Queen’s Speech

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the only Bill emanating from my noble friend Lord Steel that has passed through this House was the one that languished in another place at the end of the previous Session of Parliament. I think it extremely likely that the Government’s proposals will include aspects of my noble friend’s Bill, and they should be discussed in that context.

I move on to the next part of this speech in support of the gracious Speech. I hope that, in a moment, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, will speak with his usual clarity. Out of nowhere, Labour now says that it will support a Lords reform package provided the Cross-Benchers are removed. I wonder what the Cross-Benchers did to deserve this. There has been no mention of it over the past 10 years, but suddenly the Cross-Benchers must be flung out of this House before the Labour Party will support the consensus. I say to the Cross-Benchers that they need to pick their friends rather more carefully.

Secondly, there is the codification of powers so that the newly elected House will have less power than the existing appointed House. This is a new sort of rich absurdity that has crept into this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, shakes his head; is he saying that he does not want codification of powers? The other day he seemed very keen on it. He will be able to reply in a moment.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

It is a great pleasure to intervene in the noble Lord’s remarkable speech this morning. The issue of powers, which has now been fully explored by the Select Committee and the alternative report, is very clear. With two elected Houses, there is a great danger of gridlock and a fight for legitimacy. That is why some codification is necessary. The issue of an elected House having fewer powers than this House is a red herring because this House does not use all its powers since it is not elected.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord has responded to my invitation to speak with clarity. Labour will support only a 100% elected House with a codification of powers that means that the elected House will have less power than the existing one. The noble Lord can quiver and quibble—he and his noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton can do all those things—but in the end they need to be clear on all this. I wonder where all this nonsense came from. Throughout the past 10 years, no Joint Committee, White Paper or any aspect of this has ever mentioned that Labour was in favour of the codification of powers.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, that was a remarkable speech by the noble Lord the Leader of the House. It was a remarkable display in which he sought to wash his hands of any responsibility for the Government’s failure to get anywhere with Lords reform.

As regards my party’s work in relation to reform of your Lordships’ House, it is widely acknowledged that the reforms which took place in 1999 improved the effectiveness of this House and that it is held in high regard because of the quality of its scrutiny and revising work. We should not underestimate the esteem in which your Lordships’ House is held. Of course, we wanted to move forward on the path of reform and we tried to seek consensus. As the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, knows, consensus on reform of your Lordships’ House is a jolly hard thing to achieve. I suspect that the noble Lord’s blustering this morning, in which he sought to frame the Labour Party for his own Government’s failures, was an attempt to disguise a fact: I wonder if they have a Bill prepared to present to Parliament at all, because on all the substantive questions put forward by the Joint Select Committee and in the alternative report we have yet to receive any answers. I hope that as we go through this debate—and when the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, winds up—we might actually get answers to some fundamental questions about the relationship between two elected Houses, which goes to the heart of our debate.

This is a curious debate to have when the country is in such a critical moment—is it not?—with the economy in recession, unemployment high and investment depressingly low. We have a Government who, having produced a tax cut for millionaires, are now watching passively as millions live in fear of unemployment and are forced to pay more in bills, fares and petrol prices. We desperately needed from the Queen’s Speech a policy for growth to create jobs, halt fare increases and tax the banks. But from this laissez-faire Government we have nothing. It is no wonder that business leaders this morning expressed their dismay at the lack of any positive budgetary proposals.

We have had the thinnest of Queen’s Speeches, which is wholly irrelevant to people’s lives—nothing on growth and nothing on jobs. Even on the biggest social issue that we face—care for older people—all we are to get is a draft Bill, with no guarantee to implement the much-needed Dilnot proposals. There is no high-speed rail Bill and no development Bill. Instead, there is a hotchpotch of a programme in which Lords reform was originally intended to be the focal point. Then we had the elections last week and the panic in the other place on the Back Benches of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. Lords reform has clearly been downgraded to reserve status.

