found that too difficult and thought reform was better. I very much hope that we will look on this as a Bill about both a completely different alternative and reform. When this Bill comes to Committee—I very much agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, that it will need one—we must realise the dangers of using the manifesto term of “replacement” rather than a more elegant parliamentary term that can enable wider consultation and debate. A reformed House of Lords could be very similar to a replaced second Chamber, but it would get rid of the arguments that have been made about the scope of the Bill. That is the only lawyer’s point I want to make.
Secondly, I too feel that the position we are in with this House is untenable. We must remember what western democracies face. We have to engage in the debate across Europe or North America about the need to safeguard our democracies. It seems to me that we can, by dealing with an untenable position in our democracy, demonstrate two things: that we are resilient, and that we have the will and ability to bring about change. By getting this debate under way, we will demonstrate that we are interested in showing, particularly to the younger generation, that a democracy can, in a major respect, reform itself.
Thirdly, there is the argument of self-interest. This was demonstrated in the way that we managed to fail to deal with the hereditary Peers—if we do not do something, someone will do it for us, which we will not like.
Fourthly, I have enormous respect for the view of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. He is right that this would ordinarily be something on which one would expect a royal commission or some other commission to come up with something that was broadly acceptable. But we have failed for more than 100 years. Why do we not ask the people what they think, where experts have not been able to come up with a viable solution?
Fifthly, it seems to me that, as shown in the very impressive paper produced by the Library, there are real practical difficulties. Everyone knows—the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, has spoken of them—the problems in trying to come up with a way to reform, so we need the broadest possible input. There are real difficulties and there is always the prospect that, if you consult widely, you might conclude that our present Chamber is the least worst form of second Chamber that you can have. I hold that out as a hope to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, because it may be that, on examination, there is no better solution than what we have. I think that will not be the case, but it is always possible, and it is no excuse for denying a proper examination.
Sixthly, there is the form of consultation. What is at stake is not our generation, but the younger generation. We must find a means of consultation that will get to them. I leave that to the experts; I know nothing about how you communicate effectively in that way, but when one speaks to the younger generation at universities and schools, they are interested. It is absurd to say that they do not care. We must make them care. They do care because the future of our democracy depends on it, so I look forward to seeing the ingenuity of experts in this area to ensure that there is proper consultation with the youth.
Then there is a point that noble Lords might think odd coming from me: there is a manifesto commitment. It is very odd for a democracy that we do not take a very simple manifesto commitment, namely consultation, forward. What faith can you have in a Government who say that they are going to do something that is vital to democracy, but do not do it? I think the Bill ought to be taken forward for that reason.
Lastly, I have said nothing about the alternatives. There are many here more expert who can come up with those. I believe we should trust the people. Politicians always tell me that that is what we should do. Why do we not do so?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, not only on her good fortune in the Private Member’s Bill ballot but because of the care she has taken in framing this Bill. She has chosen the wording very wisely. I must express solidarity with her, not just because I too grew up on a council estate in the north of an industrial town but because I agreed with many of the things she said—not least about the Bishops, but that is probably for another day.
One of the advantages of speaking late in the debate is that you can comment on what other people have said. One of the disadvantages is that much of it has already being said, so there is no point in going over everything again. But I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, takes some satisfaction from the fact that most of the speakers, with the exception of the odd one, have been very supportive of the idea that she has put forward. I think that pays tribute to the fact that she did not come up with a simple solution or the answer to the question; she simply raised it and took the wording from the Labour manifesto.
The starting point should be that we cannot defend the House of Lords in its present form by any constitutional principles. We are not put here on the basis of anything that could vaguely be called a democratic process. That is our vulnerability; that is the great weakness. Although we cannot defend the way we are put here, we quite rightly say very often that somehow this system works and we are able to do the job we are sent here to do—being a revising second Chamber. This House is by no means perfect. Parliamentary systems are by no means perfect. There are many flaws and many changes that are needed, but we do, at least to a certain extent, have a functioning Parliament. That is what we should bear in mind when we are looking to change in the future. Whatever changes we introduce, they have to present a functioning Parliament at the end of the day. There is the real danger of unintended consequences with all the ideas that have been put forward.
The noble Baroness mentioned that she had help from students and that some of them were here. She reminded me that when I was a student, I wrote an essay on reform of the House of Lords. I still had it a few years ago, but I have moved house, so I probably do not now. However, I recall that I suggested a regional structure with either indirect or direct elections, and that that would enhance the impact of the regions. I still think that is one of the biggest problems we face in this House and I still believe there is some scope there.
There are challenges and there will still be unresolved issues, but I do not think we should dismiss that possibility totally out of hand. One of the problems is that we do not have the regional infrastructure to sustain that kind of approach; that is not to say that things could not be done in the future. The most important point is that, if we are ever to give greater democratic legitimacy to a second Chamber, we have to consider that we may create a situation where we challenge the primacy of the House of Commons. That is the basic problem that is faced so often.
Mention has been made that there have been lots of reviews, commissions and committees. People have come up with ideas, and they fall not because of a lack of ideas but because we need a comprehensive approach that produces a functioning Parliament. Mention was made of dispute resolution procedures, which exist in different places, but our legal system is different as well. The noble Lord, Lord Hannan, mentioned that he does not want the Supreme Court to get involved in all this. All these issues have to be treated extremely carefully.
We need to look at the issues that the noble Baroness raised, but I hope—I think the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, made this point—that, while we wait for a big change, it does not mean that we ourselves should not undertake significant changes. Perhaps I would say that, because I chaired the Retirement and Participation Committee, and I welcome the comments that were made there.
There is a lot that Parliament can do to improve its workings, and there is a lot that this House can do to improve its working. We have a consultation on the sitting hours, which are significant, sometimes even more significant for those Members who do not live in London and who need to balance being in this House with other commitments. I do not think that most Members of the House realise the difficulties that non-London Members face in this way.
We should look at the changes and making legitimate changes to the other House as to how we can work together. We need to look at the need for more draft legislation and for more post-legislative scrutiny. One thing that we very much need to do is to look at the way we deal with statutory instruments. Many hours are spent looking at SIs, which are never changed. If we had a proper sifting system, we could have a much more efficient system that would benefit Ministers and the House.
I say good luck to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. We have to be realistic about what can be achieved and the timescale. Above all, we have to make sure that what we end up with provides proper accountability and a properly functioning Parliament.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank your Lordships’ House for allowing me to speak in the gap. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on her Bill and on her powerful introductory speech. I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, as I represent another party that is severely underrepresented in your Lordships’ House.
As many have noted, this debate neatly follows on from yesterday’s, secured by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, on the question of a written constitution, in which the noble Lord, Lord Pack, and I were isolated in speaking in favour. I said then that I would put on hold a debate about the Lords, but I start today by noting a personal interest. In 2021, my Private Member’s Bill was the House of Lords (Elections and Reform) Bill. I had been in your Lordships’ House about as long as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, when I brought that Bill through, although I cannot take personal credit for it because it had previously been brought forward by my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. That went much further in setting out a prescription for a replacement House but, of course, being a PMB, it was really another way of starting the debate.
I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that public confidence is crucial to political legitimacy, and there is not public confidence in this House. That is not necessarily a comment on a lot of what we do—we do good work—but who makes the decision matters.
I want to correct the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, here: the party of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and my party make selection as democratic as possible. We are not appointed by patronage; we are democratically selected within our own parties. That is the best that we can do under the current system.
I am often of the view—and can be heard to say—that we need a world where everyone makes politics what they do, not something they have done to them. With that in mind, I particularly welcome the students from Edge Hill University who are here today and worked with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. I note that, as we speak, the student movement in Serbia may be about to win a general election on Sunday and take over from a regime that has been in power for 12 years—that would be a student-led movement taking over a country. It is a reflection of a world in which we are seeing political change happening very fast.
I want to pick up and disagree with some unusual points of agreement between the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Jackson, both of whom suggested that the other House is representative. That House has a massive majority for the Labour Party, which received the backing of 33% of the people who voted, or about 25% of eligible voters. We do not have a representative House. One argument often put for saying that we cannot have an elected House of Lords is that it would be a problem for it to contest with the Commons. I think it would be a huge advantage if we brought in an elected House of Lords, as the Commons voting system would have to be reformed to make it truly representative.
Both the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Jackson, said what we would inevitably get is a list system, but that is not true. There are many countries in Europe that have open list systems in which voters can choose individuals rather than having just the party list. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, said that what we do now is appropriate, but I say that is not true. The House ultimately gets to a point where it says, “We are the unelected House, so we cannot do something we think we should do”. I have seen the House stand up against that only once, during the passage of the internal market Bill, on a commercial issue. It did not stand up on the rights of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people, and it did not stand up on the Rwanda Act. This is an important Bill, and I urge your Lordships’ House to give it a Second Reading.
Lord Pack (LD)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and express my envy of her luck in coming out of the ballot. I hope she might perhaps be tempted to buy me some lottery tickets this weekend. This is an important issue and, as both the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, have noted, this debate today forms a fortuitous pair with yesterday’s debate about written constitutions. It is a particularly enjoyable pair for those of us enthusiastically speaking in both debates.
