House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Friday 18th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Greg Clark)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) on his luck in coming so high in the ballot and, I daresay, for his pluck in choosing a Bill that has the words “House of Lords” and “Reform” in its title. Lord Hennessy, the noted constitutional expert, said in evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee:

“Lords reform is the Bermuda Triangle of British politics, or one of them. Every generation or so people go into the Bermuda Triangle. Some never reappear; others appear singed, vowing…never to return.”

I hope, at least for my hon. Friend’s sake, that he will make it safely into port, singed or not. Whether he vows to return is quite another matter.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

In that spirit, will the Minister say to the House now that he will support the Government’s giving the Bill the proper time and attention to allow it to return from the Bermuda triangle entirely unsinged?

[Greg Clark]

I was about to say that the Bill contains modest proposals that the Government are prepared to support. Obviously, it needs to be scrutinised closely in Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) has ventured into the Bermuda triangle himself on occasion—whether he was singed or not is for him to say, but I am pleased to see him in his place today and look forward to his contribution.

The changes that are set out, as the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) said, are relatively straightforward and represent common sense. There are those who argue that no change should be made until the wider case for reform, or improvement, as the right hon. Gentleman had it, or change, as other people might have it, can be agreed, but there is a clear consensus, after five attempts in the House of Lords, on the need to describe some arrangements that constitute incremental but nevertheless practical changes. It is only right that this House should listen to that call and take time to scrutinise it.

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[Jesse Norman]

rose—

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

rose—

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[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) and his Bill. I believe that he and it have the support of most, if not all, of the 91 sensible constitutionalists who voted against last year’s Bill to introduce an elected House of Lords. One predictable but slightly unhappy side effect of that Bill was that it delayed genuine reform, so it is enormously to my hon. Friend’s credit that he has been able to use this opportunity to restart, or indeed to start, such a process of reform. It is rare for a Bill of any constitutional significance to be brought forward from the Back Benches, but this one deserves to succeed, both on its merits and for the careful work he has put into discussing the measures with Front Benchers from all three major parties.

I would also like to pay particular tribute to the noble Lord Steel and the noble Baroness Hayman for their unflagging efforts to promote reform, to members of the campaign for an effective second Chamber and to the many others in both Houses who have supported that cause. I also pay tribute to the Deputy Prime Minister, who I understand has now dropped his opposition to these changes. It is hugely to the credit of the Government and my right hon. Friend the Minister that he and my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire will together constitute, with luck, a pair who can safely navigate their way through the Bermuda triangle of constitutional despond.

I do not wish to revisit at any length the events surrounding last year’s House of Lords Reform Bill, but whatever one’s views of the underlying merits of that issue or of an elected House of Lords, it is hard to deny that the Bill was deeply misconceived. It purported to create greater accountability by electing unaccountable senators. It purported to increase the power of the legislature against the Executive, but the fact is that the Blair Government were defeated four times in the elected Commons over 10 years and 460 times in the unelected Lords. It purported to advance democracy but would have meant fewer women, fewer people with disabilities and fewer people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds in front-line politics. The Joint Committee sat for longer than any Committee in recent memory but was unable to achieve consensus. Indeed, it had an almost unprecedented minority report, signed by six Privy Counsellors, and even then it was all but ignored. I think that the Bermuda triangle is an apt metaphor.

And for what? In the words of the noble Lord Pannick, one of the pre-eminent lawyers of his generation:

“The Bill does not adequately address the central issue of constitutional concern”.

I, along with many others, warned at the time that the Bill would undermine the primacy of the House of Commons and transform the Lords into a Chamber competing with the Commons and that the result would be legislative gridlock. I reminded the House that the United States of America offers a useful cautionary tale: a political system manifestly struggling; beset by gridlock; vulnerable to powerful special interests; its two Houses repeatedly finding it impossible to achieve consensus on important legislation. The events of the past few weeks, with the US Government shutdown and the USA itself close to default, make that point perfectly.

By contrast, our Parliament has always been at its best when it acts in a spirit not of 18th century innovation, but of reform. I cannot help but mention the great Member for Wendover, Bristol and Malton, Edmund Burke, who is not in his seat—not surprising, perhaps, as he died in 1797. In his writings, he set seven tests for reform, which might be of interest to the House. Reform should be early, anticipating the emergence of a problem before its full effects are felt; it should be proportionate to the evil to be addressed, to limit any collateral effects; it should build on existing arrangements and previous reforms, so that it can draw on any lessons learned from them; it should be measured, so that those making the change and those affected by it can adjust their behaviour accordingly; it should be consensual, so that the process of reform can avoid unnecessary conflict and outlast a particular Government’s own period in office; it should be cool in spirit, to maintain consensus throughout the process of change; and, finally, each step must be practical and achievable in itself. The Bill meets every one of those tests.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for referring to Edmund Burke’s principles for reform. Under those principles, would it not be better, with regard to excluding peers who commit offences, to build on the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, which provides a precedent for removing peers and taking away their titles?