Yet, in your Lordships’ House, we are now to enjoy two full days debating constitutional affairs. We will no doubt have a stimulating debate. I have no doubt that much that is new will be brought to that debate, but I wonder what the public will think of that sense of priorities when so much of our economy is at stake. I wonder what they will think of the Government and their endless tinkering with our constitutional arrangements. Already we have had legislation on fixed-term Parliaments and a reduction in the number of MPs. We have been gifted politicised police commissioners, with elections in November and real concern about the low turnout expected. England’s biggest cities were forced to have referendums on elected mayors and, even though the Government got a big raspberry for their pains, Ministers now want to implant mayors on regions and unwilling populations. A referendum on Scottish independence is to come. There is a huge amount of churn but very little coherence in these stand-alone measures.

I get no sense that this will enhance public confidence in our democracy. I get no sense that we are anywhere near increasing public involvement in our democratic processes. Voter turnout gets ever lower, and people’s interest in politics gets lower still. Nowhere is this piecemeal approach more neatly expressed as in the approach to House of Lords reform.

[Noble Lords]

Ah!

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

It is worth waiting for, my Lords.

Let us pick up the point made by my noble friend Lord Foulkes. We have a government commission considering the West Lothian question and the place of Scottish MPs at Westminster voting on laws that apply only to England. The current terms of reference apply only to the Commons, but surely the same issues would apply to an elected second Chamber. That is readily apparent when one considers the potential referendum on Scottish independence. Independence for Scotland would of course be a game changer. Carwyn Jones, the First Minister for Wales, has argued that if Scotland were, unfortunately, to leave the UK, and fearing English domination of what is left of the UK, there should be a new Senate in which Wales, Northern Ireland and England should enjoy equal status. You do not have to agree with the First Minister to realise that we may well be heading for a new constitutional settlement of major proportions in which the second Chamber ought to be a constituent part. I put it to the noble Lord the Leader that the place of an elected second Chamber has to be considered as part of a more fundamental question about the future of our United Kingdom and its democratic arrangements.

The alternative report recommended a constitutional convention to look at the next steps on House of Lords reform. That is an excellent suggestion but I wonder whether the remit should not be widened to look at these pressing constitutional issues that we face as a United Kingdom, and perhaps we have a little time to do so.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, talks about the Labour position on Lords reform but what is the Government’s position? Briefings emanating from Conservative parts of the Government in the past day or so have suggested that the importance of reform has been downgraded. Threats to use the Parliament Act seem to have faded a little and there is even talk of a search for consensus. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, was at it again today.

Significantly, the Prime Minister’s call to arms in the Telegraph on Monday made no mention of Lords reform. On the same day, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Osborne, said that it was absolutely not a high priority. Even yesterday, Mr Cameron seemed rather lukewarm when it came to the debates in the other place. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, rather gave the game away over the weekend. In his fascinating article in the Sunday Telegraph, he proclaimed, as usual, his belief in an elected Chamber but then predicted that the Bill might get killed off in the Commons. Indeed, it seems that that is the option of choice for most Cabinet Ministers, at least on the Conservative Benches. Yesterday the noble Lord went further in the Financial Times and said that an elected House would be more aggressive in challenging the decisions of the Commons. Of course it will, but I suspect that the noble Lord was just giving a signal to MPs of his own party in the other place and perhaps an invitation to ditch the Bill.

In contrast to the voices emanating from the Conservative Party, we have had the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Clegg, signalling his determination to press ahead with Lords reform, while his right honourable friend Mr Cable said, in a moment of supreme optimism, that we should get on with it quickly and quietly.

