House of Lords Reform Bill
Debate between James Gray and Mark Field(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I regret that I will not be in the same Lobby tomorrow night as my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady), even though I agreed with much that he had to say today. I think that the primacy problem in this place has nothing whatever to do with the House of Lords or even the House of Commons. The real issue that lies at the heart of UK constitutional politics is the corrosive effect of the overweening primacy of the Executive.
Anything, but anything that provides an effective counterweight to the oft unchallenged power of the Executive is, in my view, a good thing. I remain to this day staggered by the sheer gutlessness of this place, including of many Members who will vote against this Bill’s Second Reading and programme motion tomorrow night, because we waved through the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, and it was a terrible bit of legislation.
That legislation cravenly supported a reduction in the size of this House, and it was promoted by the Deputy Prime Minister on the basis of a fatuous saving to the public purse of £10 million a year, which even in his own words has been overwhelmed by the additional amount of money that will be required for the new House of Lords. At the same time, we failed either to nail down any commensurate shrinking of the size or cost of the House of Lords, or to address the constitutional iniquity surrounding the absurdly inflated Scottish Parliament and Northern Irish and Welsh Assemblies.
But I am a democrat, and since my maiden speech in this House I have supported, and will continue to support, a fully elected House of Lords. The case for the preservation of the “ancient traditions”, as many hon. Friends have assured me, of the upper House was conclusively lost in 1999. Once the vast bulk of the hereditaries had been removed, so too should all appointed Members have followed. Instead, today we have a bloated House of Lords, of which the Lords Winstons and Puttnams are assuredly the exception rather than the rule.
Over the past 13 years the ranks of the upper House have been swelled by literally hundreds of party hacks and large-scale political donors, along with dubious-quality legislators given the nod on politically correct grounds. In the charming words of my Liberal Democrat opponent at the last election, ironically herself also the daughter of a life peer, I was too “male, pale and stale”. That may well be the case, but I was also elected, and in a democracy that matters.
While I am happy to support the principle of electing the House of Lords both on Second Reading and in the vote on the programme motion, I believe that in many of its particulars the Bill is shoddy and poorly drafted.
Mark Field
I will come to that at the end of my remarks, if I may.
The Bill misses the opportunity to propose an elegant solution that might have resolved effectively the four main domestic constitutional uncertainties that have plagued our whole political arena for the past three decades. I hope that when it is in Committee and in the other place we might be able to make some progress in that regard. With a federal UK parliament and four elected national parliaments, we could have not only maintained the monarchy, strengthened the Union, and resolved questions over the legitimacy of an unreformed House of Lords, but given independent and equal representation to citizens in England as well as in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
As many Members have said, the British constitution has been one of the success stories of modern politics. It has kept this country together, united under a common Crown and a common Parliament, for over 300 years—not for us the coups, revolutions and counter-revolutions that have plagued many of our European partners over that period. So successful has it been that we Britons had perhaps stopped thinking about some of its great successes. Until 15 years ago, nobody in this House or beyond gave much thought to constitutional issues; we knew instinctively that we had a British constitution that worked well for the whole of these islands. I am afraid that that was destroyed in 1999 when we got rid of the traditional House of Lords, removing much of the genuinely independent hereditary element and created hundreds of new life peers. Shamefully, this process has continued even under the coalition Government, with some 120 new life peers being created. That is unacceptable.
Housing (CSR)
Debate between James Gray and Mark FieldWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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Mr Field
I think that there is a real risk of that. We want diversity; we want diversity of communities. The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that the issues will have to be properly identified and nailed down before we move forth.
I appreciate that other hon. Members want to speak, so I shall just make two quick observations. With regard to provision of housing by my own local authority, Westminster city council remains confident that local authorities can deliver more affordable housing, even in a period of economic austerity, provided that they are able to think and act creatively. For too long, as we know, local authorities have over-relied on section 106 agreements and registered social landlords to deliver social housing. In that respect, the establishment of the Westminster Community Homes charity locally and its development arm, Westminster Homes Development, will be critical.
My other observation, which slightly concerns me, is that a number of local authorities look on the revolution that is about to take place as an opportunity to welcome the practice of housing finance being treated as off balance sheet, bringing Britain into line with much of the rest of Europe and allowing local authorities greater flexibility to borrow against the existing stock. I confess that I would not support that. I put on record in this Chamber as long ago as 2007 my grave reservations about off balance sheet financing for private finance initiative and public-private partnership projects by the previous Government. The cost of those will become apparent over the next 25 years. At a time when we need to improve our infrastructure, we have huge costs for schools, hospitals, prisons and road building that have already been put in place. I therefore think that we should above all try to avoid that technique.
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
It may be helpful to hon. Members to know that I intend to call the shadow Minister at 10.40 am.