[Jesse Norman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that typically scholarly and thoughtful intervention. That piece of legislation worked in the opposite direction, beginning by taking away titles and then allowing removal or exclusion from the Lords to follow therefrom. Such an approach would raise a thicket of further constitutional issues and probably steer us directly into the centre of the Bermuda triangle, never to return. It is therefore with some hesitation that I would endorse his suggestion, but I absolutely invite him to expand on it in any remarks that he makes later.

This Bill meets every one of the seven tests of Burke that I set out. If it succeeds, it will be an excellent example of effective reform, and we, and indeed our country, will be the better for it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I did not see the specific remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), but we are making available to Wales more than £7 million in extra money for discretionary housing payments. On top of that, we are making money available for rural borough councils in Wales to assist with the transition. We recognise that it is a challenge and a difficult period for people going through our changes to housing benefit, but we are supporting local authorities in Wales to help Welsh people through that transition.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

7. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Transport about capital investment in the Cardiff to Manchester railway line.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

I regularly meet my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to discuss rail infrastructure priorities for Wales, and I am meeting him again soon. I will raise the important link that my hon. Friend mentions as part of that discussion.

[Jesse Norman]

The new enterprise zone at Rotherwas in Herefordshire offers a superb opportunity to reopen the rail link to Hereford and establish a parkway station, which would assist local people and the many Welsh people who work in my county. Will the Secretary of State support those plans?

[Mr Jones]

The Herefordshire enterprise zone is extremely important, and my hon. Friend will know that the important thing with rail infrastructure improvement is to build up a coherent business case. I will certainly raise this matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport when I meet him, and my hon. Friend’s question will form an important part of that business case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, I respect fully the decision the House came to after the debate last week and Britain will not play any part in military action, but I ask the right hon. Lady to put herself, for a moment, in the shoes of the President of the United States and others. He set a very clear red line that, if there was large-scale chemical weapons use, something had to happen. We know that the regime used chemical weapons on at least 14 previous occasions. To ask the President, having set that line and made that warning, to step away from it, would be a perilous suggestion to make. In response, I believe we would see more chemical weapons attacks from the regime.

The right hon. Lady has a long track record of supporting peace and peace talks, which I respect. I will do everything I can to try to bring the Geneva II peace talks together, but I do not believe there is a contradiction in taking a tough line on the use of chemical weapons, which are revolting in our modern world, and wanting the peace talks that could bring the crisis to an end.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Q6. Cancer funding per head in Herefordshire is half that in Birmingham. Academic research suggests that the current NHS funding formula discriminates against rural areas and older people. Does the Prime Minister share my view that the NHS should move as quickly as possible towards fairer funding for rural areas?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, but he will know that we have taken a lot of those decisions away from Ministers and given them to NHS England, which has said that it is looking at a fairer funding formula. I am sure it will look at the arguments he has made. In addition, I ask him to look at the Cancer Drugs Fund, which has been a phenomenal success in England. Sadly, it has not been copied by Labour in Wales, but I am full of hope. The fund has helped many of our constituents to get the treatments they badly need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and recognise the particular expertise she has developed in this area. We are always open to listening to new ideas for reforming European funding, but I hope that she will recognise the fantastic deal that British, Welsh and European taxpayers got as a result of the historic negotiated agreement to see a real-terms reduction in the EU budget for the very first time.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

11. What assessment he has made of the effect of the Welsh Government’s national procurement service on suppliers based in England.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

Public sector contracts are an important source of income for many businesses. Although I support efforts to make the procurement of public service contracts more streamlined in Wales, I do not think that should be at the expense of ensuring value for money regardless of where the supplier is located.

[Jesse Norman]

Small businesses in Herefordshire find it increasingly difficult to become accredited suppliers to the Welsh public sector. There is a growing tendency, and indeed a Welsh Government policy, to encourage public organisations to buy Welsh. Does the Secretary of State share my view that public organisations in Wales should not be discouraged from buying from English suppliers and that the Welsh Government should make it very clear that they cannot do so?

[Mr Jones]

I trust that the new public procurement process will be driven by providing value for taxpayers’ money, irrespective of where the business is located. Part of the object of the procurement service is to develop local supply chains, and in many parts of Wales the local economy will include businesses located in England.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I am puzzled by the hon. Gentleman’s question, particularly in relation to exactly whom the RDAs were accountable to. I do not think that anyone is weeping for their absence, and I think that he should give LEPs a chance. My impression is that they are doing increasingly valuable work. We have new city deals and a whole new era of localism, with more and more decisions being taken locally and accountable to the communities they serve. I hope he will welcome that.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

6. What steps he is taking to encourage co-operatives and mutuals to provide public services.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

The Government are committed to supporting public service mutuals in providing public services. We know that mutuals can bring significant efficiencies that benefit not only public service users and the taxpayer, but the staff who form them. Our mutuals support programme is tracking more than 120 emerging and established public service mutuals across 13 different sectors.