So what are the Government intending? What is their priority? Yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, talked of adapting the proposals in response to my noble friend’s Joint Select Committee report. The choice of wording in the Queen’s Speech, describing the Bill as being concerned with composition, is intriguing. The noble Lord said this morning that it means that the Government will bring forward proposals that have elected Members and a smaller House at their core. Therefore, I ask him or his noble friend Lord Wallace: have the Government decided to ignore the Joint Select Committee’s report and the alternative report on the inadequacies of the crucial part of the Bill—Clause 2? Has the wording in the Queen’s Speech been couched in neutral terms to allow for a discussion on reaching a consensus? That would be welcome but, as we have discovered, more meanings are involved in that than “consensus”. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, defines consensus as what the Commons thinks, although he now sees himself as being rather misunderstood. Mr Clegg thinks that consensus is what he thinks, but Mr Clegg is Deputy Prime Minister and is in a position of some influence. Why is he so reluctant to have a proper conversation about Lords reform? If consensus breaks down, look no further than Mr Clegg and the fact that when we had joint talks at the beginning of this Parliament, the moment substantive issues were raised by the Opposition those talks broke down and we were never invited to them again. Do not lecture this party on consensus. We stand always ready to talk to the Government about Lords reform. We will do everything we can to help reach consensus, but consensus is a three-way process in our current political system. So far there is no sign that the Government are prepared to listen.

I am intrigued by the wording on the Bill. I wonder whether it is cover for eventual government support for the Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Steel. Perhaps, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has a plan B for a Steel-plus Bill to deal with the size of the House. The briefings from different parts of the Government have been confusing, but I want to be clear and I accept the invitation offered by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, to say that if the Government press ahead with proposals for an elected House, it is inescapable that unless they can articulate the role, functions and powers of both Houses and their relationship with each other, the Bill will fall at the first hurdle. It would deserve to do so. That goes to the heart of the arguments put forward by the Joint Select Committee and in the alternative report.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

That is an interesting statement. Would we be right to conclude from it that, unless those conditions are satisfied, Labour will vote against the Bill?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

We will have to see what is in the Bill.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, we will of course have to see what is in the Bill. With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, we have been told by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that the Government are busily pondering how to adapt their proposals in relation to the report of the Joint Select Committee. It is not unreasonable to say that we should see what is in the Government’s Bill, particularly given the ambiguity of the wording in the Queen’s Speech.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his patience. Anyone listening to his previous statement would have concluded that it would be a condition for Labour to have those powers defined before it supported the Bill. It is nice of him to tell us that that is not a condition. Clarity on this matter really would be useful.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I am slightly confused. The noble Lord asked me whether the Labour Party would support the Bill. I said that we had better see what is in it. I can tell the noble Lord that it is an inescapable conclusion and quite clear from my reading of the workings of both the Select Committee and the alternative report that, unless we are clear about the respective powers of both elected Houses, it will be very difficult indeed to make progress.

[Lord Trimble]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way and I understand the importance of the issue to which he has just alluded. However, I suggest that another very important issue that might be a way of resolving these problems is to look more closely, which unfortunately the Joint Committee did not do, at procedures to resolve disputes.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

That is a very helpful suggestion. One way or another with two elected Houses, whatever is in the legislation on the respective powers, there will always be a need for procedures to deal with the situation when both Houses disagree with each other, particularly if both Houses claim equal legitimacy, as is likely to happen, and particularly if the upper Chamber were elected on a different system of voting where the arguments for legitimacy will be legion. The noble Lord is quite right to suggest that reconciliation machinery must be part of the package, but I do not think that that can substitute for absolute clarity about the respective powers and the role of both Houses if they were both elected.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, is widely liked and admired in your Lordships’ House. In his wind-up speech last week, he apologised for not answering all the points made, but he did not answer any of them. These points go to the heart of our debate. He was asked whether a second Chamber elected by proportional representation would not claim greater legitimacy than the Commons. He was silent. Asked about the applicability of the Parliament Acts, he was no more forthcoming. Instead, he said that the Government would set out their legal reasoning on the application of the Parliament Acts if a Bill were included in the Queen’s Speech. A Bill was included in the Speech. Will the noble Lord now tell me when the advice will be made available?

The advice must answer two questions. The first is on the use of the Parliament Acts in relation to a Lords reform Bill. The second is on their use more generally in application to an elected second Chamber. I remind the Minister that both my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said that the drafters of the 1911 Parliament Act did not intend its provisions to apply in the event of a second Chamber being constituted on a popular basis.

