House of Lords Reform Bill
Jim Dowd Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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John Stevenson
The most important part is that there is democratic legitimacy, whereby the people who make laws in this country are elected.
I am aware of the arguments for the present arrangement that the other place is more varied in background and that it is a place of greater expertise. I do not accept this. The average age in the other place is 70. There are more in their 90s than there are under-40s, and around 44% have a political or local authority background. Undoubtedly, there is expertise in the other place, but it is not reactive to, or representative of, the electorate.
As for the make-up of the other place, it is overwhelmingly geared towards the south of England. Where is the representation of Scotland, Wales or the north of England? Representative it is not. We need to ensure proper regional representation so that the views of all parts of the country are heard in the second Chamber. As to the principles of a functioning Parliament, let us not delude ourselves that the present arrangements are satisfactory for us in this place. Arguably, because of the current arrangements for the House of Lords, we have weakened our own Chamber as an instrument of legislature.
Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is being astonishingly generous with his time. I am following his arguments closely, but would he say that because we do not elect our second Chamber, this country is not a fully functioning democracy?
Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
I shall break with the traditions of this Chamber by being brief and by trying not to repeat what others have already said. One of the earliest speakers supporting the Bill today said something like, “If you are a democrat, you have to vote for this Bill”. That embodies the attitude and the arrogance of some of those who are seeking to advance this Bill. I believe that it is possible to be a democrat and disagree with people. That is entirely the nature and essence of this Chamber and everything it stands for. It says on the cover that this is the House of Lords Reform Bill, but I prefer to call it “a horse designed by a Committee that failed to produce a camel Bill”. It has been cobbled together for a variety of different and often conflicting reasons and then presented before us as a fait accompli.
I take the oldest of old Labour positions on the House of Lords. My party believed for the overwhelming majority of the 20th century that the place should be abolished. However, I understand that we cannot do that on our own. A similar Bill was tested in the previous Parliament and there was no majority then; I suggest that the majority has subsequently decreased still further in this Parliament. This reform has to be coupled with the whole question of Parliament and its purposes. We cannot take one part of our democratic institutions and take it in isolation. That is why so many attempts to reform the House of Lords have run into the sand—because we have taken just one element of Parliament and tried to pursue reforming it on its own.
Let us consider some of the changes introduced over the last 15 years or so that have had significant effects. Devolution to what we call the nations—Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—is one example. That has happened, but I still think the English question has not been resolved and will need to be addressed in some detail in the not-too-distant future. To be perfectly frank—I do not wish to be parochial—I think that doing that would be a far better use of this House’s time now than would pursuing this pipedream that has been put before us.
We have seen the advent of draft Bills and we have seen the development of programme motions, about which I shall say more in a moment. Of course, at the time of their introduction by a Labour Government, the Conservatives and Liberals fought it tooth and nail, telling us how awful and what a denial of democracy it was, but we knew—I was in the Government Whips Office then—that as soon as they had the chance to use them, they would use them, and use them mercilessly. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) seems shocked by such a proposition. I realise that he is one of the few members of the Liberal Democratic party who occasionally tell the truth, although normally by accident rather than design, but I assure him that that was what happened.
I hear from the Leader of the House that public reading stages of Bills are likely to be introduced, whatever they may be. A wide range of change is taking place, and we need to deal with the elements of it together. Trying to isolate one part, whether it be the House of Lords or anything else, will virtually ensure that progress cannot be made.
The other bit of arrogance on the part of the proponents of the Bill is their saying, “We have been arguing about this for 100 years, and therefore you must accept this answer. You cannot question it. If you are genuine about reform, you must agree with me.” That is not the way in which a democracy works. I say, “If you are genuine about reform, you must convince me, and convince me without the use of a programme motion.”
That attitude demonstrates the hubris with which the Bill is being pushed by its advocates, and the disdain that they have both for this place and for the people. Having had their fingers burnt to a crisp over the AV referendum, they have adopted another strategy: “As we cannot trust the people to give us the right answer, we are not going to bloody ask them. We are going to tell them what is good for them. That is how we will rebuild trust in Parliament.” I do not think it is.
Jim Dowd
So I should hope. It woke you up, anyway.
To say what the proponents of the Bill are saying is rather like saying, “We are all in favour of improving public health, so when some charlatan comes up with a quack remedy involving blood-letting and leeches, we should all go along with it.” Well, I am not going to go along with it, and I am not going to go along with my Front-Bench team on this occasion. Under the Labour Government, I voted against them just once. I do not offer that as any particular threat—certainly not the silly threat that some so-called Liberal adviser came up with, equating the issue of boundaries with the Bill—but I will tell Opposition Front Benchers this. I voted against the last Labour Government once, on the Bill that became the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, and on the one occasion when I voted against them, they lost.