[Jesse Norman]

Does my right hon. Friend share my view that, in line with the original Rochdale principles, co-operatives should be politically neutral and not make contributions to political parties?

[Mr Maude]

I hear what my hon. Friend, who is extremely knowledgeable on this topic, says. He is a passionate supporter of mutuals and co-operatives, and his point deserves further scrutiny and study.

G8

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for praising the decision to hold the summit in Northern Ireland, and let me say again how well I think the authorities did in making it work. On Syria, the Government have clearly stated their approach. We want an international peace conference and a transitional Government, and we want a peace settlement. We believe, however, that we should be helping the Syrian national opposition. We have recognised—not just us, but America and countries across the European Union—that the opposition are legitimate spokespeople for the Syrian people. We should decry Assad—frankly, I hope the Labour party and all its allies in the Social Democratic and Labour party and elsewhere will decry Assad—[Interruption.] and continue to do so. We should also decry the use of chemical weapons. It cannot be said often enough what a brutal dictator this man is.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I warmly congratulate the Prime Minister on the achievements of the G8. On tax transparency, will he comment a little more on the timetable that might be stretching in front of us for making that happen?

[The Prime Minister]

In terms of UK domestic action, we will publish shortly our consultation on whether to make a register of beneficial ownership public, and we can get on with that rapidly. The international exchange of tax information is progressing all the time throughout Europe and the rest of the world, and we need to keep pushing that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman’s questions are always so challenging. No and no.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

T11. Per pupil funding for schools in Herefordshire has long been among the lowest in the country, although it has risen, I am pleased to say, since 2010. Does my right hon. Friend share my view that the pupil premium should be targeted on a wider range of deprivation than just free school meals?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend is as keen an advocate as I am of the pupil premium, which will pay long-term dividends in enhancing social mobility and greater fairness in this country. We consulted widely on what criteria we would use for the allocation of the money, and although no criterion is perfect, the only available one that is workable for teachers and head teachers and recognisable to parents—this is the response we got overwhelmingly from schools throughout the country—is free school meals. That includes not just those who receive free school meals now, but those who have received free school meals in the previous six years.

Charitable Registration

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I declare an interest, entered on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as a partner of a law firm that carries out a modest amount of charity law work, although, as may become patently clear in my speech, I have never specialised in that field. I recently had to take a crash course on charity law, and I apologise for any errors in my understanding of what is a far from simple field.

I am heartily encouraged by the number of Members attending this debate; it is the most I have ever seen in a Westminster Hall debate. In fact, there are so many Members that some are having to sit on the side. Many Members have said that they support my concerns on this matter.

If an organisation wishes to be registered as a charity, it both has to have charitable purposes and be of public benefit. The Charities Act 2006 states that it is not to be presumed that a purpose is for public benefit, so organisations applying to the Charity Commission for registration now have to demonstrate public benefit—something that comprises two elements: whether the nature of the charitable purpose is of benefit to the community, and whether those who may benefit constitute a section of the public. Charities that would previously have been registered without needing to demonstrate public benefit now need to do so.

In a debate in the House on the 2006 Act, the then Minister for the Cabinet Office said:

“The Bill preserves the existing law on the definition and test of public benefit, with one change. Under the existing law, there is the presumption that charities established for the relief of poverty, the advancement of education or the advancement of religion are for the public benefit… The Bill abolishes that presumption.”

The critical phrase is that

“The Bill preserves the existing law on the definition and test of public benefit”.—[Official Report, 26 June 2006; Vol. 448, c. 24-25.]

I shall refer to that in a moment.

The Charity Commission has the job of registering charities and applying the public benefit test to those charities that previously would have been exempt. One such charity is the Preston Down Trust of the Plymouth Brethren—a religious charity. In the main, I will confine my speech to public benefit as it relates to religious charities, as opposed to charities that relieve poverty or advance education, both of which have recently been the subject of charity tribunal cases.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on the number of colleagues in attendance. I share her views, and I will quickly speak for the Plymouth Brethren in my patch. Is she aware of the large amount of research on the social and community benefits of moderate religious observance? Is there not a case, therefore, for moving back towards the wider definition of social benefit that we had historically in this country?

[Fiona Bruce]

Yes, I very much agree. It is an enormous burden for organisations such as the Plymouth Brethren to have to prove public benefit, as I will demonstrate.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I shall make a little more progress, if I may.

The Bill, by creating a more legitimate House of Lords, gives it more authority to hold Governments to account—a greater check on Executive power. That does not mean emboldening the Lords to the point that it threatens the Commons—I shall come on to those concerns shortly—but it does mean bolstering its role as a Chamber that scrutinises Government. It means forcing Governments to treat an elected upper Chamber with greater respect. The aim of the Bill, to quote the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), is to create a second Chamber

“more independent of the executive, more able to exercise independent judgment”.