On the question of cost, the Minister said that no estimate could be given because a final decision had yet to be made on the number of Members. However, there is nothing to stop the Government coming up with a series of different options based on different sizes.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, suggested that the primacy of the Commons was a wonderful obstacle against which one kicked. Of course it is, but primacy is at the heart of our constitutional arrangements. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, talked about involving conventions and of the House being more assertive, which I fully acknowledge; it is one reason why many people think that the House of Lords has become a more effective Chamber in the past 10 or 12 years. However, on the balance of power, the arguments between two elected Houses will be much greater than those caused by a non-elected House exercising a small degree of assertiveness.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

Is it still the official position of the Labour Party that it favours a 100%-elected House? If so, how will it seek to solve some of the problems that the noble Lord mentioned?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, we are in favour of a 100%-elected House. We debated hybridity last week. Our view on a mostly elected Chamber is that the 20% non-elected element would not feel confident about making a positive contribution in a House that would be much more political. One has only to think of what happened with hereditary Peers. I well remember, when my party was in government, that when we lost votes we counted up the votes of hereditary Peers, and if it turned out that we had lost because of their votes we made a great play of it. The same thing would happen with Cross-Benchers. They would be in an impossible position because it would be argued that because of non-elected Cross-Benchers the will of the elected majority in the second Chamber had been thwarted. In a non-elected House, I pay tribute to the great contribution of Cross-Benchers. However, a hybrid 80%-elected House would not work.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I have listened to the noble Lord’s very important and interesting speech. Does it follow from his argument that the Labour Party’s position will be that because of the West Lothian question and the examination of it, and because of the Scottish referendum, it would be more sensible to postpone consideration of parliamentary reform so that options such as a Senate and indirect elections from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England should be contemplated—or is that simply a debating point?

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, it is an interesting idea. If we face huge constitutional change in the affairs of the United Kingdom because of the referendum and the potential of Scotland leaving the United Kingdom, one should at least put on the table the fact that there might need to be some kind of constitutional convention to consider what impact that would have on Westminster and certainly on the second Chamber. In the mean time, if a Bill is brought forward we will of course give it every consideration. None the less, it will have to deal with the issues of powers and relationships—we believe that it should be 100% elected—and one cannot duck the fundamental positions that my party has adopted.

[Lord Rooker]

Perhaps I may give my noble friend another example. We did not develop this matter in the Joint Committee, but it was raised. If we were to have a second elected House—80% or 100%, it does not matter—it would leave the United Kingdom as the only country in the world with two elected Houses and no written constitution. If you looked at the matrix of those with unicamerals and those without written constitutions, and then look at those with elected second Chambers, you would see that we would be unique. In other words, there is nowhere else we can go to learn about how you work with two elected Chambers without a written constitution for settling disputes. That is a barmy position in which to put ourselves.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I agree with the noble Lord. He is absolutely right. Of course, this is not new. One has only to go back to the preamble of the 1911 Act because the drafters of that Act knew that too. That is why they said that if a Chamber were constituted on a popular basis—and noble Lords on the Lib Dem Benches frequently remind us of the distance between 1911 and 2012—new proposals would be needed for limiting and defining the powers of the new second Chamber. The position in 1911 was exactly the same as the one pointed out by my noble friend today.

We are on a truly uncertain journey. Last week, in a notable intervention, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, asked how the public would feel about a constitutional change, which is really a deal got up by the two political parties in the coalition, whereby the Conservatives get extra Members in the Commons and in return the Lib Dems get control of the balance of power in the House of Lords. I wonder how the public would feel—as has been briefed in the past few days by a number of people close to the Conservative Party—if, in order to save the immediate future of the coalition, another deal might be got up in which the Conservatives do not get the extra seats after all and in return the Lib Dems drop their passion for Lords reform. What would the public think if that were to happen?

