House of Lords Reform Bill

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Sadiq Khan

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I am always uncomfortable when listening to Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sadiq Khan]

I will give way once more.

[Mr Sheerman]

My right hon. Friend is making some very good points. I have been in the House for long enough to have voted for many of the progressive measures introduced by a Labour Government, but one of the things that worry the reformers on the Opposition Benches who want change in the upper House is the quality of the people who would end up there—and there is nothing in the Bill to assure us that the party machines will not control all the people who end up there.

[Sadiq Khan]

My hon. Friend highlights one of the problems of a list system. That is one of the reasons why we are surprised that the Joint Committee, which sat for nine months, did not consider the type of system that is being imposed in the Bill.

“I am a supporter of a fully elected House of Lords”.—[Official Report, 5 April 2011; Vol. 526, c. 879.]

Those are not my words—although I agree with them—but the words of the Deputy Prime Minister. However, his Bill proposes the establishment of an 80% elected Chamber. We are disappointed that it has not gone for a fully elected second Chamber. Even the Joint Committee was split, recognising that there was a case for that.

Our position is that we want a fully elected second Chamber, and that was also the position taken in the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto. By allowing some Members still to be appointed, the Deputy Prime Minister is weakening his own arguments for having elected Members in the second Chamber. The Deputy Prime Minister’s pet phrase—although he did not use it today—is “Do not let the best be the enemy of the good”, but in proposing a hybrid Chamber he may be storing up problems for the future.

House of Lords Reform

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Sadiq Khan

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good intervention. It is important that the Joint Committee respects party policy and manifestos, and I hope that it will do so in its recommendations.

The draft Bill does not adequately address these issues. Clause 2 simply states that nothing in the Bill

“affects the primacy of the House of Commons”.

That is inadequate and ignores work done on rules and conventions by previous Committees, including the Joint Committee on Conventions chaired by Lord Cunningham of Felling. The new Joint Committee will need to recognise this fact and seek to open up the issue of powers and conventions; otherwise, the reform process runs the risk of being fatally flawed.

Another area of concern is the length of term of those elected to a newly reformed upper Chamber. Increasing the democratic accountability of the Lords has to be one of our key objectives, but I am unclear how this will be best served through single 15-year terms for those elected. What do we do in a situation where some less diligent individuals are elected and recognise, almost straight away, first, that the next 15 years are now sorted and, secondly, that they do not need to worry about what the electorate believe or want because they will never need to face them again at the ballot box? Is this what we want in our second Chamber?

We also face the tricky constitutional issue of the future of the bishops. I recognise that we have an established Church and that a move to a fully elected upper Chamber would not accommodate our current system. Some have argued that if we allow the bishops to stay in the reformed second Chamber, we should allow representatives of other major religions to have seats. However, there are major practical difficulties, not least the fact that some religions do not have such obvious hierarchical structures as others, so it is unclear who would be their representatives—let alone whether it is right for organised religion to play such a central part in our political system. It is right and proper that this House and the Joint Committee debate such issues if we are to get reform of the second Chamber right.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend is making a very good speech. At the beginning, I was a little concerned that those of us who have consistently, even when we have voted tactically to frustrate some of the motions—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Yes, Members on both sides of the House have done that. Some of us resent the suggestion that we are anti-democratic. Those of us who believe in the primacy of this House want either the abolition of that place or a very weak upper House. That is the democratic position and it is due some respect from both Front Benches.

[Sadiq Khan]

My hon. Friend makes his point very well.

Another area that the Joint Committee will have to examine is the transition. What will happen to the existing Members of the House of Lords? One option is to allow them to continue until they choose to leave by their own volition or die. Even the option of a phased move over time leaves the question of which Members to keep and which to ask to leave. That would not be easy to manage and would not be cheap.