That will mean not only better laws, but fewer laws, restricting, again in the words of my right hon. Friend,

“the torrent of half-baked legislation”

that Governments are capable of.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. The Blair Government were defeated four times in the House of Commons and 460 times in the House of Lords. Does the right hon. Gentleman really believe that an elected House of political placemen will do a better job of opposing than does the current House of Lords?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It will be able to discharge that considerable authority with greater legitimacy, and therefore it will be harder for the Executive to ignore the opinions of the House of Lords. I would have thought, if I may say so, that it was a long-standing Conservative principle that it is the people who should be in the driving seat and the Executive who should be kept on their toes.

The third reason to support the Bill—

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[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

My hon. Friend is right and he brings me to my next point, which is that if the Deputy Prime Minister really believes in a democratic upper House, why is he not providing for one in the Bill? What he is providing is form, not substance. The very name of the revised Chamber will continue to be “the House of Lords”. Not a senate, it will be the House of Lords, even though every Lord will have been expelled from it over a period of years.

When it comes to the proposed powers, the Deputy Prime Minister spends his time trying to reassure this House that the powers of the new elected, democratic Chamber will be—will have to be—exactly the same as those the appointed House has now. What possible justification is there for that, if he believes in an elected, democratic upper House? He is a Liberal Democrat; does he not remember the history of his own party? Does he not remember that the Parliament Act 1911 was passed because, until then, apart from on taxation matters, there was an equal right of veto in both Houses, and Asquith and his colleagues argued correctly that an unelected House could not have a veto on the business of Parliament? If the second Chamber is now to be elected, on what ground does he seek to justify his proposals—other than a desire to be all things to all people?

That is the sad problem with the Liberal Democrats: they always wish to be all things to all people—to go for the middle way. I am reminded of a remark I once heard, which I thought was rather good: if Christopher Columbus had been a Liberal Democrat, he probably would have been content with discovering the mid-Atlantic. [Laughter.]

What public interest will be served by the Bill in its current form? Does my right hon. Friend really believe that, compared with all these distinguished men and women from all over the country who serve in the House of Lords now, most of whom will not be able to continue to serve, a party list of candidates will result in more cerebral debate, more enlightened debate and more able contributions to the revision of legislation? Does he actually believe that and does he seriously want us to accept that, or does he recognise that that cannot, in fact, be the case?

[Jesse Norman]

I am greatly appreciating, as, I am sure, are all Members, the brilliance of my right hon. and learned Friend’s speech. Does he share my view that, as for Members of the European Parliament, Assembly Members in Wales and Members of the Scottish Parliament, the process of election can only empower this group, so that they start to throw their weight around even more?

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

Yes, but what worries me is the prospect of ending up with a party list system which, as we know from the experience of the European Parliament, has no legitimacy with the electorate, is not regarded as a way of electing people to represent their interests, and has been entirely discredited, regardless of the view one takes of the European Union as a whole. For that system of all systems to be chosen for the purpose of deciding membership of the upper House is totally incomprehensible to me, never mind entirely regrettable.

I say specifically to the Deputy Prime Minister, because clearly it is his party that is behind the Bill, and perhaps the only party that would care much if the Bill never saw the light of day, that if he wants to eliminate the defect he rightly referred to of the continuing presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords, that can be done very easily by means of a simple legislative measure. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to get rid of the extraordinary nonsense that we have almost 1,000 peers, that can be done by a compulsory retirement age. If he wants an opportunity to deal with the other anomalies in the House of Lords, he does not need to go down this road. The only argument for going down this road is if he believes in a democratic upper House which, by its very nature, will then share primacy with this House of Commons. Let him, if he wants that, admit that, rather than try to conceal that fact behind words that do not carry conviction.

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[Harriett Baldwin]

We could oppose Third Reading, therefore, if we felt we had not achieved consensus in this House.

There is also consensus in this House that anyone who has been convicted of a serious crime should be kicked out. The cost of the second Chamber must be reduced, too. I am not convinced on this point; I will need quite a lot of convincing in respect of the Deputy Prime Minister’s earlier assertion that this proposal would be cost-neutral.

[Jesse Norman]

The cost figures have reached their current level only by the entirely illegitimate manoeuvre of including costs—such as costs of the Commons associated with the Lords—that have not yet been recognised in legislation, let alone achieved, as well as by ignoring the £85.7 million cost of five-yearly elections.

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[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

It is with a heavy heart that I speak to the Bill before the House. I am a reformer and I would welcome a well-crafted Lords reform Bill without election that reduced the size of the upper House, removed those who have committed serious criminal offences, improved the scrutiny of legislation, strengthened the appointments process, reduced political patronage, converted the hereditary peers to life peers, and separated the peerage as such from the legislature. Those measures would constitute a great reforming Bill and would, I suspect, pass through this House on a free vote. This Bill, however, is a hopeless mess.