This is a serious matter. We should not just tolerate the lowest common denominator; we should reform Parliament—reform all of it. That is how we will regain the trust of the British people.
Tom Greatrex
I think there are many more fundamental reasons why people are disappointed in politics.
Before coming to the Chamber this afternoon—I have been here since the debate started—I checked and found that two constituents have contacted me about House of Lords reform and implored me to support it. At the end of the letter—they are identical—it says:
“All I ask is for you to do one simple thing; keep to your manifesto commitment and vote in favour of reforming the House of Lords.”
I do not know whether other hon. Members have received that letter. One was sent to me by a Liberal Democrat councillor—well, he was a Liberal Democrat councillor; he lost his seat in my ward earlier this year and was replaced by the excellent Labour candidate—and I presume that the other was from the other Liberal Democrat in Cambuslang. So we know that there are some people for whom this is a big issue.
In view of the lack of time, I shall not draw the House’s attention too much to the idea of being urged to keep one’s manifesto commitments by Liberal Democrats, given their recent past. However, the lack of demonstrable public interest does not mean that House of Lords reform is not important. It is important, and the consequences of the Bill and their impact on the governance of the country as a whole are such that it is important that we ensure that two things happen: first, that the Bill is properly scrutinised and, secondly, that public support is tested in a referendum, just as many significant constitutional changes have been in recent years. Given that Bill will have an impact on the relationship between the two Houses of Parliament, that referendum is fundamentally important.
A range of concerns about the Bill need to be properly discussed in Committee. Many hon. Members have expressed real concern about the 15-year term, the list system and, in particular, the inadequacy of clause 2, which deals with the relationship between the two Houses. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) was admirably naive to suggest that there would not be some sort of mission creep from the Lords. As others who have experience of regional list MSPs will know, it does not matter what is set out in the code; behaviour is something quite different.
I wish to air two issues that have not been touched on much so far. The first is regional representation. The proponents of the Bill have made much of the idea that it will enable real and effective regional representation within the second Chamber. Those who spend a lot more time considering these matters than I do know that that is a widely accepted role for second Chambers in other countries. Schedule 2 to the Bill sets out the formula for the allocation of the elected peers: in each of the three elections, Scotland gets 10, Wales gets six, Northern Ireland three, and England 101. Thus, after the first set of elections, the combined strength of Scotland and Northern Ireland plus four of the Welsh representatives would be needed to outweigh the south-east of England.
That formula is based on population share and, in that sense, it is perfectly understandable, but it does not mean that the reformed House will represent the regional balance, as some have suggested. In the United States, California gets no more senators than Wyoming, even though its population is 66 times larger—that is pure regionalism. Germany has a different structure, with a minimum number of sets and then an additional number, according to population share, up to a maximum. As the constitution unit notes, Germany is one of the few countries without pressure to change its second chamber. If the proposals in the Bill are to be held up as a model of regional representation, those issues need to be looked at.
Secondly, part 4 of the Bill contains the clauses dealing with the number of bishops in the second Chamber. Over time, their number will be reduced. I think the bishops in the House of Lords bring a different perspective. I am a great admirer of the Archbishop of York, whose experience in Uganda brings something different to debates. It seems that the remaining bishops are to be among the 20% of Members of the new House who are appointed. Why, though, do we not get rid of all the bishops, as some have advocated, or if they are to be appointed Members, why do we not ensure representation from other faiths? There are Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Baptists, members of the Free Church and many others, and those are just Christians. Should we not ensure that Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists and others are properly reflected among the Members appointed to the new Chamber? Could we not make space for a Catholic Cardinal or the Chief Rabbi?
I raise those two issues because they are issues that many people will not see as being of primary importance as the debate goes forward, but they are two important aspects of the composition of the second Chamber that could be the casualty of the programme motion.
Tom Greatrex
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. The point that I am making is that these are issues that people will seek to discuss during the Committee stage that are not of primary importance. They may be secondary to other issues that have been raised during the debate today and it is imperative that there is proper time to consider all those issues. One of my frustrations since entering the House is that on a much smaller constitutional Bill that was taken on the Floor of the House, the Scotland Bill, there were a number of issues that we never discussed because we ran out of time. We cannot allow that to happen with this Bill so it is imperative that we have enough time. People will ask how many days that means. It means that it takes as long as it takes to deal with all the issues to get the Bill in the best possible form before it proceeds to the Lords.