There is an important commonality about how we best ensure our constitutional arrangements are well suited for the challenges that our country faces. Yesterday, we heard from many noble Lords the virtues of flexibility and the ability to evolve our constitutional arrangements. That is something that this Bill is very much in tune with, as it proposes—to pick up on the points of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and others—setting out a route that would lead potentially to an improved and different Chamber rather than its simple abolition.
I am not sure how many of the categories of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, I fall into, but I should at least plead guilty to having a bedroom and occasionally dwelling in it. I often think about reform of this place on a Sunday morning—this may make the noble Lord feel that I definitely fit some of his other categories—because that is when I usually do my work preparing for a meeting of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and go through the paperwork. That committee’s work is a good example of the sort of scrutiny that we often rightly pride ourselves on this House having a key part in. I often reflect that I am only able to spend the time working through the paperwork on a Sunday morning in part because I am not an MP. If I were an MP, I would either be rushing around various fêtes and other community events—no doubt acquiring many raffle tickets along the way—or I would be spending some precious time with my family ahead of doing exactly that in the afternoon. It is important to acknowledge that there are some benefits in the difference in the structures that we have.
There is also a very significant downside, because if I chose to stop doing that work diligently—I reassure noble Lords that I have no intention of doing so—what could anyone do about it? As a member of a political party, I could be sacked from my current role or even be threatened with the withdrawal of the party Whip. But for anyone who is less diligent, threatening them with those things is threatening them with having less work to do and having fewer WhatsApp groups to be in. It is, even in the hands of the most persuasive leaders or Whips, not the most effective of threats.
That is a real problem, because there are undoubtedly some changes to how this House operates—in due course, we will debate participation rates and retirement ages—that can get a bit close to the edge of that fundamental lack of accountability for anyone who does not do their job properly. Likewise, standards codes, such as the Members’ Code of Conduct and related documents, can address that. But for all that it is important to have a Members’ Code of Conduct that properly protects staff in this place from bullying, even the most enthusiastic supporter of such processes will not argue that how well you read page 32 of a PDF document is going to be subject to such processes.
We should always be cautious about any process that allows a Member of this House or the House of Commons to be removed in some way. It is why we have such a complicated—one might even say tortuous—process in the House of Commons by which somebody can be removed for misbehaviour. But one of the key safeguards and one of the reasons it has now become a well-established system and an acceptable process to have a ruling against an MP, a recall petition or a subsequent by-election is because, in the end, it places power with the public. It allows voters to decide, not party bosses. As a former party boss, I am very keen on the public having the power in those cases.
However, we do not have the equivalent in the House of Lords. We do not have the accountability to the public that should be at the heart of a democracy. There are many important details to work out—for example, on the roles of the Bishops in this place, as my noble friend Lord Scriven touched on—but the Bill wisely sets out a route by which we can address some of those issues.
Another area, quite rightly mentioned by several noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Taylor and Lady Bennett, is the relations between the House of Commons and a reformed House of Lords. I mentioned yesterday the risk sometimes in debates outside this place of a certain myopic insularity, as if problems such as that are somehow insuperable. We forget to look, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, wisely pointed out, at the many other countries which have faced an equivalent problem and found solutions to it. We should have self-confidence that, if other people can find solutions to it, it should not be beyond us.
There are already ways in which the different roles of the House of Commons and this House are embedded in our approaches. There are the Parliament Acts and the rules about money Bills. There are many ways that those sorts of differences could be further embedded, such as making it much more than just a constitutional convention, perhaps with the requirement for the Prime Minister to be in the House of Commons. One can be pretty sure that wherever the Prime Minister is, that place will get more attention than the other. Many other countries managed to sort out those problems, and we should not put ourselves off with the thought that we would struggle to find solutions ourselves.
There is one issue, touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, where I think the solution that we need to reach is having more power for this place and less subservience—if I might put it like that—to the House of Commons, and that is to do with secondary legislation. Statutory instruments often get precious little scrutiny, sadly, in the House of Commons. We have these different processes of negative, affirmative and super-affirmative processes, but even the super affirmative process for secondary legislation is not really that super. Fundamentally, for reasons that I politely disagree with but acknowledge, and for key points of principle that both Labour and Conservative Peers have consistently expressed, neither party when in opposition will vote down a piece of secondary legislation, except in the most exceptional and unusual of circumstances.
However good our scrutiny of a piece of secondary legislation, however pertinent the criticisms of its drafting by, say, the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and however pertinent the questions raised about whether the statutory instrument is really right, statutory instruments will all but always go through unamended, exactly as the Government wished. Therefore, in a way, having some more democratic legitimacy for our House that might make us feel more empowered to be a bit difficult now and again on secondary legislation would be a good thing, and it would end up in enhancing the work of the House of Commons rather than undermining it.
As several noble Lords have touched on, this is obviously a very long-running issue. As a good Liberal Democrat, I do of course have the preamble to the 1911 Parliament Act engraved on my heart:
“And whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis”.
I think it is fair to say that Parliament agreeing that in 1911 and not yet having managed to act on it is fairly slow-moving, even by the standards of restoration and renewal.
As I know colleagues on the Conservative Benches often like historical precedents and quotes to bolster arguments, I cannot help but observe that the Conservative manifesto from the December 1918 general election included:
“it will be one of the objects of the Government to create a Second Chamber which will be based upon direct contract with the people”.
I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and others may be tempted to rediscover the spirit of December 1918.
More fundamentally, however, as several noble Peers have touched on, form should follow function. There is an important function for a second Chamber, but it is one that requires legitimacy, and legitimacy in a democracy fundamentally comes from the public. I therefore commend this Bill because it sets out a route for applying that; it rightly acknowledges that there are many areas of detail to be worked out and gives us a chance of finally moving on from that commitment in 1911 to actually taking effective action.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak to this Bill, which has invited a broad debate on the future of your Lordships’ House. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, has a principled opposition to the House of Lords, and it is that principled conviction that underpins the Bill. We know how hard it is to make a case for reform in your Lordships’ House, as many noble Lords today have made clear, and I respect the noble Baroness sincerely for bringing this Bill forward. She will understand that we on these Benches cannot support the Bill, but we have had an opportunity today to reflect on what the House does well and where improvements may be made, and I welcome that opportunity. I will speak first on the Bill before reflecting on those broader questions.
We are concerned that the Bill does not set a clear direction. It requires a broad consultation that would set us on a magical mystery tour of all the options available as a replacement to the House of Lords as currently constituted. On our mystery tour, we would hear from Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers and the Northern Irish Ministers, but not the Assemblies, as the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, made clear. We would hear from local government and constitutional experts, whose theories are always illuminating. But is all that a truly good use of the precious time and resources of His Majesty’s Government, especially—as already pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, herself—given the number of previous reviews and commissions? I think not. As my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough so presciently pointed out, there are many more pressing and urgent issues that concern the public. Indeed, it is rather strange that the devolved Governments would be consulted, but the Members of this House or the other place would not be. There is certainly scope for an amendment there when we proceed to Committee on the noble Baroness’s Bill.
In essence, the Bill asks us for a vote of no confidence in the current House of Lords without saying what an alternative Chamber should look like, as noble Lords including the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and my noble friend Lord Jackson pointed out. The noble Baroness might believe the House of Lords is not fit for purpose, but there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. It is rare that I invoke the former Prime Minister the right honourable Keir Starmer in support of an argument, but he illustrated the vitally important role of your Lordships’ House at Prime Minister’s Questions on 11 March. In an answer about the terminally ill adults Bill, he said:
“Scrutiny is a matter for the other place”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/3/26; col. 326.]
For this place, your Lordships’ House, when Members of the other place are denied the opportunity to scrutinise legislation in full—whether that be a result of the guillotine or unacceptably late amendments tabled by the Government on Report—the work of this House becomes all the more important; again, that is an argument advanced by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate.
On the Employment Rights Bill, noble Lords from across the House united in common cause to hold the Government to account on the most damaging aspects of the Bill, securing a U-turn on day-one rights. That has saved businesses from an unmanageable burden, and I am very proud of my noble friends Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Hunt of Wirral for bringing the Government to their senses by force of argument. I know they were grateful for the support of noble Lords on the Benches to my left and from so many noble Lords with extensive business expertise on the Cross Benches.
When we work together in this place, we really can hold the Government to account. That is our role within the constitutional settlement which we have inherited. I understand the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, might find it dissatisfying that your Lordships’ House is not constituted in a way that one would design today. Nobody designing a modern constitution from scratch would conceive of such a Chamber playing this role. However—I have said this before, and I will say it again—through historic evolution it is no exaggeration to say that this House has become the best policy-revising Chamber in the world. In short, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, so presciently said, it works. We benefit from the expertise of doctors and nurses, businessmen and women, field marshals, generals and reservists, journalists, barristers, solicitors and judges, trade unionists, charity executives, Permanent Secretaries, Bishops and farmers, ballerinas, a composer and an ornithologist. The House brings together some of the most accomplished and dedicated individuals, who apply their skills, insights and expertise to scrutinising legislation and holding the Executive to account.