Members of the House can properly differ on the merits of the underlying issues. What they cannot differ on are the flaws in the Bill itself. It is deeply confused and, indeed, dangerous legislation. It will prevent real reform. It will reduce diversity and deep expertise in our political system. It would be a catastrophe for this country if the Bill were ever enacted.

David Lloyd George famously referred to the House of Lords as Mr Balfour’s poodle, but if the Bill goes through we will have Mr Clegg’s lapdog—a Chamber full of elected party politicians.

There has also been an important failure of due process. The Government originally worked hard to establish a consensus on the Bill, but without success. The Joint Committee sat for longer than any in recent memory. Because of its internal disagreements, it was forced to put more issues to the vote than any recent Committee. It even produced an unprecedented minority report, signed by six Privy Counsellors, but the views of the Joint Committee have barely been heeded by the Government. Its key recommendations were that an issue of this constitutional magnitude required a referendum and that the crucial clause governing the relationship between Lords and Commons should be entirely rethought.

Those recommendations have been ignored or brushed aside. The result is that important matters have been introduced without any pre-legislative scrutiny. Those include a revised clause 2 on the relations between the Houses, and a party list voting system. Instead, the Government have treated the votes of a highly divided Committee as a consensus when they were nothing of the kind. The Government refused to allow the Committee to publish the costs of the draft Bill, and refused to schedule a debate on its report, as is normal practice. They have rushed to get the Bill into Parliament before the summer.

[Mr Gray]

As evidence of the lack of consensus that my hon. Friend so well describes, has he ever attended any Second Reading debate in which every speech of any substance at all was against the principle behind the Bill?

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[Jesse Norman]

My hon. Friend makes a shrewd point very quickly and elegantly.

The Bill is being pushed through the Commons by the Government—before the summer, on a whipped vote and with a guillotined debate—but the central question concerns the likely constitutional crisis that will arise from the Bill, which will transform the Lords into a Chamber competing with the Commons. The result will be gridlock, cronyism and a rise in special-interest politics.

The US offers a useful cautionary tale. The American political system is manifestly struggling: beset by gridlock; vulnerable to powerful special interests, from the gun lobby to the American Association of Retired Persons; and its politicians elected by corporate lobbyists through political action committees, recently liberated by the Supreme Court from any spending constraints under the first amendment. The two Houses have repeatedly found it impossible to achieve consensus on important legislation. Pork-barrel has been replaced by stand-off. President Obama’s health care Bill is a classic example and it ended up in the Supreme Court.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Is not my hon. Friend adverting to the fundamental conundrum at the heart of the Government’s presentation of the Bill? On the one hand, they are arguing for a more legitimate House; on the other, they are arguing that there will be no change in the relationship between the two Houses. It does not add up.

[Jesse Norman]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. As my noble Friend Lord Forsyth put it, what would be the point of electing these people if not to give them more power? Exactly the same thing as has happened in the US will happen here. I refer my colleagues and Members across the House to Lord Pannick’s brilliant memorandum on the issue, which has been published this afternoon. Lord Pannick is widely regarded as one of the most excellent lawyers and advocates of his generation, and is specifically expert in the Parliament Acts. He is also precisely the kind of person who would never be willing to stand for election to a new Senate. In his words:

“The Bill does not adequately address the central issue of constitutional concern: the fact that a House of Lords most of whose members will be elected will almost certainly be much more assertive than the unelected House of Lords and reluctant to give way.”

Lord Pannick states that the Parliament Acts

“only relate to the end of the legislative process, and not the day-to-day conventions which (at present) result in the Lords giving way to the Commons. Indeed, the Parliament Acts do not apply at all to Bills introduced in the House of Lords or to subordinate legislation.

The crucial question is this: should the Bill seek to regulate all these matters, or leave them to convention? If it leaves them to convention, then the result will be disputes between the two competing chambers. If it regulates these issues, then the result will be that relations between the chambers become justiciable in law, as they did over the Hunting Act, which went all the way to the Supreme Court.”

[Mr Harper]

The Joint Committee considered the question of putting powers in the Bill and clearly recommended that we should not go there; it would be dangerous and it would open up the Bill to interference by the courts. We listened to the Committee very carefully.

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[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful to the Minister for stating that he wishes to be impaled on the first horn of the dilemma: in the absence of regulation that would render the actions of the Houses justiciable, he wishes to impale himself on the horn of constant gridlock and competition between the two sides.

Lord Pannick concludes that

“the Government have, hitherto, failed to recognise the difficulty”—

failed to recognise the difficulty—

“and the importance of the constitutional issue arising from a decision to elect 80% of the House of Lords.”

Members of the House of Commons, Lord Pannick is no partisan, no party politician. His is quiet but devastating criticism. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us about what external advice the Government took when they reformulated clause 2. We now know which of the two options he proposes to take, so I need not ask him. He proposes not to allow the judges in, but to leave future disputes between the two Houses to the conventions —and a thoroughly unsatisfactory compromise that is.