Indeed, how do the public feel about Lords reform? As a Birmingham resident, last week I took part in a ballot to decide whether we were to have an elected mayor, and I wonder why the people of Birmingham are not to be given a say on whether we should have an elected second Chamber. There is only one answer: Mr Clegg is frightened of a referendum and what the public would say.

The Government owe it to the nation to think very hard about the substantive issues that are likely to be raised in our debates on the Bill. I hope the Government will listen carefully to the words of the Joint Select Committee and the alternative group. I also hope that the Government will in the end realise that they owe it to the British people to decide and will agree that, whatever proposals come forward, there ought to be a referendum of the people.

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[Lord Laming]

My Lords, it is entirely appropriate that the debate on the humble Address should begin on constitutional affairs. I will try to step aside from the party political flavour that has just occasionally crept into the earlier contributions. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will excuse me if I make just one comment on something he said—I hope that I heard him right and apologise if I got it wrong. He said that to build a consensus on the future of this House, it is necessary to seek agreement with the three political parties. Well, there are some others of us in this House. I hope that the noble Lord will feel that those of us who do not belong to a political party might have a contribution to make on matters of this kind.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am delighted to respond. The noble Lord will recall that in the cross-party talks which my own Government instituted, we had strong representation from the Cross Benches and the Bishops’ Benches. However, it is an inescapable fact that, in the wider scheme of things, if consensus is to be reached, we need the Deputy Prime Minister first of all to recognise that there has to be discussion on issues other than composition and membership. Essentially, that was the point that I was trying to make.

[Lord Laming]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord. Therefore, before we go, perhaps we may just make a contribution to this debate.

Constitutional affairs might seem dry to some people but, as has already been demonstrated across the House, they are immensely important to the well-being of our society. During the past decade, which is what I have been particularly interested in, there have been many changes. Even during the previous Session of Parliament legislation was passed that might have a marked effect on our arrangements for the governance of the United Kingdom. Some commentators seem to believe that for more than 1,000 years there has been little change, especially in your Lordships' House. That is manifestly not so. Every Member of this House will have direct experience of substantial changes in both local and central government. Even last week some of these changes were experienced for the first time, in the form of referendums for mayors, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, mentioned.

Time does not allow for—nor does there need to be—a rehearsal of the many changes that Parliament has enacted, both centrally and locally. However, whatever view we take of the merits of those changes, we can at least agree that the catalogue of change has been substantial. Of course, that is the way it should be. If our legislative institutions are to keep pace with the changes in society and remain relevant to the needs and aspirations of our fellow citizens—and, indeed, if they are to understand the concerns that have just been referred to—then of course change must be a constant in all our arrangements for government.

I recognise that there are many in this House who are better qualified than I to speak on these matters, so I will be brief. I shall therefore just pose three questions for consideration, particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. First, does he agree that during the Session that finished only last week, the Bills that came to this House, having previously completed every stage of consideration in the other place, were without exception, once again, greatly improved during their passage through this House? Thanks to the conscientiousness, skill and hard work of Peers across the whole of the House, the quality of scrutiny resulted not only in many sound amendments being made to those Bills but in the Government, having listened to your Lordships, very wisely bringing forward many amendments to their own legislation.

I hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, responds to this debate, he will begin by agreeing that this House conscientiously fulfils its responsibility to scrutinise and improve legislation. It is dangerous to raise that point, as there will be those who think that it is just another piece of self-congratulation; but I do not raise it in that spirit, nor do I do so with any notion of complacency. On the contrary, I have in mind something that I regard as much more important: the fact that many of us have a real concern about the effectiveness of the other place in scrutinising legislation and holding the Executive to account. Our society depends on a very strong House of Commons that fulfils its unique role in holding the Executive to account. I hope that when the noble Lord responds he will recognise that it behoves us all to ensure that Parliament is as strong as possible, and that our endeavours should be directed to the whole of Parliament and its standing in the community. It is vital to the well-being of our society that Parliament as a whole commands the confidence of our fellow citizens.