The membership of your Lordships’ House is drawn from all backgrounds and walks of life. I grew up in Swansea—in fact, Wales is quite well represented in today’s debate—and my own background, like that of the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith of Llanfaes and Lady Taylor, and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, all of whom proudly talked about growing up on council estates, was also far from this House. The legitimacy of this House does not derive from democratic consent but from its ability to act as a positive constitutional force in lawmaking and government accountability. This legitimacy is grounded in the capabilities and dedication of its Members.
All constitutional reforms have profound and far-reaching consequences, whether intended or not. As a Conservative, I believe in continuity and change, but I am not naive. Of course noble Lords should always seek to improve the way we work, and of course we cannot stand still. During the Covid pandemic, we adapted to the challenges we faced. Equally, today we are trialling longer hours and earlier sittings in Grand Committee—not entirely welcomed unanimously, but it is right that we look to improve our practices where we can. The noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, gave a number of examples, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for leading today’s debate so ably and I look forward to further discussion when we proceed to Committee.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, on securing the Second Reading of her Bill. The noble Baroness has spoken passionately and eloquently in previous debates about reforming your Lordships’ House and today is no different. As a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Pack, pointed out, it is the second debate in two days on constitutional reform. Both debates have been fascinating, and today there has been a considerable range of views about the way forward on reform and, with a couple of exceptions, significant agreement on the need for reform. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, made clear in his speech, we recognise the many calls for reform across the parties, including in the Labour Party.
Speakers including the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and my noble friends Lady Bolton and Lord Stansgate have also highlighted the many strengths of your Lordships’ House, not least in holding the Executive to account in relation to scrutiny of legislation. The strengths do not negate the need for reform, however. The relationship between your Lordships’ House and the other place has also been highlighted, including in a particularly thought-provoking way by the noble Lord, Lord Pack, in his winding-up remarks.
As we have heard, the Bill before us would require the Government to consult on an alternative second Chamber, with the consultation period beginning within six months of the Act being passed. If passed, the consultation would run for at least 12 weeks. The Secretary of State would be required to publish a summary of responses and a statement detailing the Government’s response within six months of the consultation closing.
The Government have significant sympathy with the central principle behind the Bill. As my noble friend Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway made clear in her remarks, the Government have made clear commitments in our manifesto on the reform of the House of Lords. This includes a manifesto commitment to consult on proposals to replace the House of Lords with an alternative second Chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations.
Although we understand the motivation of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, in putting the Bill forward, the Government wish to express their reservations about the legislation. The Bill would, in our view, constrain the Government’s ability in how we approach the delivery of our manifesto commitment by prematurely imposing a duty on the Government to consult.
As noble Lords will know, the Government have taken a staged approach to reform of your Lordships’ House. I dispute the noble Baroness’s view that we have not acted or that we are hesitant. We have already made a significant change to your Lordships’ House. As the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, said, we have removed the hereditary rights of Peers to sit in the House of Lords. Most recently, through the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act, we removed the right of the remaining hereditary Peers to sit and vote in this House on the basis of hereditary right. The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, might call that piecemeal; we think this fulfils a long-held commitment on the part of the Labour Party to do so.
A number of noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Blunkett and Lady Taylor of Bolton, spoke to the work that the Retirement and Participation Committee undertook on reform, under the leadership of my noble friend Lady Taylor. We are really grateful for the committee’s work and for the report published in July. The Government are carefully considering the committee’s recommendations, alongside thoughtful and considered remarks from across the House during the debate on the report in September. The Government will respond to the committee’s recommendations substantively later this year.
The noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, spoke about the proposals for HOLAC gaining a statutory footing. This proposal was also referred to by my noble friend Lord Stansgate. We have strengthened transparency in the appointments system by introducing a requirement for nominating parties to provide a public citation for appointments. Putting HOLAC on a statutory footing is a matter that this House has considered many times and, as the Leader of the House of Lords has said, this is not the right path to take at this time.
To return the Bill before the House, while we agree with the broad sentiment behind it, the Government’s view is that passing this legislation would require the Government to prematurely consult on an alternative second Chamber. A meaningful consultation on such an important issue demands a careful and thought-through plan. The noble Lords, Lord Burns, Lord Wigley and Lord Scriven, and my noble friend Lady Taylor, among others, raised important points around regional and national representation. This Government also want to see a second Chamber that better represents the regions and nations, and I am pleased to note this was a manifesto commitment. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, shares that vision. There are many ways of achieving this goal and we owe it to the public to get any consultation and any changes right.
The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, noted the number of previous pieces of work undertaken on House of Lords reform—for example, the royal commission and the number of White Papers that have been produced, including under the previous Labour Government. The coalition Government also attempted—unsuccessfully—to bring about substantial reform, despite the introduction of a Bill. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Burns, chaired the Speaker’s Committee, which made an important contribution to the ongoing debate on reform of the House of Lords.
In response to the contribution from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, we recognise that the manner in which and the context of how the Government engage the public on these issues are almost as important as the content of the proposals themselves. The Government are open to different methods of getting input from the public.
To conclude, I thank the noble Baroness once more for leading a very thought-provoking discussion on an alternative second Chamber and how we get there. The Government remain committed to fundamental reform of your Lordships’ House. The Government’s priority is politics that works for all people in all places, not some people in some places. My noble friend Lady O’Grady stressed how vital it is that we restore trust in politics. The Prime Minister set out in his first speech the importance of putting the right values and standards at the heart of government to do so. To achieve this, we have begun the biggest redistribution of power this country has seen.
The Government welcome feedback and continued discussion on the next steps on constitutional reform, and we will consider a range of views and evidence. It is right that the Government decide how to deliver our manifesto commitment and consult on proposals for an alternative second Chamber. Although the Bill is well intentioned, in our view it would pre-empt that process. The Government’s ultimate focus is on outcomes rather than process, and our overarching objective is to see a House that is more representative, including of the nations and regions. I believe that this goal is broadly shared across the House, but there are, of course, many different ways of achieving it. Rushing into a consultation for its own sake will not bring us any closer to fulfilling our objectives.
Ultimately, the Government have reservations about this Bill so, unfortunately, I cannot support it on their behalf. However, we look forward to the ongoing conversation both inside and outside this Chamber about how we may bring about lasting reform to your Lordships’ House.
Lord Scriven (LD)
Before the Minister sits down, she said that this Bill would restrict the right of the Government on when and how to consult. As there is a manifesto commitment, what she did not give from the Dispatch Box was a commitment that the Government will start, or even end, the consultation before the general election. Is that the Government’s aim?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
It was a manifesto commitment. I cannot say now exactly when it would start. What we do not want is to be bounced into a 12-week consultation from the point at which this Bill would become law.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, I thank all Members who participated in the debate, for just over two hours. We have had a really good debate, with lots of interesting viewpoints, but I was, surprisingly, pleased to hear that the majority of Members who spoke today, barring one or two, support reforming this Chamber. Of course, they do so to different degrees—I understand that—but that is a positive reflection and a step forward, so I am grateful to all those who participated. The noble Lord, Lord Hannan, reminded us that all political parties here have made their positions quite well known: they support reform of the House of Lords as well. That is what the position is of all our political parties here. It is just about us getting on with that and making progress.
I would like to rebut and clarify a few points raised in some comments by fellow noble Lords in relation to the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, suggested that the Bill would abolish the House of Lords. I clarify that the first sentence of the Bill states that it is about
“the replacement of the House of Lords with an alternative second Chamber”.
It is not about having one Chamber in Parliament; it is about the replacement. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, raised an interesting point about whether we would want to perhaps change the term “replacement”. I chose that term in this Bill because that is what was in the Labour manifesto; that is what they were elected on, so it is important that that terminology is used because there is a public mandate for that position. But I understand that perhaps it could be perceived in other ways so, just to clarify, that is what it is in relation to. Maybe we could discuss that in Committee.
Some noble Lords raised gridlock, and that has come up often when we have talked about Lords reform. On gridlock of that type, I believe that, in the reforms that we would bring forward, any arrangement that mirrored the current balance of powers, which could be written into reform as it was previously in the House of Lords reform Bill, could avoid those types of scenarios. Disagreement over legislation is a type of conflict, one which can delay but not terminate a Government. We can write that into our reforms, so I do not think we can use it as a reason not to reform this Chamber.
Let me provide clarification on the point raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, on who would be consulted. They both raised the fact that I have not included either this Chamber, the other place or some other stakeholders in the Bill. But, as under Clause 1(2)(e), the Bill is not limiting, so it would be open to the Secretary of State to consult others too. If Members feel particularly strongly that a group has not been represented in the Bill, they could bring forward an amendment in Committee to add that group. However, I would hesitate to do that, because I am pretty sure it is covered under subsection (2)(e).
The noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, looking ahead to an alternative second Chamber, raised the issue of how we look at diversity and its reflection in a future Chamber. That is why I have included the EHRC as a consultee as part of the Bill, because that should be taken into consideration as well.