In politics, as in all else, timing is everything. That applies in particular to voting against one’s own Government for the first time, which is not something to be wasted on a small measure. Luckily, however, this Bill makes it very easy. There is a fundamental issue of constitutional principle at stake; the Bill is a hopeless mess; it is in no sense a piece of Conservative legislation; it lacks any genuine manifesto commitment; it proposes a new upper Chamber that will be less expert, less diverse and more expensive than the present one, let alone one after sensible reforms; and the issue is absolutely irrelevant to the overwhelming need to put out the fire in the economic engine room. I shall be voting against it and I would venture to suggest that the Bill is such that all MPs, Conservative or not, have a constitutional obligation to vote against it. Only thus can we rid our country of—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order.

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[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I nearly fell off my chair earlier today because I had an e-mail from a constituent on Lords reform. I think that that is the first one that I have had in all my years, despite the fact that I have held forth about the subject on many occasions. Fortunately, I agreed with her, so 100% of my constituents are in agreement with me.

I say to hon. Members who are opposed to the Bill that the current House of Lords is unsustainable. It has more than 800 Members, and the coalition agreement says that more should be appointed. At the rate that we are going, every member of the Liberal Democrat party will end up as a Member of the House of Lords. There are enormous problems with the numbers that we have at the moment, because appointment as the defining way of getting into the House of Lords leads to a heavy over-subscription of people from London and the south-east. Two hundred and seventy-three Members of the House of Lords come from London and the south-east, but just 38 come from the midlands and 74 from the north. It cannot possibly claim to be the representative House that it claimed to be seven centuries ago, when it had all the tenants-in-chief of the land available to advise the king.

[Jesse Norman]

Any reduction in the size of the upper House can be achieved without election. The hon. Gentleman is arguing not for election, but for a reduction in the size of the House.

[Chris Bryant]

I have only just started, to be fair. I wanted to start by saying that there are too many Members and, on top of that, too many who come from London and the south-east and too few who come from everywhere else. With a system of appointment, the people who do the appointing end up choosing people they already know, and that is why there is a heavy preponderance of people from London and the south-east. We also still have crooks, perjurers and arsonists up at the other end of the corridor. The hon. Gentleman will say, “Ah yes, but we can change all this through David Steel’s Bill,” but then we end up with a House of Lords that is solely appointed, and that is a House of patronage and power given to too few people, not to the people of the land.

We have the ludicrous situation of by-elections for hereditary peers. I say to all those who are opposed to the alternative vote system that we already have that system; it is used to elect people to the House of Lords. It is ironic that the last person who was elected in July last year, in a by-election that was not much commented on in the national media, was Lord Ashton of Hyde. I have never met that gentleman, and I suspect that few of us in this House have, but he got to stand as a hereditary peer only because of his original predecessor who was made a peer. That Lord Ashton of Hyde had been a Member of this House. He tried to get elected for Hyde several times and never managed to do so; but none the less, when he went to the Lords, he called himself Lord Ashton of Hyde. He went there because he had vacated his seat in the Commons two months before the vote on the Parliament Act 1911 to try to make sure that it could get through down at the other end of the building.

The system of having elected hereditaries in the Lords is completely bizarre, but it is even more bizarre to have the bishops of the Church of England there. There was an argument for that when we also had the bishops of Wales and Ireland, and some representation from Scotland, but it makes no sense for only one denomination representing one geographical area to be appointed to the House of Lords. I would move an amendment to get rid of all the bishops.

To those who argue in favour of the House of Lords on the basis of expertise, I would say that sometimes expertise is also a vested interest. Just take the case of two members of the Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions, which is considering a very sensitive issue in politics. One of them is Lord Gold. Most Members have probably never heard of him, but he happens to be a Conservative peer. He also happens to be a lawyer who specialises in litigation. Some people might say, “That’s great—he has expertise,” but I would say that he has a commercial interest in the legislation that he is advising on. Similarly, Lord Black of Brentwood, as the executive director of the Telegraph Group, has a direct financial and commercial interest in the legislation that is going through. That is why I say that, all too often, the commercial interests of people down at that end of the building turn it into a corrupt House.

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[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your patience and generosity. I had to sprint across to St Thomas’s, where my wife is having a scan. We are expecting our third child.

The supporters of the Bill would have the country believe that those who are opposed to it are opponents of democracy itself. Today I stand to refute that ugly caricature. No one in the House is more committed to British democracy than I. My family emigrated to Britain from an Iraq where democracy was spoken of only behind closed doors, late at night, among trusted friends. Compared to the brutal realities of Saddam’s rule, democracy was an abstract dream. Yet here in Britain there was a constitutional order which made democracy real, concrete, embedded in the very fabric of our national life.