Following on from my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd), the Government would do well to stop using the line that we have been talking about the subject for 100 years. We have not been talking about this Bill for 100 years. There are big issues in the Bill that we need to get right. We need enough time to get them right if the Bill is to have any chance of taking us forward.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973
Jim Dowd Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
Obviously we are all constrained by time, but these are grave matters not only for the people of Libya, but for the people of this country and for our allies, and indeed for the future of the United Nations.
In framing my remarks, I am minded to use the words of a wily old operator of recent years in this House, the late, great Eric Forth, who once said that when there is unanimity between the Front Benches, it is almost axiomatic that they are wrong. I do not believe that to be the case, but I believe that it is incumbent on us to examine most carefully those who do not agree with the proposition that is advanced by the Government and supported by the Opposition. I will vote with the Government tonight, but like my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) and any Member of this House who has any sense, I have a number of reservations about the nature of the path on which we are embarking, where it will take us, how it will end—which a number of Members have spoken about—how we can measure success, and what it presages for future international engagement and involvement.
International experience of recent times may lead us to different conclusions. The actions in Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan and the complete inaction, for various reasons, in Rwanda and Zimbabwe have all had consequences for those involved. Otto von Bismarck, a politician perhaps not as great as Eric Forth, described politics as the art of the possible. In such issues, what matters is what is politically possible; I do not think that there is an abiding principle that unites them. It is a case of whether the ingredients necessary for international action and the will to undertake international action can be marshalled in the right proportion and with the requisite enthusiasm.
I can well understand those in this country who say, “This is nothing to do with us. Why, again, is it British armed forces—British servicemen and women—who are being placed in harm’s way when there is no direct British interest?” The Prime Minister referred to that point earlier. I agree that the interests of this nation and our people are not always directly connected to such matters. Sometimes there are dotted-line connections that have to be borne in mind. There are those who are asking, “Why should we get involved?” Somebody on the television last week, I think a former editor of The Sun, was saying that all the lives in Libya were not worth one ounce of British blood. I think that is a particularly brutal and unpleasant view of the world—that may be a prerequisite for being editor of The Sun—but I do not think many civilised people in this country share it.
The need to consider people’s reservations is important, though. We cannot offer all the guarantees that people would want, but as the Prime Minister pointed out and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition echoed, the fact that we cannot do everything does not mean we should do nothing. To those who want consistency and say, “You’ve made mistakes in the past,” the only answer is that that doctrine would lead us to believe that, for consistency’s sake, we must carry on making mistakes in the future, and that we should never do anything right if we have never done it before. More particularly, it would be to say, “Be a pioneer, by all means, but never do anything for the first time.” Sometimes there are cases in which we just have to.
The situation will be difficult, including in considering what the end will look like. There can be no end under Gaddafi, I am convinced of that. As the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) said, if Gaddafi were to scale down his operations and the UN were to say that resolution 1973 had been discharged and should be dispensed with, as soon as we were gone he would take up the struggle against his own people again.
I believe that the only previous no-fly zone was authorised against Iraq, and of course it was supplanted only by the invasion and the war. I am not clear what the end of the current situation will be. More particularly, I have grave concerns about how we will judge whether events are going well or badly. I assume that in the first instance it will be about whether the Libyan people are no longer being harassed by Gaddafi, at least not overtly. For as long as that is the case, we can claim some success. We can already, because the assault on Benghazi that was clearly intended did not materialise in the way that Gaddafi and his henchmen envisaged.
We have a difficult choice. I will support the Government in their motion to support resolution 1973, because I believe that is less bad than the alternative of doing nothing. It is also consistent with the type of nation that I believe the majority of the British people make up. We are not the kind of people who pass by on the other side of the road. Sometimes we have to put up or shut up. On this occasion I shall certainly now shut up, but I believe we should put up.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
We have heard 50 speeches tonight, and I have listened to the vast majority of them. Every single one has raised proper questions and issues. It will, of course, be impossible to respond to all of them in the 16 minutes that remain, but I will do my best to respond to the general themes and to some of the specific questions.
The debate has naturally focused on UN Security Council resolution 1973 and the situation in Libya, but many Members have pointed out that there are wider conclusions to be drawn, and a need to address our policy on the entire region. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), for instance, referred to the dramatic changes that have taken place throughout the region: changes that may already constitute the most important event of the early 21st century—even more important than 9/11 or the 2008 financial crisis—in terms of their possible consequences.
