House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Lord Desai Excerpts

Friday 3rd December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, here we go again with the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and his Bill. I am reminded of the famous tenor who sang at La Scala. He received a thundering encore for his aria, and then another, and then another. Finally he said, “Signori, signore, I cannot go on. I am exhausted”. Someone from high above said, “You will sing until you get it right”. That may be the message to the noble Lord, Lord Steel. My views on House of Lords reform are well known and I shall not repeat them in full. I believe in a wholly elected Chamber because, like most other noble Lords, I believe in the primacy of the House of Commons. If the House of Commons has decided that it wants a substantially elected Chamber, so be it.

As my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe said, while I do not doubt the sufficiency of the Steel Bill, I am not persuaded of its necessity. I have lost faith in the coalition’s ability and good will on reform of the House of Lords. It may be a strange thing to say but the coalition has dilly-dallied and I am not sure that its Bill will appear by February or March. As my noble friend Lord Wills said, the timetable for this is increasingly beginning to look impossible. I have always believed—and have said so before in your Lordships’ House—that no Bill for the reform of the House can pass unless the Government are willing to use the Parliament Act 1949. It will take two rounds. It is the declared intention of the Liberal Democrat members of the Cabinet not to vote for a Bill that they have themselves put forward in another place, so who knows? Will the Lib Dems vote for the House of Lords Reform Bill? If they do, will the Conservatives vote with them or will they say, “You voted against higher education fees so we are going out this way”. It is chaotic. We will all spend much good time—I would love to speak yet again—on the House of Lords Reform Bill but I do not believe that the coalition is serious. After wasting two years on this, we will have to fall back on this substitute, as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, said in his excellent maiden speech. That is why I believe we should take this Bill seriously, as I do.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, which is itself an uncommon event, in his rejection of Part 2 of the Bill. I agree with him that you cannot achieve substantial constitutional reform through a Private Member’s Bill. I also agree that a pact was made with the hereditary Peers to accept the retention of 92 of their number on the condition that they would all go when the full reform was completed. It was not a matter of by-elections; they would all go. However, under Part 2 of the Steel Bill, they will stay until the Grim Reaper does his job. I prefer to wait and see them all go together, perhaps with a silver or golden handshake.

As my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport, has said, Clause 8 is very interesting. We ought to pay attention to it as it says something about the total size of the House. I am impressed that the Deputy Prime Minister so hates the House of Lords that he has decided to add more and more people to it. I do not know whether this is how he takes revenge on his friends, but he is clearly adding lots of Liberal Democrats to the House, so he must hate it very much indeed. Therefore, I wish him luck if it is abolished. I am sure that there is a misprint in Clause 8(7)—I say that as I am trying to prove that I have read the Bill diligently—and that it should refer to “subsection (2)(c)” rather than to “subsection (2)(5)”. That is my signal contribution. That is what happens when you are an academic; the first thing you do to prove that you have read essays is to find all the typos in them.

I am somewhat against coercive retirement. I am glad that Clause 12(2) enables Peers to explain their absence from the House. It may be due to illness, for example. As Clause 12(1) does not say something like, “fails to attend without reasonable cause”, Clause 12(2) is essential as it would allow Peers to explain that there are legitimate reasons for their absence. Clause 13 is too harsh. Peers who have taken voluntary permanent leave of absence or who are ejected, as it were, for one reason or another, should be allowed to retain club rights. That could act as an incentive to take voluntary permanent leave of absence.

The noble Lord, Lord Steel, has introduced the Bill for the fourth time and my calculations show that at least two more years will elapse before we deal with it seriously. However, I wish him God speed with it. Perhaps, before I reach the age of 75 in five years’ time, the Steel Bill will be passed.