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[Lord Wakeham]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure for me to follow the Convenor of the Cross Benches. I have always had great respect for Convenors of the Cross Benches. I remember that when I arrived in the House as Leader the Convenor of the Cross Benches was Lady Hylton-Foster. I consulted her on the appointment of someone to an important position and said that there was a question as to whether they might be a little too old because they were 75. She looked at me as if I was absolutely out of this world. She told me how old she was and that was the end of the discussion. I have always treated Convenors of the Cross Benches with considerable respect.

Your Lordships will not be surprised to hear that I want to say a few words about Lords reform. As has been mentioned by both Front-Bench speakers, some 10 years ago I was the chairman of the royal commission which produced a report on Lords reform. Everyone will probably have forgotten what we said, but it was that the Lords should continue to be mostly appointed but that there should be a significant proportion of elected Members, particularly because we thought that the regions and nations of the United Kingdom were not well represented there and that that would be a way to increase the spread of membership. We recommended what is now, in common parlance, the 15-year non-renewable term.

I have to say that our report got an extremely bad press. A number of people said that it was an interesting report, well argued and everything else, but that it had come to the wrong conclusions. We did not mind that it got a bad press, because we expected that, although it was slightly embarrassing to me because it was at the same time as my youngest son was taking his A-levels and he had to write an essay on an article by a Guardian reporter which referred to the timid and cautious report of Lord Wakeham. When I saw the paper afterwards, I said, “I hope you told him that it was an extremely bold report”, to which he said, “No, Dad, I said that it was timid. I want to pass the exam”. That was the sensible thing to do.

The one bright spark at that time was the Labour Party, because it put in its manifesto that it had accepted the Wakeham report and would implement it. It was slightly embarrassing for me to have my name in a Labour Party manifesto, but it was encouraging. When the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, tells us about the need for a 100% elected House, I can remember a time when that was not quite the Labour Party’s position. That is not my recollection.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for allowing me to acknowledge the excellence of his royal commission report. He will remember that we tried, and produced a White Paper, but, alas, we did not get anywhere with it.

[Lord Wakeham]

It is another story as to why the noble Lord did not get anywhere with it. I will not bore the House with it now, but he and I know many of those reasons.

The main lesson of my report has not been learnt even to this day. Our report recommended a compromise, and that is why people did not like it. Everybody compared their ideal solution with our compromise, and our compromise looked weak and wishy-washy compared with what they wanted. We talked about a compromise; in the modern jargon, that is a consensus, but it is the same thing. We did not reach our consensus easily, I can tell you. One of my noble friends who was on the commission told me privately when we started, “I have already been party to a published document that said that there had to be an elected element in any reform of the House of Lords”. One very distinguished Labour Member of Parliament—a good many noble Lords will guess who I mean, but I shall not mention his name—came to me to say, “If the commission so much as discusses elected Members, I will not attend any more of the meetings”. I persuaded them both to stay. They both signed the report, and we got consensus. It is therefore possible for people of goodwill to get consensus.

What do I mean by consensus? I mean that all our preconceived positions, both of and within the parties, have somehow to be melded together in a form of compromise for a way forward. As my noble friend the Leader of the House has acknowledged, as a result of the Joint Committee report the Government have to think again about a number of the things which they are doing. If I may say so to the Labour Party, it, too, has to think again about the idea that it can have a 100% elected membership. It is quite simply unrealistic. A consensus outcome will not produce that. We have in Parliament a very big responsibility to get this right and to get consensus because, as people have frequently said, outside this Chamber there is no great interest in what goes on in here. They are not interested in what we do and for us therefore to try to put through a solution that was highly controversial within the House would be a grave dereliction of our total responsibilities as a Parliament. Consensus is therefore what we have to achieve.