Here was a judiciary—unelected, I grant you—which interpreted the law in the interests of the public, not of the ruling party. Here was a Queen—again, unelected—whose impregnable position as Head of State made sure that no politician could ever wield supreme power. And here also was the oldest and greatest of Parliaments, an elected House of Commons to embody the will of the people, and an appointed House of Lords to stand as a check against the tyranny of the majority.

[Jesse Norman]

Does my hon. Friend share my view that it is in the balance of these extraordinary institutions and in their distinctive history that so much of the genius of our history has been located?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

That is exactly right. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. This is exactly the constitution that I believe in and this is the constitution that I will defend. This is not, as my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for political and constitutional reform has said, some “silly game”.

If recent events in the Arab world have shown us anything, it is that democracy is not just about holding elections. It is also about building institutions which ensure that the whole of society is represented, regardless of who is in power. The question that we should ask ourselves today is whether British society will be better represented by 360 more career politicians accountable to no one but their party.

I am not complacent about the state of our democracy. I know that Parliament currently faces a crisis of legitimacy in the eyes of the country, but the cause of that crisis is not the other place. No. It is that deeply damaging sense that politicians here, in this House, are out of touch.

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[Dan Byles]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Discuss this issue we must. Most Conservative Members are of the view that we would rather not, but if we have to it must be discussed fully and properly. This is a fundamental and irreversible constitutional change. It is not normal Government business. The idea that such a change should be rammed through with the routine whipping and programming is unthinkable.

The Bill is not about democracy. Too many people who support it seem to think that simply using the word “democracy” shuts down the debate. That is not the case. I was a soldier for nine years. I took the Queen’s commission and served Her Majesty. I was taught at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the Royal Military College at Shrivenham to uphold and preserve democracy and the rule of law, which I do. I challenge anybody in this Chamber to tell me that I do not support democracy. That I support it does not mean that I must support the Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) described eloquently our complex and ancient constitution. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) made a passionate speech on the nature of the upper House and its specific and unique role in our constitution, which does not automatically require that its Members be elected. I was rather hoping that I would be called to speak immediately after him, because I would have been tempted to say, “What he said,” and sit down.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) ran through a list of other parts of our system that are elected. Interestingly, I have the same list in my speech in order to make the opposite point. My constituents already have the opportunity to elect every level of government. They elect parish councillors, borough councillors, county councillors, Members of Parliament and MEPs. They elect their Government when they elect their MP. That is our system. If we move, in an ill-thought-out way, to a system in which they also elect, in a manner of speaking—I am not a fan of this system of proportional representation—Members of the other place, which House will form the Government? That system will result in confusion and chaos.

This change is being imposed. There is no suggestion that it will go to the people in a referendum, unlike the question of whether the people of Coventry want an elected mayor, as numerous colleagues have pointed out. Apparently, this fundamental change to the constitution of our country is not suitable for a referendum. The people who want to impose this fundamental change should at least come to the House to explain what the upper Chamber is supposed to do, what it is about the current system that is failing to achieve that end and how the proposals will achieve that end better.

It seems to me that the Bill fails in what it sets out to achieve. It will not make the upper House more accountable. I will not repeat the arguments involving the party list system and the 15-year terms, but the new Members will not be accountable. The Bill will not end the Prime Minister’s right of patronage. Ministerial Members will be appointed by the Prime Minister, not by an independent appointments commission, and he will be able to appoint as many of them as he wants. As long as fewer than eight of them are serving as Ministers at the time, he can appoint more. He can appoint eight on day one. If they all resign on day two, he can appoint eight more. He can do that every day. The power of parliamentary patronage is therefore still there. That means that it will not be an 80% elected Chamber. If each Prime Minister appoints only eight ministerial Members in each Parliament and they stay for three Parliaments, it will be a 74% elected Chamber. Let us call it what it is. And that is ignoring the Lords Spiritual.

[Jesse Norman]

Has my hon. Friend raised that topic with the Ministers who are responsible for constitutional affairs? I would be very interested to hear what the answer was.

[Dan Byles]

My hon. Friend is being naughty, because he knows that I have. He knows that there was some confusion in the Ministers’ office about how many times the Prime Minister could appoint eight ministerial Members. At one point, it was suggested that they could appoint only eight per Parliament. However, a constitutional expert in the upper House, whom I shall not name because I have not asked his permission, assures me that as the Bill is written, there is no limit on the number of ministerial Members who can be appointed.

The scope for constitutional deadlock that the Bill will bring about has been described at great length and with eloquence. Those who want us to give the other place what they see as more democratic legitimacy cannot run away from the fact that it will want to use and exert that legitimacy.

I am pleased that the Deputy Prime Minister is back in his place, because I would like to pick up on one of his points, if he is listening. He is not. He was naughty in his opening speech when he discussed the potential costs of the reform, because he included the costs of reducing the size of this place. The House will know that that was in entirely separate legislation that will be on the statute book regardless of whether this Bill is accepted. That reduction should form the baseline from which the costs of the Bill are judged.