Many noble Lords made a range of reasonable suggestions for the proposals to be put forward in a public consultation, which I hope the Government are listening to, particularly the comments raised by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, given the commission that he led previously. We already have lots of good suggestions for what those proposals could be, but the thing is that this was in the Labour manifesto. We are waiting to see what the proposals are from the Government, because there is a mandate for it.
I rebut the point that the public do not care about Lords reform. I know that a lot of noble Lords raised how they have gone into schools and universities to discuss what we do here and hear their views about what a future Parliament should look like. Actually, people are pretty engaged on the topic. If you ask them the questions, they will give you answers. So I dispute that point. A YouGov poll released last night shows yet again that only 12% of the public support the status quo, as in keeping the Chamber as it is. That is a clear mandate for us to get on with it and to respond to the public on what there is a mandate for.
Finally, I must admit that I was thoroughly disappointed with the Minister’s response. The way that this Bill has been drafted is very much in line with what was written in the Labour manifesto. The intervention before the Minister sat down and her response to it show that perhaps there is not an intention to bring this forward before the next general election. In my view, when the public go to the polls and are voting on a manifesto that has been presented to them, that is what a political party is saying that they are going to deliver in that term. If there is not a consultation before the next general election, I do not see that the Government will have carried out their manifesto commitment. Unless there are proposals starting now to be investigated further, it would be very disappointing if, before the general election, that pledge had not even been started.
I do not object to the idea that this House has a job to do, but I ask for transparency. The Government promised this consultation, and that is why I drafted the Bill this way, so it is unfortunate that they have made an argument against their own pledge. All I ask is that we have action. We need a timeline. The Bill I have presented is very modest in what it proposes: having a consultation and a timeline. It does not go as far as I would personally if I was in charge, but this is the manifesto that the Government were elected to deliver.
On that note, I believe that we should trust the people and give them a say, finally, in relation to the future of the Parliament that represents them. I commend the Bill to the House.
Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
British Sovereignty Protection (Chagos Islands) Bill [HL]
(1 day, 16 hours ago)
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Lord Weir of Ballyholme
That the Bill be now read a second time.
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)
My Lords, the purpose of this Bill is to cut through the fog of uncertainty that now hangs over the Chagos Islands to provide a fairer, clearer and more principled way forward for not simply the Chagos Islands themselves but, perhaps more importantly, the Chagossians—and I am delighted that many of them are able to join us here today.
Like many in this Chamber, I was, and remain, highly critical of the previous government Bill on this issue. Without rehearsing all the arguments that were used in connection with that Bill, which sought to implement the Government’s deal with Mauritius, I believe that that Bill would have, in effect, handed over sovereign territory that had been British for more than 200 years to a Government who had never held control or ownership of the islands. Indeed, it did not simply give away the Chagos Islands but presented Mauritius with a large dowry—a very handsome reward—for taking the islands off our hands, without even a compensatory automatic right of resettlement for the Chagossians.
That Bill gave no agency to the Chagossian people themselves, and for many Chagossians that is all too familiar. At times, in our most benign interpretations as a Parliament and as Governments, we have perhaps pretended that we are doing things for the Chagossian people, but far too often we have done things to the Chagossian people—most notably in the 1960s, when they were forcibly removed from the islands. What we have not done—this is what we need to change—is do things with the Chagossian people, respecting their choice and their control over their destiny.
The criticism that has been made of the previous Bill has not been confined to this House. As we have seen recently, even the new Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, has questioned whether the previous Bill was good enough, given the position of the Americans. The current Prime Minister, who, to be fair to him, played no part in the previous arrangements, has indicated that there needs to be a review of the overall Bill. We know that the progress of the previous Bill was stopped by the position of the American Administration. I appreciate that, at times, many of us in this Chamber see a level of volatility within the American Administration and their foreign policy. However, they have been consistent over the last period of time in their concern that this is not the right way forward. Given the direct interest of the American Administration, through the military base at Diego Garcia, this is not simply an opinion from across the Atlantic but something that is critical to the way forward for the Chagos Islands.
As a result, the issue has been left in a form of limbo. The Government, it would appear, have not resiled from their previous position and potentially remain committed to the Bill, despite the review. But, by the same token, they were not able to bring forward that Bill to progress it whenever it was going through the Lords. Indeed, in the last King’s Speech, there was no mention of the situation as regards the Chagos Islands. In particular, this has left the Chagossians in a form of political purgatory. They have been left with a level of uncertainty. The one thing that we owe above all else to the Chagossian people is certainty and control for the future. That is the purpose of my Bill.
I will outline the contents of the Bill. Although it is relatively short, it has five main components. First, crucially, it provides what might be described as a triple lock on sovereignty—either the transfer of sovereignty or the leasing out of the islands. Before that can happen, for any deal three hurdles have to be overcome. First, it would have to be done by way of an Act of Parliament. Secondly, if there is a representative Government of the Chagossian people, it would have to have their approval. Most crucially, in enshrining the principle of self-determination of the Chagossian people, it would have to be approved by a referendum of the Chagossian people, with the electorate clearly defined in Clause 4, which highlights that British Indian Ocean Territory citizens would have the right to vote in that referendum. This would put the destiny of the Chagos Island and the Chagossian people in their own hands, which is the right thing to do.
Secondly, one of the major concerns in relation to the Chagos Islands has clearly been the military base at Diego Garcia, which is the overriding concern of the Americans and is strategically very important to us. The Bill clearly and explicitly indicates that, whatever rulings may happen in the future, the base itself remains sovereign British territory. It gives a clear sign of certainty about the position of Parliament and the sovereign position.
Thirdly, the Bill enshrines transparency in any future arrangements. Clause 2 deals with the fact that, if there is any proposal to hand over to Mauritius or anyone else, any financial arrangements, both with the Mauritian Government and with agencies or any companies connected with them, are clearly outlined to Parliament. There has been a level of disagreement, shall we say, over the extent of the financial aid that was being given over to Mauritius within that.
Fourthly and importantly, there is the role of the Chagossian people. Although it is critical that we enshrine the rights of self-determination, simply giving the Chagossians a yes or no on any final package is not in and of itself sufficient. So the Bill looks at what other pertinent rights we can give the Chagossian people. It deals with permits to work on the Diego Garcia base and, in particular, with a critical issue for the Chagossians: resettlement. They were torn from their country in the 1960s, and the Bill explicitly gives a right to resettle permanently on Île du Coin and Île Boddam—I apologise to the Chagossians if my pronunciation is not up to scratch—as well as on Diego Garcia itself if at any stage the base there is in some way abandoned.
Allied to and part of that resettlement, the Government would be compelled to discuss with and consult the Chagossian people on a range of issues—from an economic partnership to a partnership on skills, health and education; marine conservation and biodiversity; and the protection of Chagossian culture. So it will be part of putting the Chagossian people at the heart of any level of discussion, because too often in the past they have been regarded as an afterthought, brought in at best to be told what has happened after it has happened. I do not believe that that is an acceptable way forward.
Fifthly, there are specific protections in the Bill for the economic position of the Chagos Islands, security arrangements, and measures to protect the natural environment and biodiversity, along with a range of steps in Clauses 5 and 6 that the Government will have to bring forward. That package of measures offers the best way forward for the Chagos Islands and the Chagossian people.
It is rare in politics, or in life, that we get an opportunity to start again. This is that second opportunity, and Parliament needs to grasp it. I look forward to the debate that lies ahead, and I beg to move.
Lord Lilley (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, on tabling this Bill and on his brilliant introduction of it. It is a very good, comprehensive and comprehensible Bill. When a Bill is lucid, it is a symptom of the clarity and sensibility of the objectives enshrined in it.
This Bill should not be necessary, but it is, because the Foreign Office has, to put it mildly, failed to appreciate our obligations to the Chagossian people, the rights of the Chagossian people and the strength of our legal right to the Chagos Islands. It is not just that possession is nine-tenths of the law; the remaining tenth of international law puts us in a rock-solid position. It should not be necessary to repeat that legal position, but it is.
First, the ICJ ruling was advisory, not binding. Secondly, it was based on a General Assembly resolution, which is not binding. Thirdly, when we signed up to the ICJ, we excluded the disputes between ourselves and the Commonwealth from its jurisdiction. Fourthly—this has not often been mentioned—in 2012 the Cameron Government extended that exclusion to include disputes with former member states of the Commonwealth, so that, should Mauritius try to get round it by leaving the Commonwealth, that could not happen. The Foreign Office then believed that the exclusion was strong and valuable, and made it more solid still.
Fifthly, the Foreign Office subsequently invoked the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and its tribunal. However, that tribunal cannot rule on sovereignty or on military matters—and nothing could be more military than the Diego Garcia base. Sixthly, the Foreign Office none the less said that if we fail to ratify the agreement with Mauritius, we could face a binding verdict within weeks. Well, quite a lot of weeks have passed. Seventhly, it then said that just waiting for a binding verdict would weaken our negotiating position. Indeed, the ultimate verdict might weaken our negotiating position, but since its case was based on the assertion that we have no sovereignty, it is hard to see how any verdict that ratified it would weaken our negotiating position at all.