Let me say three things about the position as I see it. First, the Government are right to try to see whether they can find a consensus. This issue has been hanging about long enough, and if it is possible to find consensus, we ought to move forward. Secondly, in my view a consensus will involve a partly elected and a partly appointed House. There will be some very tricky negotiations as to how they are going to achieve that. An issue which is now highly relevant, but was not realised 10 years ago, is the effect that that will have on the House of Commons. It has to be thought about very carefully. Thirdly, and of this I am quite sure, if the House of Commons reaches a consensus and sends us a Bill that reflects that consensus, the responsibilities of this House are clear. We should treat the Bill like any other coming before the House. We should give it a Second Reading, try to improve it in Committee and give it proper scrutiny in the normal way. This applies, I am afraid, particularly to noble Lords who do not like things going on as they are. All of us have a responsibility to act in accordance with our precedents.

Finally, I have been in this House for 18 years and was also in the House of Commons for 18 years. I had the honour of being Leader of each House. There are still Members of this House in all parties and of none who are of great distinction, but the place has changed in the 18 years I have been here—and not for the better. When I first came here, I remember Lord Callaghan and Lord Whitelaw getting up time and time again when their Governments were in difficulties to say, “I completely accept the right of your Lordships to pass this amendment, but is it wise?”. They were really saying that there is no point in a revising House passing series after series of amendments which will just be reversed when they get to the House of Commons. A revising House should be looking at the legislation that has come forward and seeking to improve it, particularly where the House of Commons is singing on an uncertain note. That is the moment to make amendments towards effective legislation, rather than sending back hundreds of amendments. I hope that people will not be offended if I suggest that we use with some humility the position that we are somehow superior in public perceptions and in our judgment of the public good. The House of Commons is the elected House, its Members accountable to their electorates, and we should not live in a world of wishful thinking, make-believe or has-beens.

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[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, I welcome the fact that we are having a discussion at the beginning of the Queen’s Speech debate on constitutional reform. I am, however, immensely surprised by the prioritisation in this galère of measures of the reform of the House of Lords. I accept that reform sometimes takes a long time. Indeed, what has been notified to us about the possibilities of changing the succession to the throne is very delayed; it has been more than 300 years since the Act of Settlement. I hope that that part of the Government’s programme will be concluded with all appropriate celerity.

It is also right to recognise the need for change when it arises in a conspicuous fashion. Perhaps the case of electoral fraud, of which the noble Lord, Lord Wills, spoke, is such an example. I, too, have some concerns about non-registration, which my noble friend Lord Tyler has already mentioned. It is important that people are notified of their opportunities and responsibilities, and that should be part of the legislation.

At this time, questions have to be raised about the traditional methods of constitutional reform in this country. Incremental change has a pretty good name among constitutional lawyers, and I understand why: it enables the elected Parliament and legislature to give detailed consideration to what is proposed. However, it has to be said that, at this time, when the future of the United Kingdom is under attack, to have an incremental response to the possibility of the nations of this country falling apart is not wise or sufficient to deal with the constitutional crisis in which we are placed. We have to consider as the top priority whether or not Scotland will remain part of the United Kingdom and the other constitutional changes that might be necessary in either circumstance. It is not only Scotland that would be affected by independence being sought and won but also Northern Ireland, Wales and England.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

Does the noble Lord think that if Scotland rejected independence but some form of what has come to be known as devo-plus was offered, the same circumstances would arise?

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[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, the Queen’s Speech contains a number of important constitutional matters. The matter of the royal succession is important and requires to be carefully negotiated with all members of the Commonwealth so that the unity of the Commonwealth, which has been so conspicuous under Her Majesty’s reign, may continue. There are also the proposals on electoral registration. I am disturbed by any suggestion that that should be motivated otherwise than by trying to achieve the fullest possible registration of voters in a proper way. I hope that that would be the motivation of any reform that is put forward. We are faced also with a major constitutional matter in relation to the independence of Scotland and possibly of other parts of the United Kingdom if that should occur. We need to consider those matters with great care.