I stood on a manifesto commitment to seek consensus on House of Lords reform. It is quite clear that that consensus has not been reached. When the Joint Committee, in an unprecedented move, issued a minority report signed by almost half its members urging that a constitutional convention be set up, because this matter was too important to be left to grubby political horse-trading, people should have sat up and taken notice. That is why I cannot support the Bill and certainly cannot support the programme motion.

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[Mr Heath]

The right hon. Gentleman may not have studied the Bill assiduously enough. It is true that those Ministers will not be there for life: the right hon. Gentleman is right about that. Under the present system they are there for life even when they have clearly outlived their ministerial usefulness.

We heard arguments in favour of secondary election, and I think that that is a perfectly valid debate for us to have in Committee. We also heard arguments about primacy. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made what I considered to be a very sensible suggestion about the possibility of a concordat. I thank him for that: it is something that we need to debate.

The hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) asked which legal expert the Government had consulted on clause 2. It was Lord Pannick, who I believe the hon. Gentleman thinks is a very good lawyer indeed.

[Jesse Norman]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Heath]

Very briefly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

In that case, can the hon. Gentleman explain why the same Lord Pannick has been so devastating in his criticisms that were published this afternoon?

[Mr Heath]

I do not believe that he has, but that is an argument to which we can return in Committee.

The hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) compared the Deputy Prime Minister with Andy Murray. I think that, if anything, he is more like Jonny Marray, in that he is a champion doubles partner, and on that basis the coalition has been succeeding.

Let me now deal with what I think is one of the most important issues on which we shall have to reach a conclusion tomorrow. There are those, predominantly in the official Opposition, who will vote for the end but not for the means, namely the programme motion. I have long argued, as has my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, that programme motions should, wherever possible, be arranged by agreement. They should be for the convenience of the House: they should enable debate, not restrict it. That is the way in which we have managed things in this Parliament so far.

I repeatedly asked the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) how much more time he wanted. He has 10 days for the Committee stage in addition to the two days for Second Reading and the two days for Report, 14 days in all. I asked him repeatedly how many more days he wanted, but answer came there none. The Opposition cannot say how many days they want, because they decided to vote against the programme motion before it had been published or even suggested. I believe that 14 days out of a total of 88—only 88 days are available to the Government for legislative business during a whole year—are sufficient. If the right hon. Gentleman has a proposal, let him come up with it; but if, as I suspect, he has no proposal whatsoever other than a determination to oppose, he is doing his own argument a great disservice.

Debate on the Address

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, we have been dealing with an economy that had the biggest boom and bust in our banks, the biggest deficit in Europe and the longest and deepest recession in anyone’s memory. What we have to do is get our economy to rebalance, and I will explain exactly how the Queen’s Speech is going to help, because it is a Queen’s Speech for the doers, the strivers and those who work hard and play by the rules.

On cutting the Budget deficit, all across Europe the countries being hit are the ones that do not have proper plans in place. In the last Session, we cut the nation’s overdraft—the gap between what we receive in tax and what we spend—by £30 billion. With this Queen’s Speech we continue that work with, for instance, the vital public service pensions Bill. Not only does that offer guaranteed pensions that are still more generous than those in the private sector, but it saves tens of billions of pounds over the coming decades. Through this Queen’s Speech we are also making sure the UK is taken out of the eurozone bail-out fund. We are not in the euro, we are not joining the euro, so we should not be bailing out the euro.

The reason why we are doing these things on the deficit is simple: we want to keep interest rates down for hard-working families up and down the country. Let us be clear: higher interest rates would mean higher mortgages, lower employment and more of people’s money, which they have worked so hard to get, wasted by being spent on interest on our national debt. Two years ago, Britain had exactly the same interest rates as Spain; today, its interest rates were touching 6% and ours were below 2%. That is because we have a credible plan to get the country out of the mess it was left in by the last Government.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I am very appreciative of the Prime Minister’s words today. On the issue of Lords reform, the Government have made long and strenuous efforts, including through a draft Bill, a White Paper and a Joint Committee. Does the Prime Minister share my view that since a consensus has not proved to be available, Lords reform cannot be a priority now, and does he also share my view that any measures presented to this House should be put to the people in a referendum?

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me make this point, answering also the Leader of the Opposition: reforming the House of Lords is not the most important priority for the Government—that is dealing with the deficit, getting our economy moving, increasing the level of responsibility in our society and getting on the side of hard-working people. Those are the things that matter the most, but I think it is perfectly possible for Parliament to do more than two things at the same time. At the last election, all political parties put forward in their manifestos proposals for a partly, or mainly, elected House of Lords, but let me say this: this is only going to proceed if the political parties will agree to work together and take a responsible attitude towards this reform. I think it is possible, and it would be a good reform if we could achieve it; it would be better if we had a smaller House of Lords and if it had an elected element. So I ask people to work together across party lines to try to make that happen.