Eighthly, the Government’s final claim is that a verdict might prompt other states to withhold supplies and services, which would render the base inoperable. When I have asked, “What supplies? What services? From what countries?”, they have refused to answer. They have also refused to acknowledge that if the base could be rendered inoperable by countries withholding supplies and services, that would be equally true after any transfer of sovereignty to Mauritius. If these unidentified other countries objected to the use being made of the base by us or by the Americans, they could presumably render it inoperable by withholding these unidentified supplies and services. Nor will the Government indicate whether they have pointed this out to the Americans.
The ninth and final weakness of the position of the Foreign Office was that it had overlooked our binding legal obligation to the Americans to secure their agreement to any transfer of sovereignty before signing the deal. It had gone ahead and signed the deal with Mauritius without getting a rock-solid agreement from the Americans.
All this ignores the crucial issue—which should not be ignored—of the Chagossians themselves. The General Assembly resolution—on which both the ICJ’s advisory ruling and the government position are based—says that in the process of decolonisation, territories cannot be split up. It is a moot point whether Chagos was ever part of the same territory as Mauritius. In any case, the UN allows for inhabitants to choose to separate if they are given a vote on the subject, as we did to the inhabitants of what were then the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, now Kiribati and Tuvalu. The inhabitants of Ellice Islands, now Tuvalu, voted overwhelmingly to separate—there were just 4,000 votes cast, but 92% of them were for separation and that separation was effected.
More recently, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has ruled—it is not binding, but it is a UN ruling—that we should delay the agreement with Mauritius to consult the Chagossians. The Government argue that there is no Chagossian population—or certainly there was not until recently—but we give expatriates from the UK a vote in our elections, even though they have voluntarily removed themselves from residence in this country for a period. Should we not, as this Bill does, give the Chagossian people, who were forcibly removed from their country, a vote on the future of their country? The only reason they have all been abroad until recently is because they were deported and because it was made very difficult for them to return. Some have done so, despite all the obstacles put in their way, and they have been there for some months. This Bill will allow permits to visit and reside in the Chagos Islands, except Diego Garcia, though hopefully the Americans would give priority for working on the base to Chagossians living in the islands or from elsewhere.
Resettlement was considered by the previous Government and thought to be practical but at a cost. However, that cost is a fraction of what it is proposed that we hand over annually to the Mauritians. Resettlement is feasible, it is less costly than the agreement with Mauritius and it is happening. That changes the whole legal, moral and economic position on which the Government’s approach to this problem is based.
I will end with some questions. First, do the Government accept that the proposed agreement with Mauritius does not give Chagossians a right of return? The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was, I am sure, speaking in good faith—I have the utmost respect for the noble Lord, who is a man of integrity—when, on 14 April, he said in this House, replying to my question:
“What is proposed in the treaty”
with Mauritius
“allows a right of return for Chagossians to islands other than Diego Garcia”.—[Official Report, 14/4/26; col. 269.]
Will the Minister confirm that that is not the case? It gives the Mauritians the power to allow return or settlement by Chagossians or others, but no obligation to do so or to ensure that it is for Chagossians.
Secondly, if the Chagossians do return in any number, will they automatically have the right of self-determination as is normally the case under UN rulings?
Thirdly, do the Government accept that the rights of Chagossians, both resident and forcibly removed, override the basis that they originally gave for reaching this agreement that they have concluded with Mauritius—and if not, why not? If not, we can only conclude that they are continuing where the negotiation began through sheer ignorance of the whole legal position of the British state—in the spirit of “University Challenge”, “I have started so I will finish”—or because the anti-colonial ideologues on their own Benches, combined with the FCO’s traditional determination to rid itself of all of our overseas territories is dominant in their thinking?
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Weir, on advancing this eminently sensible and timely Bill before the House today. It is also a great privilege to follow my noble friend Lord Lilley and to inform the House that I am glad to say that he has given most of my speech, which means that I can greatly accelerate the remarks that I am going to make to the House today.
The first point is that it is regrettable that we need to bring this Bill at all. It is perhaps a statement of the approach taken by the Government towards the support for the overseas territories that we have, sadly, to present this Bill in order to put a brake on the surrender of our own sovereign territory. But that is what it has come to.
My noble friend Lord Lilley addressed the various legal shibboleths that the treaty was premised upon; in particular, he dealt carefully with the fact that the advisory judgment of the ICJ and the powers of UNCLOS mean that there cannot be any international court which can rule upon our sovereignty over those islands.
There is one other legal issue that my noble friend did not touch on, and it is that which I ask directly to the Minister to answer. In the debates on the government Bill last Session, it was accepted by the Government that the state of Mauritius is a signatory to the Treaty of Pelindaba, which forbids the positioning of nuclear weapons on African soil. If the Chagos Islands become part of Mauritius, they will be covered by the operation of that treaty, and we know from many sources—not least from the speech given by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton, during the debates on that Bill—that the Americans routinely position nuclear weapons in the Chagos Islands. Indeed, there is some media reporting that they are stored there.
On that basis, we have never had a satisfactory explanation from the Government, or indeed any explanation, as to how it is said that Mauritius under this agreement would agree to the continuance of the use of the base for the storage or transit of nuclear weapons. Accordingly, it seems to me that our American allies are going to be very hostile to this surrender of sovereignty, and the Government have so far just ignored this point.
My question today to the Minister is: what do the Government say about Mauritius’s membership of the Treaty of Pelindaba in relation to the agreement that was reached? I very much hope that the Minister, being part of Mr Burnham’s Administration who have agreed to review the deal, will say that it does not matter because they are going to revise our view on this deal.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I would like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Weir of Ballyholme on introducing this Motion and on the manner in which he introduced it. It is very rare that we get second chances. Providence has provided us with one here, and I really hope that Ministers will look impartially at the opportunity before them.
I am going to canter over, very briefly, some of the history of how we got here. The islands were uninhabited until 1783, when they were taken by France, which populated them with an enslaved population brought mainly from east Africa. They were then taken from the French in the Napoleonic Wars in 1810—an episode fictionalised in the Aubrey/Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brian, where Jack Aubrey is given the wonderful line that it strikes him as absurd and unnatural that islands should not be British.
In 1814, the islands were then ceded as part of the general movement of territories following the Congress of Vienna, and there things stayed. Britain manumitted the slave population. The territory was administered from Mauritius only in the sense that it was too small to maintain an administrative seat and therefore had its administration in Mauritius in the same way that Aden had its administration in India. It would be a very strange and bizarre thing if that became the basis of sovereignty claims around the world.
Fast forward to 1965, when Britain is decolonising, there is some dispute within Mauritius about not wanting to be decolonised. One of the Mauritian political parties is arguing that Mauritius should instead have representation in another place and be an integral part of the UK in the same manner as the DOM-TOMs of France, but Britain pushes ahead with the decolonisation, maintaining sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory.
To put the issue beyond doubt, Mauritius trousers what was in those days a very large sum of money permanently to renounce any claim it might have to the sovereignty of the archipelago. The then Prime Minister was later asked in a Mauritian parliamentary committee whether he was pressured. He said no. He was very happy to take the money. He said this is a portion of our territory which is very far from here and which we have never visited. He might have added that it was historically and ethnically different—its population, as it were, broadly having come from the West rather than from the East. There was very little sense of awareness, let alone of claim, of this being a similar population.
There we can leave things until, perhaps with an approximation to China going on in the early 20th century, until Mauritius gets together a posse of third-worldist judges and on the basis of a non-binding resolution of the UN General Assembly, gets another non-binding ruling that somehow this territory belongs, in defiance of the wishes of its people, to a country that had never owned it and that had until then shown no interest beyond the pecuniary interests that it had.
So, once again, I am going to say to the Minister and to other Ministers: take the off ramp. There is no good in pursuing this process. It is senseless militarily. We are imperilling a key base that commands four of the seven naval choke points. We are inviting unfriendly powers to take up positions in the surrounding archipelago. It makes no sense ecologically. We are giving away the most pristine maritime conservation zone in the world to a nation with a very poor record on biodiversity. It makes no sense democratically because the overwhelming majority of Chagossian people, those born on the islands and their descendants, are clear that they do not want to be Mauritians and that they want, as they have made clear over and over again, to return to their islands as British overseas subjects. Of course, it makes no sense financially. Good luck to any political party going into an election saying, “We are raising your taxes here so that they can cut their taxes in Mauritius”, which is indeed the boast being made by some Mauritian politicians.
How have we ended up in this place? I can best describe it as something one sees often with the Foreign Office: “Bridge on the River Kwai” syndrome. If you take as your starting assumption the absolute supremacy of any international tribunal, even when it issues non-binding resolutions, and even when, for all the reasons that we just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, its jurisdiction in this case is expressly excluded because of the military nature of the facility and because disputes between Commonwealth or ex-Commonwealth members are excluded from its jurisdiction, if you none the less are tearing around the world in your Matrix Chambers/Doughty Street way, looking for international tribunals to which to surrender, and this is your priority, then within those terms, the leaseback agreement had a certain ingenuity. It had a certain neatness, and it could be justified when there was pressure from the then US Administration to do it, and when there was pressure internally because of the obsession of the previous Prime Minister and the previous Attorney-General with international law.