If many of the countries of the middle east turn into stable democracies and more open economies, the gains for our security and prosperity will be enormous. If they do not, the potential breeding grounds for terrorism and extremism will prosper. That is why it is so much in our national interest to address these issues, and why my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I have argued that the response of the whole of Europe must be as bold, as ambitious and as historic in its intentions as these events are in their nature. We should be holding out to the countries of the middle east the prospect of free trade, areas of customs union and a new economic area with the European Union. We should be providing it with incentives and acting as a magnet for positive change in that region.
We can be optimistic about the prospects for positive change in many of those countries. In Egypt, the Egyptian army’s decision to protect the people kept the spotlight firmly where it was supposed to be—on a Government who had to listen to people’s aspirations. In Tunisia, too, after deplorable violence against unarmed protestors, the Government crumbled, accepting the will of the people and beginning a transformation of the political system. The situation in Libya is completely different. In the past three weeks we have heard reports of soldiers being burned alive for refusing to obey orders to crush the protests. We have seen the use of mercenaries to slaughter civilians, the cutting off of food, electricity and medical supplies to population centres and the broadcast of televised threats to purge whole cities and to hunt down people in their homes. Just today, after the announcement of a second ceasefire by the Gaddafi regime, Reuters has reported that Gaddafi’s forces fired on a crowd of unarmed people late today in the centre of the city of Misrata. In Ajdabiya, there have been reports of body thefts, with military casualties being made to look like civilian casualties. Al-Jazeera reports that Gaddafi’s forces continue to shell the town of Zintan heavily and that they have given residents two hours to surrender or face total execution. That is what passes for a ceasefire according to the Gaddafi regime.
It is against that background that the House has today weighed carefully the arguments that we have presented for and against our military actions. There has been nothing gleeful or gung-ho about the atmosphere in the House and there is nothing gung-ho about the atmosphere in and decisions of the Government. The great majority of hon. Members who have spoken today have spoken in support of the Government’s actions and the motion, and many explained that they did so with reluctance or regret. The Government have approached this issue with the same sense of gravity.
It was fascinating to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), who spoke of the horror of violence. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster), who has served in three wars in the past decade, pointed out that nobody who has served in them ever wants to be involved in one again. Hon. Members have wrestled with their consciences. The hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) said that he was debating with himself and for a moment he did, indeed, debate with himself in front of the whole House, which was quite a spectacle. The fact that he should be wrestling with his conscience illustrates the difficulty of the choices we face and the general unity that the House has come to, which is not an automatic or unthinking unity but is because we think it right to act in this situation. We are conscious that any military action can involve loss of life, but we are clear that when our armed forces take action they take the greatest care to avoid civilian casualties. When our pilots were on their mission last night and thought that civilians were in danger, they turned back—what a contrast with a regime that turns its guns on its own people and regards the lives of its citizens as mere shields.
We are clear that we are engaged in this action to protect the civilian population and we were clear, as last week went on, that we had to act with all possible speed. That is why we moved heaven and earth, diplomatically, to pass the UN resolution on Thursday night. Yes, we took a risk in doing that because nine positive votes are required in the Security Council and there can be no vetoes. To have been defeated on that resolution would have made it hard to take any subsequent action, but any later would have been too late. Once the resolution was passed, we had to move with all possible speed. As the House knows, the Cabinet met on Friday morning to consider the UN resolution at length, with the legal advice of the Attorney-General in front of us for all members to read, and the Prime Minister came to the House at the earliest possible moment to state our intention.
Some hon. Members have asked whether the House should have sat on Saturday to consider the motion; of course, in future instances, that can be considered, but they should be clear that to effect the situation, we had to give the orders for military action on Saturday afternoon. Other hon. Members have asked that there be no mission creep. I am happy to assure them that if the Government ever fundamentally change the nature of the mission that we have described to the House, we will return to the House for a further debate to consult it again. We will also enshrine in law for the future the necessity of consulting Parliament on military action.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) quite rightly asked—the shadow Foreign Secretary echoed this—what debate we would be having today had we not taken action last week. How many people would now be wringing their hands? How many would be lamenting the fate of a proud city and the lives of people who live there?
Mr Hague
I will mention the hon. Gentleman in a moment, so he can intervene then, but I am trying in a very short time to answer the questions that have been asked. How many extra tens of thousands of people would now be streaming to the borders? We should be proud that our forces were able to respond in time. One of the reasons—the main reason—why people have heard of forces from only the United States, France and the United Kingdom going into action is that they are among the few countries in the world with the capability to act so quickly. It is not necessarily that other countries are unwilling; their capability is not as great.
