House of Lords Reform (Hansard, 25 June 1998)

§ The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Richard)
My Lords, yes, on the basis of our manifesto.

§ Lord Denham
My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that he would be far more likely to be able to reach the best agreement among all parties in both Houses over a single package than by first removing the hereditary element and only then starting to argue about what to put in its place?

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, the Labour Party manifesto was perfectly clear on the issue. I hope that the noble Lord will agree with me at least on that. We said that we would reform your Lordships' House in two stages. The first stage would be a discrete stage standing on its own, which would be the abolition of the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote. As to whether a different posture on the part of Her Majesty's Government would make an agreement more or less possible, that must be a matter of judgment.

§ Lord Chalfont
My Lords, if, as it seems, the Lord Privy Seal is underlining the Government's total commitment to a two-stage process, can he say when they will announce their intention as regards the second stage? Will it be before the first stage legislation is introduced, at the same time or somewhere in the distant future?

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, if matters proceed in the way set out in the Labour Party manifesto there will be the first stage, which is the abolition of the right of hereditary Peers in this House to sit and vote. There will then be a period, as I have described in the past, of full-scale public consultation. The manifesto mentions 345 that taking place by means of a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament. Another possibility might be a Royal Commission. In the course of that process Her Majesty's Government will have to make their views clear.

The Earl of Halsbury
My Lords, is the manifesto a sacred cow? No item in the manifesto is loaded with respect to who voted for it.

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, of course the manifesto is not a sacred cow. If it had been a sacred cow I would not have been talking to the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, to see whether it was possible to reach agreement on a single stage. Just as it is not a sacred cow, it is impossible, with great respect, for noble Lords in this House to ignore the fact that that was the policy which we put before the electorate upon which we were overwhelmingly elected.

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, if it is not a sacred cow, is it a Papal bull?

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, with respect, it is neither. It is a strong piece of evidence as to the views of the British electorate on the reform of your Lordships' House.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, did the Leader of the House discover what was the opinion of the Opposition on the two proposals that he mentioned, the Royal Commission and the Joint Committee of both Houses?

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, I am not sure that I understood the noble Lord's question. Is he asking whether I know what the Opposition's view is?

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, quite right.

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, the noble Lord must ask the Opposition.

Viscount Cranborne
My Lords, perhaps I can help the noble Lord the Leader of the House in forming the judgment to which he referred in answer to my noble friend Lord Denham. I suggest that the answer might be yes. Can he give a guarantee that after the Government have introduced the stage 1 Bill, which he has promised, they will proceed with all due expedition to stage 2, bearing in mind that the last time a rapid stage 2 was promised was in 1911 and we are still waiting?

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, if we have been waiting since 1911 that underlines my view that this is unfinished business since 1911. We committed ourselves in the manifesto—I do not want to use it as a sacred text—to the first stage being precisely that; namely, the first stage.

§ Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank
My Lords, understandably, such exchanges are becoming very repetitive at Question Time because there is concern in all parts of the House about where the future lies. 346 Can the noble Lord the Leader of the House indicate when the debate that he has promised will take place? If we knew that it would be before the Summer Recess a good deal of your Lordships' time could be saved.

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, the date of the debate is a matter for discussion between the usual channels. I can tell the noble Lord that those discussions are taking place. What I cannot do today is give him a definite date upon which the debate will take place. But he is right; we have promised a debate and it will take place.

§ Viscount Mountgarret
My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that there is little or no demand by the general public to do away with the hereditary peerage in toto? If that is so, why the headlong rush? Does he agree that it might be better to look at the possibility of making this House totally independent in mind and view by abolishing the whipping system so that we can all speak our own minds, give an independent view and vote for or against the argument on merit rather than by whipping?

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, I note the joy with which the noble Lord enjoys the freedom that he now possesses, having given up the Whip on the Conservative Benches and moved to the Cross-Benches.
The noble Lord speaks of a headlong rush. It has been 87 years! That can hardly be a rush, even at the snail's pace which constitutional reform usually takes in the United Kingdom. I cannot help but remind the House that on at least three occasions during those 87 years this House accepted that the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote should no longer persist. That was in 1917, in 1948 and in 1968, when, if my memory serves me correctly, the majority in this House in favour of a package which deprived hereditary Peers of the right to sit and vote was five to one. In those circumstances, for us to be accused of indecent haste in respect of what this House has accepted three times in those 87 years seems to me to be pushing it a bit!

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords—

§ Lord Cockfield
My Lords—

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, in my other capacity I should say that we are entitled to one question from this side.

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords, is my noble friend aware—I am sure he is—that parliamentary government is, whether we like it or not, an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary process? Is it not also the case, as the Fabians pointed out some time ago, that evolution is inevitably gradual?

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, I am in favour of a long period of gestation. However, I believe that that period has been very long and it is time that the birth took place.

§ Lord Cockfield
My Lords, I am sorry to have interrupted earlier. I had not realised that the noble Lord's 347 own supporters were prepared to support him. Will the noble Lord the Leader of the House take time out to read Standing Order No. 20? It needs to be read in the original because it is not correctly transposed into the Companion. But if that standing order were correctly and rigorously enforced, it would largely solve the problem which worries the noble Lord and the Government and would thereby give them sufficient time to make up their minds as to what to do about the problem as a whole.

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, for the benefit of the House, and indeed for my own benefit, as perhaps my bedside reading is not the same as that of the noble Lord, Standing Order No. 20 deals with leave of absence from the House by Peers. I do not believe that there could be compulsory leave of absence and, as far as I know, that has not been proposed.

§ Lord Denham
My Lords, I was rather thrown by the noble Lord's original Answer. My question was: ''To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they had been prepared to discuss without preconditions fully comprehensive single stage Lords reform". The answer that I received was yes. Since then, the noble Lord the Leader of the House has been suggesting that he is going to go ahead with his plan to take away the hereditary principle first before going on with the second stage. That is neither comprehensive nor a single stage. I ask him to consider whether it would not be better to discuss first whether there is any way to achieve universal agreement before possibly punishing this House for what he no doubt considers to be its intransigence. Is he or is he not prepared to discuss single stage reform?

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, with great respect, I am not saying that this House is intransigent. Of course I am not.

Noble Lords
Answer the question!

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, I shall answer the question but I shall answer it in my own way and not perhaps in the way that the Opposition would like me to. I cannot forbear from making the point that the party opposite was in government for no fewer than 18 years and that in those 18 years we heard nothing whatever from it about reform of your Lordships' House.
My party has been committed to that reform for a very long time. We included the matter very clearly in the manifesto and we were elected on it. Therefore, we are committed to that course of action. The noble Lord asked me about the reform being undertaken in a single stage rather than in two stages. I entered into discussions—somewhat desultory discussions, if I may say so—with the noble Viscount and members of the Opposition to see whether there would be sufficient support for an agreed reform which could take place in a single stage. Unfortunately, there was no such agreement.

§ Earl Russell
My Lords, is the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal aware that this House contains many hereditary Peers who will make no effort to defend their continued membership of this House but nevertheless feel a 348 legitimate curiosity about the nature and quality of their successors? Does he agree that he might have a quieter life if he were to do a little more to satisfy that curiosity?

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, anybody who takes on the leadership of your Lordships' House when there is a Labour Government cannot, by definition, expect a quiet life. There are ways in which my life could be made quieter, less frenetic and less wearing. The suggestion that the noble Earl has made is obviously one of those that I shall consider for my future better health.