However, as with the bridge on the River Kwai, this treaty was never primarily in the British national interest. It was only a response to a very specific circumstance, and that circumstance has now changed. The US Government have made it very clear that they do not want to go ahead with this treaty, and, rather in the manner of Alec Guinness in the movie, we still have officials trying to stick to the thing in which they had invested so much of their time and ingenuity. I hope that, even now, one of them will fall on the plunger and undo the folly because, in doing so, we would restore our relations with our closest ally, and we would save ourselves a great deal of money.
I have to say, not that it is any of my business, that the party opposite would be doing itself a great favour electorally. I cannot help noticing that at every stage, including today, the Labour Benches have been completely empty when we have been discussing this issue because Labour politicians, whether in this place or in another place, did not generally go into politics again to betray a poor, black, dispossessed population and hand a pristine maritime conservation zone to a country with a terrible record ecologically.
There is every reason to pull out while there is still time. Let me urge the Minister and all Ministers to take the win: take the off ramp.
Baroness Meyer (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, for introducing this very important Bill, which I support.
At the heart of this Bill lies the fundamental question: by what right can the British Government transfer sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius without first obtaining the consent of the Chagossian people? We must remember that the Chagossians were forcibly removed from their homeland by Britain in the 1960s and 1970s to make way for the military base of Diego Garcia. It was a shameful chapter in our history. Now, more than half a century later, we propose to decide their future once again without even asking for their consent. Have we not learned anything from the past?
The treaty provides no guarantees of return to Diego Garcia, no binding resettlement plan for the Chagossian people as a whole and no requirement for their consent to transfer sovereignty. That is an extraordinary double standard. If an international court suggested that Britain should surrender the Falkland Islands or Gibraltar, would we simply disregard the wishes of their inhabitants? Of course not; we would insist that their right to self-determination was paramount. So why are the Chagossians treated differently? The Government appear to treat the absence of a resident Chagossian population as a reason for their consent not being required. But the only reason they no longer inhabit their homeland is that we forcibly removed them. To use their absence as a reason to deny them a voice in their future would compound the original injustice.
The principle of self-determination cannot be something we invoke selectively. Article 1 of the United Nations charter recognises the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples. The Chagossians have their own language, culture, traditions and distinct identity, which have endured despite their expulsion. A survey organised by the Chagossian campaigners, involving more than 3,500 respondents, reported that 99.22% favoured remaining under British sovereignty. Although this is not a formal referendum, it still demonstrates the strength of feeling among those who participated. To transfer their homeland to another country without obtaining their consent would be nothing short of a scandal.
There are also serious legal, financial and strategic objections to this treaty, as pointed out by noble Lords who spoke before me. The Government originally justified this agreement, warning that without an agreement, Britain faced an imminent legal decision that could render the Diego Garcia military base inoperable. But where is the evidence?
On 25 February 2019, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion, not a binding judgment, as my noble friend Lord Lilley pointed out. Moreover, the court’s jurisdiction over disputes between Britain and Mauritius is restricted, and tribunals under the Convention on the Law of the Sea cannot simply determine questions of territorial sovereignty. Undoubtedly, there are legal and diplomatic difficulties, but they do not establish that surrendering sovereignty was the only possible solution. The decision to transfer sovereignty was a political choice, not a direct consequence of a binding court order. It was an extraordinary choice.
We now propose to surrender a British territory only to pay billions to lease back a military base that we already control. The Government estimated the cost at £3.4 billion in present-value terms, but the TaxPayers’ Alliance, taking into account inflation, has suggested that the payments over 99 years would reach £47 billion. At a time when our public finances and defence budgets are under such pressure, how can this expenditure be justified?
What about our national security? Diego Garcia is one of the most strategically important military bases in the world, yet we propose to surrender sovereignty over it, leaving it to Mauritius. The Government argue that the treaty secures the base for 99 years. What happens after that? What if Mauritius decides not to renew the lease? What if China outbids us? What about safeguarding the marine protected area? Why should Britain surrender sovereignty over a facility so vital to our own security, especially when our ally, the United States, does not agree that we should? Indeed, the treaty has been paused following renewed American opposition and the Government have acknowledged that they cannot proceed without US support. This is surely an opportunity to reconsider the entire agreement.
For a Government who champion human rights, denying Chagossians a meaningful say in the future of their homeland is an extraordinary moral contradiction. The Chagossians have already suffered grave injustice at British hands. We must not compound that with yet another injustice. That is why I support the Bill. Does the Minister not agree that the Government owe the Chagossian people more than an apology for the past? We owe them a voice for the future. I am pleased to see that many of them are here to listen to our debate. I am sure that they too would support the Bill.
As my noble friend Lord Lilley pointed out, do we even need such a Bill? Does the Minister not agree that the best solution of all would be to bin this agreement, as the United States has suggested?
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Meyer. Having been married to a former UK Ambassador to Washington, she understands what goes on in Washington. We should all listen carefully to what she said about the American Administration.
I support the Bill wholeheartedly and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Weir, not just on drafting it in a precise, accurate and impressive way, but also on his speech this morning. It encapsulates in very clear legal terms all the issues we have been talking about and are so concerned about. I will not go through all of them, but what the Bill says about sovereignty, the protection of the rights of the Chagossians, including their right to a referendum and, of course, the guarantees for the marine protected area are all incredibly important. But, as other noble Lords, particularly my noble friend Lord Lilley and the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, pointed out, the Bill, important though it is, should not be necessary, because the background, obviously, is the wholly discredited treaty: the Chagos surrender Bill.
I had a Question in the House recently, on 13 October, and I put it to the Minister that, first, the opinion that was given by the ICJ was indeed advisory. I also pointed out to her that, under Article 36.2 of the statute of the ICJ, which we helped to draft—her own officials will give her background on that—there was that specific initial exclusion for sovereign disputes between the UK and Commonwealth countries. As my noble friend Lord Lilley pointed out, that was reinforced at a later date.
Under the other case, the UNCLOS case, the then Defence Secretary John Healey said in the House last year—in the first Statement on the treaty, in fact—that there was an imminent and immediate threat to the UK under the UNCLOS tribunal. We have already established very clearly that UNCLOS cannot rule on issues regarding military bases. I asked the Minister, on 13 October, to explain to the House why the Government believe that there is a credible and viable threat to the UK in terms of a binding legal judgment. I would give way to her now if she thinks there is a threat, but it would be very helpful if she can say to the House, when she winds up, that there is no legal threat to the UK whatever. Let us be very clear on that, because I do not think anyone now believes that there is any form of threat whatever.
In her reply, the Minister repeated what she has said many times before: that the previous Conservative Administration went for 11 rounds of negotiations—or maybe 12; I cannot remember—and, somehow, that makes it all the more justifiable that the new Government came in and immediately signed along the treaty terms. I point out to the Minister that the very fact that there were 11 rounds of negotiations leads me to believe that the previous Government, and the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, in particular, believed that they could not sign the treaty with the terms that were on the table. The terms of that treaty were just not acceptable, so we did not sign it, which is why the negotiations went on and, indeed, why they were paused by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, before the last election.
We have also heard Ministers go on about the UK’s reputation in the global South. I have been privileged enough to have two separate stints at the FCO. I have never heard the phrase “global South” mentioned; I think it is the concoction of a number of NGOs. Presumably, it refers to those countries in sub-Saharan Africa south of the equator. There is an idea that, somehow, if the Minister and her colleagues are doing a trade negotiation with Mozambique, Malawi or Madagascar, they will arrive in Maputo, Lilongwe or Antananarivo to meet their counterparts to sign a treaty and their counterparts will say, “Well done Britain, you’ve signed this treaty with Mauritius; we’re really impressed”. I know those countries pretty well and they do not respect signs of weakness; they respect strength. Frankly, the argument about the global South that was rehearsed many times by the previous Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, does not stack up at all. I hope that the Minister, when she winds up, makes it very clear and reinforces to everyone that there is no legal, credible, viable threat.
A very important part of the Bill is on the whole issue of resettlement. Fairly recently this year, on 16 February, four Chagossians under Misley Mandarin landed on the Île du Coin in the Peros Banhos archipelago. Two days later, two more Chagossians joined them. As we know, the BIOT commissioner launched a case to evict them, but failed in that case. It has now gone to appeal. The Court of Appeal has reserved its judgment; we are awaiting it. Something very interesting has happened in the meantime, because the BIOT commission, based in Diego Garcia, has been supplying the six Chagossians on the Île de Coin. They have set aside, I gather—the Minister can confirm this—£6 million to go on supplying the Chagossians on that island. The Foreign Office started by saying that this was an irresponsible, illegal act, and it deplored it. Now, and I find this commendable, it is supplying them with key provisions to reinforce the supplies that those six Chagossians have. Of course, they have access to plentiful numbers of fish and local crops, such as breadfruit.
It is good news that the Government, in the form of the BIOT commission, are supplying them formally—I applaud that. I understand that there are 42 more Chagossians immediately ready to go to Île du Coin, and there are another 300 who have expressed interest in going. We are moving pretty quickly towards having a viable population on those outer islands that could form a British Overseas Territory. That is something that I think many of us would be extremely pleased to see.
