Lords Sitting of 25 November 1998

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Bristol): The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Business
Lord Carter: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Donoughue will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on the Agriculture Council.

Social Security Contributions (Transfer of Functions, etc.) Bill [H.L.]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Baroness Hollis of Heigham): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to transfer from the Secretary of State to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue or the Treasury certain functions relating to national insurance contributions, the National Insurance Fund, statutory sick pay, statutory maternity pay or pension schemes and certain associated functions relating to benefits; to make further provision, in connection with the functions transferred, as to the powers of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, the making of decisions and appeals; to provide that rebates payable in respect of members of money purchase contracted-out pension schemes are to be payable out of the National Insurance Fund; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.— (Baroness Hollis of Heigham.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill [H.L.]
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision about the Commonwealth Development Corporation. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord McIntosh of Haringey.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech
Debate resumed on the Motion moved yesterday by Lord Clinton-Davis—namely, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:
"Most gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament".
2.32 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Jay of Paddington): My Lords, this afternoon we continue our extended debate on the gracious Speech. I am sure it will produce a thorough discussion of all the measures the Government have proposed. I am also sure that—as always in an important debate in your Lordships' House—there will be many authoritative and informed speakers. No doubt we will hear contributions from those with vast, personal experience of the subjects to be considered. We will also hear a number of distinguished maiden speakers. Today I look forward to hearing the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Butler of Brockwell and Lord Norton of Louth, and the noble Earl, Lord Dunmore.
I understand, of course, that for some Members of your Lordships' House there is only one issue of real interest: the Government's plans to reform the House itself. It would, clearly, be ridiculous to pretend that these proposals are not significant. They are matters of serious constitutional change and I shall return to them in detail, and in context, later in my speech. However, as legislators, we have a duty to look beyond our own affairs, beyond this Chamber and indeed beyond Westminster.
In this Session, the Government are proposing major new legislation on issues which are central to the cares and concerns of most people in Britain. I refer to Bills to reform our welfare system, to modernise the National Health Service and to cut crime; Bills to deliver better local authority services to local communities, and to give citizens better access to justice in our courts; Bills to make work pay for low-paid families, and to make employment fairer; and Bills to offer practical help to disabled people, and to help enterprise in our key financial services sector. These are the bedrock issues— rightly called the "heartland" issues—where change and reform will make a difference to every part of the country.
This year's programme builds on the achievements of the first legislative Session. It carries forward the Government's objectives of securing economic strength through stable management of the economy, accompanied by social justice and opportunity for all. Its key principles are fairness and enterprise. It is an ambitious programme; it is a radical programme. It is a measure of the importance of the programme that your Lordships have requested five days to debate it.

