Wednesday 7 February 2007
Oral Statement - Leader of the House of Commons
The House of Lords: Reform: (Cm 7072)
Mr Speaker, with permission, I should like to make a statement on reform of the House of Lords. Accompanying this statement is a detailed White Paper, The House of Lords: Reform (CM 7072), available in the Vote Office.
The White Paper has been informed by the excellent report of the Joint Committee on Conventions, which the other place and this House debated and approved on 16 and 17 January respectively.
The White Paper's publication follows nine months intensive discussion within Government, and with the other parties. I have chaired cross party talks - the first such Government led talks to be held for nearly forty years.
The cross party group has met eight times since June. And I am very grateful to those on the group for their work and constructive approach to this complex issue.
Mr Speaker, the starting point for the cross party talks was that each of the three main parties was committed by its 2005 manifesto to seeking reform of the Lords. My party - as well as pledging, without qualification, to remove 'the remaining hereditary peers' - said that a 'reformed upper chamber must be effective, legitimate and more representative without challenging the primacy of the House of Commons'. The Conservatives promised 'to seek a cross-party consensus for a substantially elected House of Lords' and the Liberal Democrats to 'replace' the Lords with a 'predominantly elected second chamber'.
In the cross party talks, a significant degree of consensus has been found on several - but not all - the important issues. Where the Government does not agree with the Opposition or the Liberal Democrats it has done its best in the White Paper accurately to reflect the areas of disagreement.
All members of the group were of one mind on the fundamental primacy of the Commons - and that the House of Lords should be a complement to the Commons, and not a rival to it.
There was agreement:
- that a reformed House should be partly appointed, partly elected - hybrid - consisting of at least 20% non party-political members, and that it was essential that no political party should have a majority of the whole House;
- that membership of the reformed House should reflect the diversity of the United Kingdom and its people, and the range of religious opinion in the country;
- that the special arrangements for membership of the House of a limited number of hereditary peers should come to an end.
The group decided that introducing reform over a long transitional period would be essential.
But with opinion divided in all three parties, and each committed to a free vote, we did not come to a view on the proportion of elected and appointed members, nor on the precise method and timing of any elections - although all parties agreed that any elected element should be by a form of direct election.
Mr Speaker, it is palpable that Lords reform has been unfinished business for 100 years. This is not a criticism of the work of the members of the other place, many of whom give great service and the nation the benefit of their expertise and experience. But it is our judgement - shared by the other parties as their manifestos show - that the status quo is no longer an option.
But moving forward is difficult. Great passions on this issue are aroused in both Houses and in all parties.
Given this, the White Paper is self-evidently and unapologetically a compromise - both in terms of destination and transition. I believe that the choice we have is either making progress on a scale and to a timescale of the kind indicated in the White Paper, or seeing the whole exercise aborted altogether, in which case there would be no further progress on this for a generation.
Time and time again, fundamental reform of the House of Lords has failed because for some, the best has become the enemy of the good. Deadlock this time round would be easy to achieve; the prize of progress means moving forward gradually and by consensus.
The basis for a consensus on a hybrid House already exists. All recent enquiries into the future of the Lords - including the Royal Commission, chaired by the noble Lord Wakeham, the Public Administration Select Committee chaired by my HF the member for Cannock Chase, and the cross party 'Breaking the Deadlock' group - came to this conclusion.
Mr Speaker, the Government has used the White Paper to illustrate how a hybrid House might work - using a model where 50 percent of the House is elected, and 50 percent is appointed - 30% from the political parties and 20% with no party political affiliation.
This model, in my view, provides the most effective balance between election and appointment in a reformed House. There are a myriad of other views, and the free vote - including by Ministers - will enable them properly to be expressed.
The White Paper proposes that the size of the House should be reduced to 540 members. Elections would be held at the same time as elections to the European Parliament, and would use the same constituencies - but on a different electoral system - that of the partially open list. One third would be elected at each election.
The Church of England Bishops would continue to be represented.
Should Parliament opt for a system in which appointments to the second chamber continue, all appointments would be made by a new Statutory Appointments Commission, assessing both suitability, as well as propriety. The Commission would be independent and report directly to Parliament. The right of the Prime Minister of the day to make appointments would end.
The proposals in the White Paper would also break the link between the peerage and seats in Parliament. Members - including current members - would be able to resign their seat. Disqualification provisions for any member of the Lords convicted of an offence would be brought into line with those in the Commons. All members would be able to vote in General Elections.
The position of peers currently sitting in the House has been an important consideration. We propose that no existing life peer will be forced to leave.
Mr Speaker, let me now turn to the procedure the Government proposes for the free vote in this House.
The whole House will recall that when the free votes took place four years ago, there were eight options before it: five of them - from abolition, 100% appointed to 100% elected - were put to divisions. Every single option was voted down.
Our system of voting in this House is well tried, and works to give a clear cut decision on any straight 'yes/ no' choice. It is plainly essential when it comes to determining the content of law. But this system is no good for indicating preferences: in mathematical terms a binary system is not designed to elicit preferences and cannot do this job properly.
The system the Government is proposing is specifically designed to enable those voting in this House to come to a decision on this issue. Members will be invited to rank preferences in numerical order and the successful preference will be the one gaining at least half of all votes, after the successive elimination of the least successful choices.
Mr Speaker, the Government proposes that there should be three substantive votes - the first two in the normal way - on whether there should be a second chamber at all; and then on whether there should be any further reform. If both of these are in the affirmative, the House would then move to an Alternative Vote on preferences.
The detailed arrangements for the alternative vote ballot itself would be under the direction of you, Mr Speaker.
It is for the other place to decide what procedure it adopts.
Although the alternative vote procedure is an unusual method of voting, a broadly similar approach has nevertheless been agreed for choosing the Speaker of each House.
Mr Speaker, I am aware that the doctrine of the Dangerous Precedent says that nothing should ever be done for the first time. But every one of the traditions which we cherish in this House was once an innovation.
To allow this House proper time to consider this procedure, a resolution to give it effect will be put to the House a week before the substantive debate on composition. It is intended that the debate on composition itself will last for two days.
Mr Speaker, I believe that, following the cross party talks and the report of the Joint Committee on Conventions, this White Paper represents the best opportunity to make progress that we have had for many decades.
There are many reasons why we should move ahead with reform of the House of Lords: to increase its effectiveness; to make it more representative of the United Kingdom; to increase its legitimacy.
But there is a wider issue as well, and that is to seek - through this process - to strengthen Parliament by enhancing the way in which the Lords complements the work of the primary chamber. By doing this, our democracy as a whole would be better served.
I commend the White Paper to the House.