House of Lords Reform

Debate between Eleanor Laing and John Stevenson

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Stevenson]

It is established, but not represented in the House of Lords. Members of the House of Lords are appointed by Prime Ministers past and present, and there is still the hereditary element. The composition of the House of Lords has also been mentioned. It is interesting to note that the average age of a peer is 69 and that the vast majority live in the south-east of England. I am not ageist, and I have nothing against people who live in the south of England, but that demonstrates that there are pluses and minuses to the composition of the House of Lords. Ultimately, it is right and proper that the House of Lords should be democratically elected because, quite simply, we live in a democracy.

Secondly, there is a lot of talk about the experience, expertise and, indeed, wisdom of Members of the House of Lords. I fully accept that there are some very able people in the House of Lords, far more able than myself, but they would not lose their expertise by being excluded. They could still be members of commissions and produce reports for the Government. Lord Hutton recently produced a report on pension reform, but he did not need to be a Member of the other House to do that, so I am not so sure about that argument. More importantly, we forget that this Chamber, too, has expertise. We do this Chamber a disservice when we talk about the expertise in the other Chamber, because the same expertise exists here. Indeed, Members develop that expertise over the years they are here, and I see no reason why that would not be replicated in an elected House of Lords.

[Mrs Laing]

On my hon. Friend’s point about lord Hutton, if someone has expertise that we as a legislature need, the system he is describing would prevent them from exercising their expertise in Parliament.

[John Stevenson]

I do not believe that access to that expertise would be removed, because those people could still produce reports and be members of commissions and we could still debate their advice and act upon it.

Thirdly, there is the challenge between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, which could be termed the power struggle. Yes, the conventions will undoubtedly change and a democratically elected House of Lords might assert itself more, but I do not think that that would necessarily be a bad thing. Indeed, it might be a good thing for our democracy. Ultimately, to go back to where I started, in 1911 the Parliament Act gave primacy to this Chamber, and that will remain the case however the conventions change.

In 1911, an MP called Herbert Samuel said that there might be

“common agreement as to the necessity for a reform of the other House… But there is no common agreement as to the character of that reform.” —[Official Report, 2 March 1911; Vol. 22, c. 669.]

In many respects that has been the issue ever since. There is no perfect solution, but we must find common ground as best we can so that we can conclude the reform. One hundred years ago the Member for Carlisle voted for the Parliament Act and supported the reform of the House of Lords; one hundred years later the Member for Carlisle would like to see that completed and will support the reform of the House of Lords.