When I was appointed the OTs Minister in 2010, I asked the FCO to commission a feasibility study to look at the resettlement of the outer islands. It commissioned KPMG to do a full report. It came out in 2015, by which stage I had been sacked from the department. The report was very comprehensive. KPMG looked at different scenarios: first, a settlement of 1,500 settlers and, then, another option of 500 or 150. It concluded that it certainly was possible and viable for a settlement to take place in a number of those outer islands. It flagged the cost, which was going to come in at between £10 million and £20 million a year. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, pointed out, that is a tiny amount of money compared with the amount that we have committed, in principle, to give to Mauritius—it is a small sum of money by comparison. Therefore, the whole cost argument goes out of the window.
The other point that KPMG made in its report—I certainly urge the Minister to find a copy of it; maybe a précis of it is in her folder—is that, if the Government puts up this money for supporting this resettlement, there may well be a flow of private sector money coming after it. If there were a sensible programme of restructuring the settlement and making sure that we had a viable, interesting commercial offer to the private sector, I suggest that a lot of private sector money would flow after the money put in by the Government.
Another point raised by KPMG touched on some of the strategic points that have been made already on defence. The report said that settlement on the outer islands could compromise the security of Diego Garcia. This was 15 or 16 years ago, and since then there has been a major reappraisal of the security of the base, because it is now in range of supersonic and hypersonic missiles. Indeed, Iran fired one at Diego Garcia—it fell short. That base is under threat of missile attack from the north, so the obvious place to put systems to counter potential missile strikes is on those islands to the north of Diego Garcia—Île du Coin and the other northern islands. What better way to secure those islands than to have them part of a settled British Overseas Territory?
China has launched a phase of activism in the Indian Ocean. I certainly would not trust Mauritius not to allow Chinese presence on those outer islands. Certainly, if there were any intrusion by a third party through settlements on those islands, that would do far more damage to the future security and safety of the base than anything else that might happen.
I will look at two final points that have cropped up in our discussions this afternoon. One is around sovereignty and the right of Chagossians to have a referendum to decide their future, which is incredibly important. The other is around environmental protection. One of our most important marine protected areas was launched by the then Foreign Secretary David Miliband in 2009, and it is securing an incredibly important part of the UK’s biodiversity. In fact, David Miliband said at the time that 40% of the UK’s total biodiversity is around those islands.
There is also a chance now for this Government to right the wrongs of 1967. Under a previous Labour Government, the Chagossians were evicted; they were taken off those islands, and their dogs and other pets were gassed. I hope that, almost 60 years later, this Government will do two things: accept this Bill and then tear up this totally discredited treaty.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, this has been a great, if somewhat one-sided, debate. It is quite sad that nobody from the Labour Benches or the Liberal Democrat Back Benches, not even their Front-Bench spokesmen, have bothered to turn up and give us their opinion on this Bill. Nevertheless, we have benefited from some great speeches from the noble Lord, Lord Weir, in introducing it, and from my own Benches and the non-aligned Members.
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, for introducing the Bill. He has a been a constant presence in our debates about the future of the BIOT. His work on the catastrophic Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill in the previous Session contributed in large part to the failure of the Government’s Chagos surrender. He is to be lauded for his commitment to our common cause, the continuation of British sovereignty over the Chagos Islands and the righting of historic wrongs perpetrated against the Chagossian people by the British state. It is a true pleasure to speak in support of his excellent Bill today.
As the noble Lord, Lord Weir, has explained, this Bill would protect British sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory and give the Chagossian people the voice that they deserve. If this Bill were to become law, the UK would be prevented from transferring the sovereignty of the islands, or leasing them to another state, unless three tests have been met. These tests are that, first, the approval of any lawful BIOT Government has been signified; secondly, a referendum of the Chagossian people approving the transfer has been held; and, thirdly, an Act of Parliament has been passed. All those steps seem eminently sensible and would give future Governments pause for thought before proceeding to agree another surrender treaty like the one signed by Keir Starmer’s failed Government.
I have no doubt that the Minister will oppose this. It is, after all, a triple lock, and we know how the Prime Minister feels about triple locks. We on these Benches are much more open to the Weir triple lock for the Chagos Islands, in light of the persistent efforts by the Mauritian Government to undermine British sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. The noble Lord’s Bill also puts Parliament in the driving seat when it comes to any planned expenditure connected to the transfer of sovereignty. For months, we were in dispute over the Government’s previous plan to spend £35 billion on their hopelessly unpopular treaty with Mauritius. Ministers denied that figure until the Government’s own response to an FoI request in fact confirmed that that figure was correct.
Giving away islands that are British by right, and then paying for the privilege, was always an unacceptable position, and there was widespread opposition to it in this House during our debates on the Government’s Bill. It is clear that this Government cannot be trusted to negotiate a good deal for the British people, and it is no wonder that the EU is so keen to talk about closer ties when it sees such negotiating weakness from the United Kingdom. It is only right that Parliament should have the final say on any Chagos-related expenditure. Perhaps that way, we will prevent Ministers from signing off on treaties that are tantamount to total capitulation.
That brings me to the legal status of the islands. Ministers have constantly parroted the line that the islands are subject to legal uncertainty as a result of judgments in the international courts, but they have been strangely reluctant to tell us which judgments. My noble friends Lord Lilley, Lord Bellingham and Lord Murray and others have roundly discredited that position, and we will see when the Minister responds whether she can do better than her colleagues when we were considering the previous Bill. My noble friends are right that this Bill explicitly reaffirms Britain’s unquestionable sovereignty over the islands in Clause 1(2), and we support that. We are clear that the islands are British and see no problem with Parliament making that plain in primary legislation. Indeed, as many of my noble friends have pointed out, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, the United Kingdom is already subject to the obligation to maintain sovereignty over the Chagos Islands under the famous 1967 exchange of notes with the United States. This Bill merely confirms in domestic law something that is already set out in international law, which the Government keep telling us that they are so obedient to.
Finally, I want to say a word on the Chagossians, who have been so appallingly treated by successive Governments. As my noble friend Lord Hannan has pointed out many times, their quiet dignity in the light of the great injustice done to them is truly humbling, and I am delighted to see so many of them sitting in our Public Gallery today. It is high time that the Government put their mind to the views and the future of the Chagossians who were so cruelly removed from those islands.
Now that the Government have confirmed their review of the UK-Mauritius Chagos agreement, will the Minister commit to a proper consultation of Chagossian people before confirming any future policy in this area? The Government have plenty of time to do that now; their previous argument that there was not enough time falls apart. The Government previously resisted a formal consultation for fear that a judicial review might be brought, delaying their planned transfer of the islands to Mauritius. Now there is no such urgency, can we please put the Chagossian people back in the picture on the future of their own homeland?
I know the Minister will tell us that the Government have established the Chagossian Contact Group. That is a good thing, but she knows that we feel it is not enough. Since I imagine she will mention the group, will she at least tell the House when this contact group last met?
I wish the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, every success as he takes this Bill forward, and I hope the Government will listen to his heartfelt calls for us to draw a line under this sorry saga and say, once and for all: the Chagos Islands are British, and British they shall remain.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Winterton of Doncaster) (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Weir, on securing this Second Reading debate and bringing forward his Bill. I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate for their contributions, which certainly reflect the deeply held views about this issue among noble Lords. I will try to address as many of the points raised as I can in my response.
Before I do that, I will once again set out the vital importance of the base on Diego Garcia. As noble Lords have heard on many occasions, Diego Garcia is a key strategic military asset for both the UK and the US which has protected our shared security for nearly 60 years. The base enables the rapid deployment of operations and forces across the Middle East, east Africa and south Asia, helping the UK to combat some of the most challenging threats we face, including from terrorism and hostile states. Diego Garcia’s unique strategic location grants us real military advantage across the Indo-Pacific. Put simply, the base makes an essential and irreplaceable contribution to keeping the British people safe and protecting our global interests. Many noble Lords have raised the issue of the legal rationale and arguments behind that. I am sure noble Lords will accept that the base has been operating at increasing risk for decades: UK sovereignty has been challenged, and international courts have already made decisions that undermine our position.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
How can an advisory opinion by a court, which can under no circumstances lead to a binding judgment by a court, undermine the security of the base? I do not understand that.
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)
I will come on to address that issue. Let me first return to what I was setting out, which is that, because of the legal position—which, as I say, I will come back to—negotiations were started by the previous Conservative Government. There were 11 rounds of talks, conceding the principle of UK sovereignty and establishing the model of direct payment to Mauritius to lease back Diego Garcia.
When they came to power in 2024, the Labour Government inherited a draft treaty that was close to completion and a political context in which the risk to base operations had never been greater. Nevertheless, the Government were able to secure much stronger provisions in the treaty to protect the base well into the next century. I should say that in drawing this up, the UK and the US worked hand in glove in developing the treaty, and we continue to work together. When the Diego Garcia treaty was signed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, we had US support. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Weir, said, it is clear that the US, through President Trump, has taken a different view, so we will continue to work together, as has been made clear by both the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister. We need the support of both Mauritius and the US to find a solution that works for everyone.