The reason why we were able to act in that way and win such support at the United Nations is that the support—the call—of the Arab League for a no-fly zone and the protection of the people of Libya was unprecedented. That has had an enormous impact. The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) gave the other side of the argument, and asked why Britain should get involved. Given the background—we are one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, one of only three of those members who believed that it was necessary to take action, and one of the few countries with the military capability to do something about the situation—if we had not got involved in the resolution and the action, then such a resolution and such action would probably not have happened at all. That is our responsibility in the United Kingdom, as well as our clear national interest. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, it is not in our national interest for a dangerous dictator with a record of violent acts beyond his own country to run a pariah state on the very edge of the European Union.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Jim Dowd Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate on the Bill, which gives us the opportunity to improve our electoral system and to eradicate some of the unfairness that has existed for a very long time. We have the opportunity to debate not with academics, not with think-tanks, not with the various organisations that presented briefings to us before the debate, but with the British people, and to assess whether they want to change the voting system.
Mr Williams
I will not give way, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me. Time is short.
When we consider the ability of the current system to reflect the views of the people who elect us, we should remember that only 33% of us were returned with more than 50% of the vote. AV has a number of strengths. Although it is not ideal—I say that as a Liberal Democrat—it is certainly preferable to first past the post as we know it. It allows voters to express genuine preferences, and it removes most of the opportunities and the need for tactical voting. Guilty as charged—in my campaigns I have used those two-horse race leaflets remorselessly. I imagine that many in the House have done that as well.
By allowing us to have a system of preferential voting, AV means that people can go into the polling station and vote positively for candidates on the basis of preference, casting votes on party lines, but also according to whether they think a candidate would be a good MP or against an MP who they think has taken constituents for granted. The right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) was right. It is not a proportional system. However, AV will usually produce a more proportional outcome. Although greater proportionality is not an argument for the adoption of AV, I would rather have that system than our present one.
It has been said in the debate that the electoral system is not a burning issue—that MPs’ postbags are not full of letters from people demanding a change. That is certainly the case. I have had one letter from a constituent of mine who wrote passionately about these issues, but the polling evidence suggests that there is a wish on the part of the electorate to explore these issues further. A ComRes poll from 2 June—significantly, after the election—found that 78% felt that the voting system should be changed to one that would produce a more proportionate outcome. That suggests that people do care about the electoral system that we use, whether or not those concerns are currently communicated to us.
Given the lack of support for the present system, it is only right that we give the people—the ultimate arbiter on the issue—the choice of an alternative. On that, from the Liberal Democrat Back Benches, I very much concur with the view that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who is not in her seat, has been advancing about the extent of that question—whether it should just be an AV question or whether there should be an opportunity for us to explore STV or any other system.
As the debate has highlighted, the most controversial aspect of the Bill is the reduction and equalisation of parliamentary seats and whether we should reduce the number of Members available to carry out the work of Parliament. We need to have that discussion. The most compelling argument that I have heard this afternoon was from the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) in his comments about the balance between members of the Government, Opposition Members on the Front Bench and our capacity as Back Benchers to hold the Executive to account. It would be fair to say that in terms of the economic arguments for deficit reduction, the Bill is more symbolic than substantive. We need to look at the requirements of the House.
There has been much talk about gerrymandering. The recent democratic audit study found that under AV the Conservative party would have lost 13 seats, the Labour party 25 and my party seven seats. The hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) made the point that Labour has unquestionably won more seats in recent years on the basis of unequal electorates. That is one of the reasons why many of us feel that that unfairness should be corrected.
In my final minute and a half, I turn to the situation in Wales and the concern expressed so eloquently, as usual, by the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) and the spectre of Wales losing a quarter of its representation in the House. There is a depth of feeling, not just among the chattering classes and around The Western Mail and other papers, about the prospect of losing in one fell swoop 25% of the Welsh voice at Westminster. I hope the Minister will acknowledge that concern.
I have always taken the view, as has my party, that the time when powers are shifted from the House to the National Assembly for Wales in Cardiff is the time when we should be articulating the case for reducing the number of Members of Parliament at Westminster. We will have our referendum. I applaud the Government for that, although the timing is not ideal. The date must be announced soon. It should have been in September; it will probably be in March.
We need to look at the arrangements for the National Assembly. As I pointed out in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), the decoupling is important. There was a fear that we could lose numbers of seats in the Assembly, which would diminish its work.
I will vote for the Bill because it reconnects this place through a referendum—