However, I intend to restrict my remarks specifically to the House of Lords proposals and the proposal to deal with its composition. When William Hague was leader of the Conservative Party, he invited my noble friend Lord Hurd of Westwell and me to consider options for reform of the House of Lords with a view to achieving some kind of consensus. That is now rather a long time ago. I invited, as I was empowered to do, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and the late Lord Russell to join us, but neither felt able to do so, with Lord Russell explaining that the leadership of his party at the time felt that it might not be desirable. I can well understand those responses because we had been appointed by the leader of the Conservative Party, which had recently suffered a rather severe defeat in the general election. But my noble friend and myself, with the help of Douglas Slater, a clerk here with great experience, considered the various options. The report has been published for a long time and was available to the Government and the Joint Committee, and was no doubt carefully considered.

My central point relates to the relationship between the two Houses. I have no doubt whatever that the primacy of the House of Commons, recognised in taxation particularly since 1671 or so, is founded on the fact that the House of Commons has over the years been elected—no doubt with a rather restricted electorate to start with, but gradually evolving into a general electorate over the whole country. That has given the House of Commons the responsibility, in accordance with the maxim that there can be no taxation without representation, for full control of taxation matters.

Since 1911 and 1949, the House of Commons has also achieved a primary position on general legislation. The true position now is that the elected House can prevent anything going on the statute book with which it does not agree and, after a reasonably short delay, can put on the statute book anything that it steadfastly believes should be there. Sometimes, as we know, as a result of consultations and consideration in this House, it wisely decides not to proceed further, as happened in relation to the process whereby people were detained without any particular procedure being followed. That process was eventually abandoned. However, generally speaking, the House of Commons—the elected House—gets its own way on posited legislation and prevents the enactment of any measure that it does not want. Therefore, I do not see that the undeniable governance difficulties in our country have anything to do with the democratic deficit, as it is sometimes called, whereby ordinary people cannot exert influence through their representatives on the laws which govern them.

The proposal for a fully elected second Chamber requires that the second Chamber, being fully elected, should have democratic accountability and democratic legitimacy. Therefore, I do not see why it should not be given the same authority as the other House, which is directly elected. That seems to me a fundamental point, which is well made by the Joint Committee. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, who is now in his place, that I very much appreciate the clarity of the Joint Committee’s report, which constitutes an important development. The same sentiments apply to the alternative report, which was compiled by members of the same committee. It is not possible to print it as a government paper because of the desire for unanimity by the House of Lords, if possible. However, it was printed using government resources and is available in the Library. It seems somewhat unnecessary to make a distinction in this regard. Indeed, my remarks about the clarity and utility of the main report apply also to the alternative report. We are all extremely grateful to the members of the committee for giving a great deal of their time, effort and expertise to frame the report.

The report records the opinion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that the Parliament Acts would not affect the situation if the House of Lords—the second Chamber—became a fully elected Chamber. I firmly agree with that opinion as you have only to read the preamble to the 1911 Act to appreciate that the House of Lords did not operate on a popular basis at that time. I have no doubt that if it were fully elected it would operate on a popular basis, and we would have two fully elected Houses with full democratic mandates, given that we have universal suffrage throughout the nation. The Joint Committee recommended that if this were to happen it would be right to introduce legislation to distinguish clearly between the powers of the two Houses. I entirely agree with that but legislation needs to be based on reason. I see no reason for legislating to restrict the democratic authority of the second House, if it has a full democratic mandate, but to leave untouched the democratic authority of the first House.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord for giving way. If you accept the primacy of the Commons as the first base of the constitutional arrangement, it would still be possible to have two elected Houses provided you were able to set out their respective powers. However, inevitably, despite the universal mandate that would arise from the fact that people can vote for the second Chamber, it would none the less still be secondary to the primary Chamber, if it were so ordained through legislation.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

I am saying that the legislation needs to have a reason behind it. It is all very well to legislate, and I know that from time to time we see legislation which some of us think does not have much reason behind it, but on the whole we regard it as rather important that legislation which reaches our statute book should be grounded in reason. If the democratic mandate is the same for both Houses, it is difficult to see a reason for distinguishing between their democratic authority.