The noble Lords, Lord Callanan, Lord Lilley, Lord Bellingham and Lord Hannan, asked why we are handing over sovereignty on the basis of a non-binding legal opinion. This is not just about a legal judgment; it is about the long-term safety and security of the UK. The only way to maintain the base safely in the long term is through this agreement. There is no alternative, whereby we just hang on to the base without an agreement. The previous Conservative Government tried to do that under Boris Johnson and when that failed, they started the negotiations.
I accept that there are those who argue that we should ignore the legal challenges, but there is no question that we can do that. Doing nothing is simply not an option and threatens the UK’s safety. Some argue that there are carve-outs and exemptions that the Government have missed. We have heard these arguments before, and I am afraid we have to reject them. On the ICJ exemption, although the 2017 amendment does indeed mean that the International Court of Justice cannot rule on disputes between the UK and Commonwealth countries, this is not the only viable route to a binding judgment and not the one we consider most likely.
With regard to the UNCLOS—
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
Can the Minister identify what those other potential sources of judgments are, rather than just alluding to them?
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)
There is a misunderstanding of the legal position on Article 298 of UNCLOS. This does not create an exemption in respect of military bases, but in respect of disputes concerning military activities. As I say, there are other routes through international legal judgments that could be quickly translated into UK domestic proceedings.
Moving on to the issue of the Chagossians, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, and the noble Lords, Lord Hannan, Lord Weir and Lord Callanan, I share noble Lords’ strength of feeling about the Chagossian community and the injustices they have experienced, and we have heard some very powerful contributions on that during today’s debate. Let me say again: the Government deeply regret the way the Chagossians were removed from the islands, and we are committed to building a relationship with the Chagossian community that is based on respect and acknowledgement of past wrongdoings.
However, we have to accept and respect the fact that there is a diversity of opinion within the community. We continue to engage with the Chagossian groups. The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, asked when the contact group last met; it met last week. We will continue that process of consultation.
On the Bill and the call for a referendum, which the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, and others raised, I am afraid that we reject the Bill’s call for a referendum. The decision to enter into a treaty is a matter of national security, so we have to be very careful about how we approach that. That is why, while rejecting a referendum, we have taken concrete steps to help the Chagossians, including protecting British citizenship rights, increasing UK support and negotiating a treaty which would enable Mauritius to develop a programme of resettlement, which the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, referred to, on islands other than Diego Garcia.
The noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, mentioned the environment. Although national security was paramount in negotiating the treaty, we also secured a deal that would continue to protect the unique environment of the Chagos Archipelago. We agreed to work with Mauritius in establishing a new marine protected area with clear and credible commitments to ensure the Chagos marine environment will be effectively protected for generations. This includes a full ban on commercial fishing, high-level IUCN-aligned protection for the Great Chagos Bank and only tightly controlled artisanal fishing to support any future Chagossian resettlement.
I know that there is great interest in the financial side. The Bill proposes that Parliament assumes a formal approval function for any future payments related to the Chagos Archipelago. This is not new ground. We have discussed many similar suggestions previously, as explained clearly by both my noble friend Lady Chapman and the Minister for the Overseas Territories in the other place. A requirement for a vote before payments is not only contrary to the principle that treaty payments can be made under the royal prerogative but would create an unacceptable risk for the long-term sustainability of the base. Without certainty, the UK and US military would not be able to invest in viable capabilities, which would have major operational implications for the base.
I turn finally to the Pelindaba treaty, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Murray. He asked whether the US could be prevented from having nuclear weapons on Diego Garcia. This is completely untrue and we are confident that nothing in this treaty conflicts with our abilities to uphold international law and to continue to operate the base as we do today.
I fully respect the strong views that noble Lords have on Diego Garcia and the future of the base. I hope that I have been able to answer most of the questions set out today. I have to say—I think this is not unexpected—that the Government cannot support the Bill because it seeks to tie their hands in protecting the base. It would subcontract the exercise of prerogative powers, which would set a dangerous precedent and be manifestly contrary to the national interest and security of the United Kingdom. I am afraid that we are not able to support the Bill, but I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate today. I am sure we will continue to discuss this issue in future.
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)
My Lords, first, I want to place on the record my thanks to everyone who has spoken to this debate, including the Minister, who was given an unenviable, if unsurprising, position. The reality is that it was not only unsurprising but almost inevitable that the Bill before us today would be, given the juxtaposition, contrasted with what has gone before by way of the previous government Bill.
I want to pick out a few points that came up in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, is absolutely right: we would all prefer to be in a position where this was not needed in the first place. As has been highlighted by a number of speakers, we were not facing something that was going to be internationally compelling against us to hand over the islands. The exemptions in the ICJ and UNCLOS have been mentioned. Therefore, a lot of the actions taken were utterly unnecessary.
Like most, if not all, Members of this House, I have a range of opinions. I will offer some as advice to the Government—those are advisable opinions—though I would be astonished if they agreed with some of my opinions, let alone felt themselves to be bound by them.
First, we are being brought to this position by, to a degree, a false premise. Secondly, as has been mentioned by a number of speakers, some people believe, almost benignly, that our actions in handing over this territory to Mauritius are in some way inspired by some noble concept of decolonisation. I sense exactly the reverse. The approach that was previously taken with Mauritius was to treat Chagos almost as a prize that could be handed over by a medieval monarch—at the end of some war, one side gets an additional county while the other loses it—and, beyond that, to treat the Chagossian people as some form of chattel as part of that overall position. If the inspiration is to decolonise, is there anything more anti-colonial than saying, as a country that has sovereign control of a territory, that we are going to give complete self-determination to the indigenous people? To my mind, that is the definition of anti-colonialism, and ultimately it is embraced in the Bill.
Thirdly, mention has been made by the Government that there is no alternative to the route that they have taken. Actually, we are in a position where moving forward on the deal put forward by the Government may be legally questionable, as some speakers have indicated, given the binding commitment with the US Government and whether it can move forward in their absence. It is certainly unimplementable without the support of the US Government. That is the position we are in. It is time that the Government faced up to reality, stopped flogging a dead horse and pursued a positive alternative course of action. That is what is outlined in this Bill.
Fourthly—this has been alluded to only slightly—we should realise that, although this matter holds a high level of significance in the Chagos Islands, it has implications for the wider world as well. If we take the opportunity to enshrine the right of self-determination and simply hand over territory under any level of international pressure, what sort of message does that send out to other territories? For example, in recent days, we have seen yet again sabre-rattling with President Milei in Argentina as regards the Falkland Islands. If we as a country send out a signal that we are not strong on these issues and are not prepared to embrace self-determination, it is inevitable that others will misinterpret our position.
Fifthly, the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, or perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, raised resettlement. Again, there is a contrast between what was contained in the previous Bill and this one. In the previous Bill, there was no automatic right of resettlement. Indeed, the only opportunity for resettlement was at the grace and favour of the Mauritian Government. If you behaved yourself and made the right noises towards them, there might be some possibility of resettlement. Otherwise, however strong your links with the Chagos Islands, you would not be able to resettle. This Bill explicitly guarantees that right of resettlement on two of the main islands within the Chagos Islands. Last night, I had the opportunity, at a meeting, to converse directly via satellite link with Misley. As has been indicated, this is not simply some theoretical or moot point. There are Chagossians now back on the Chagos Islands. They have taken those steps to resettle, and it is time that we faced up to the reality of this.
I will make one other point. The Minister has spoken about a diversity of opinion within the Chagossian community. That may well be true, yet she speaks of diversity of opinion but will not allow a referendum. She speaks about discussions with them on a range of issues but will not grant them power on the most important thing: the right of self-determination. It is time that we gave the Chagossians their place. On a positive note, I was encouraged by the number of speakers who placed at the heart of this the rights of the Chagossian people themselves—that was encouraging—and the acceptance of a need for greater protection of biodiversity. That is also in the Bill.
I mentioned in my introductory remarks that this is a second chance. Whatever disagreements I have with this Government or any other, I suspect that all Governments come in with the intention and desire to do the right thing, possibly with one eye on legacy. We have a situation in which the Prime Minister, unlike the previous one, does not have his fingerprints on the previous deal. So I ask him to look at this with a fresh pair of eyes, to embrace the opportunity for that second chance and to do the right things for the Chagossian people.
It was unsurprising that, in this debate and previous ones, there was inevitably—as is the case in Parliament—a level of ping-pong between different sides on where blame lies. But one thing that struck me very much from previous debates on the Chagos Islands was a spirit and an acknowledgment around the entire Chamber that our treatment of the Chagossian people, over many decades and many Governments, has been shameful—the most shameful aspect being the forced removal in 1967. But we cannot do anything about the past. I am always slightly dubious when Governments make a performative apology for something that happened many years ago in which they were not directly involved. We cannot do anything about the past, but we can do something about the present and the future, and for the rights and needs of the Chagossian people, which do not infringe the military security of the base—let us get rid of that misunderstanding or misappropriation of the legislation and put it in context. It is time that we as a Parliament took forward a fresh approach that puts the Chagossian people first and does the right thing for them.