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Before returning to this afternoon's consideration of constitutional and legal affairs, I wish to outline the major proposals to be addressed later. Tomorrow, we shall debate defence and foreign affairs. The gracious Speech sets out a number of challenges that will face us over the coming year on the world stage. Tomorrow will also be your Lordships' opportunity to discuss the Bill to convert the Commonwealth Development Corporation into a public/private partnership to increase investment in developing countries. This Bill has now been introduced into the House by my noble friend Lord McIntosh of Haringey.
Next Monday's debate will focus on education, local government, the environment and agriculture. The Government have repeatedly made clear the absolute priority we attach to improving education in this country. The Government's commitment to lifelong learning was a major theme of last year's programme, with four education Acts. This year we shall bring forward proposals for continuing our drive to higher standards at all levels of education. We shall publish a Green Paper on improving the quality and status of the teaching profession. This will herald the biggest reform in teaching for half a century.
We shall continue our programme of reform of local and regional government. On Monday we shall also look at the Bill requiring local authorities to secure best value in the delivery of local services and to abolish the current arrangements for compulsory competitive tendering. Another Bill for initial debate on that day is to provide a fair basis for water charging in England and Wales—a Bill of real value to everyone.
On agriculture, the other subject for Monday's debate, the gracious Speech makes clear the Government's continued determination to see reform of the common agricultural policy. It also repeats our commitment to taking forward work on a food standards agency. Both initiatives follow our success this week in getting the beef ban lifted. That is a welcome step forward for everyone in Britain, especially, of course, our farmers. It was a step achieved only after a great deal of patient effort and delicate negotiation; a process which could only have been achieved by a government properly engaged in Europe. Over the past 18 months, this Government have been properly engaged and the positive results are starting to come through.
Tuesday's debate will concentrate on social, economic and industrial issues. It will focus on what the Government regard as the real centrepiece of the legislative programme: the far-reaching proposals for reform of the welfare state; that is, reform based on a firm principle of work for those who can and security for those who cannot. The Welfare Reform Bill will take forward the principles set out in the welfare reform Green Paper published last month. There are proposals for a single gateway to the benefit system for those of working age who are not in full-time work, and support for disabled people.
Welfare reform will also include a Bill to bring in the working families' tax credit, which will make work pay, especially for low-paid people, and a Bill to introduce
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the disabled persons' tax credit, to offer help to disabled people getting back into work. Tuesday's debate will also include the Bill to combine the Contributions Agency and the Inland Revenue, the Bill introduced in your Lordships' House today by my noble friend Lady Hollis of Heigham.
The debate on that day will also cover the proposed financial services and markets Bill, which will establish a new statutory regulator for the financial services industry, and the Bill to promote electronic commerce, a vital new industry for the future. We shall consider, too, the Bill on fairness at work, which will introduce new policies for family-friendly employment, new rights for individual workers and a new employee relations settlement which will establish a forward-looking balance of rights and responsibilities for both employers and employees.
The last day of debate, next Wednesday, will concentrate on health and home affairs. This will underline our determination to reform the public services of this country. The gracious Speech includes a Bill to replace the National Health Service internal market with decentralised arrangements based on partnership, quality and efficiency. Doctors and nurses will take the lead in shaping local services for patients through primary care trusts. Collaboration and co-operation between service providers will replace the destructive competition of the recent past. New methods of raising and monitoring common high standards across the NHS will be introduced.
On crime, the Government's policies will be taken forward with a Bill to modernise the youth courts and to give more protection to vulnerable and intimidated witnesses. Home affairs legislation will also include a Bill to modernise the law on immigration and asylum, including reform of the appeals system and new support arrangements for asylum seekers.
I turn back now to the subject of today's debate: constitutional and legal affairs. I propose to say only a little about legal affairs. The access to justice Bill will among other things introduce measures to promote the establishment of a community legal service providing the widest possible access to high quality information and advice for everyone. It is the responsibility of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, and I shall leave him to deal with it in detail when he comes to speak at the end of today's debate. Suffice it for me to say that this important Bill, which again affects the day-to-day lives of many citizens, will start its parliamentary passage in your Lordships' House.
Health, welfare, crime, jobs, the economy and education: these are the centrepiece issues of the gracious Speech.
We will rightly concentrate on these key issues, but we will also proceed with further moves in the Government's constitutional reform programme. They are a major part of our proposals to modernise the institutions of this country. The key principles of the programme are clear: the decentralisation of power, real rights for citizens, openness—and modernising Parliament to improve its effectiveness. It is integral to our approach that we start from what is already there,

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such as the existing administrative responsibilities of the Scottish and Welsh Offices or the European Convention on Human Rights. Our proposals are radical, but they are also firmly rooted in our existing arrangements.
The Opposition have been consistent on our programme of constitutional reform and, I have to say, consistently wrong. Every time, over every measure, their line is the same, "It shouldn't be done, and it can't be done". The problem for them, as has been demonstrated during the past year, is that the people of Britain feel differently—and so do the Government.
Last year, we made a significant start to our programme, with the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill; the Scotland Bill; the Government of Wales Bill; the Human Rights Bill; and, following the Belfast agreement, two Bills in relation to the Northern Ireland Assembly. Those Acts, as they now are, will transform the political landscape of this country.
The Human Rights Act will give UK citizens for the first time the ability to assert their convention rights directly in our own courts. It too will work with the constitutional settlement, not against it. Although the courts will be given more power, the sovereignty of Parliament will also be preserved. Its most important effect will be to change the way that public authorities in this country look at human rights issues, and to bring in a proper human rights culture.
That is a start in our determination to reform and renew British institutions. It is a good start. This year, the legislative programme contains fewer constitutional changes.
Apart from the Greater London Authority Bill, which my noble friend Lord Whitty will deal with next Monday, there is only one major constitutional measure in the programme: the Bill to begin the reform of your Lordships' House.
As the gracious Speech makes clear, there will be a Bill to remove the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in this House. That was promised in our manifesto—and it will be delivered by this Government.
The Bill will be a self-contained measure, not dependent on any further reform in the future. It means that the removal of the hereditary Peers is compatible with any option for further reform which might sensibly be proposed. It works as a reform in its own right, and it will work as a reform in conjunction with any further reform.
As I have said on several occasions in your Lordships' House—and I am happy to repeat it today: the Government are entirely determined on further reforms, properly considered. The gracious Speech underlines that that next stage will be speedily progressed.
In the previous Session of this Parliament, we had an illuminating two-day debate on the Government's manifesto proposals. The main message I received from those two days is that most noble Lords opposite, most noble Lords who oppose the manifesto provisions, are fully signed up members of what one could call "The St. Augustine school of Lords reform"—it is a good idea in principle, but not yet, not yet.
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The problem with that approach, as those noble Lords know very well, is that "not yet" has, in the past, always become "never". Indeed, it is on those very grounds that they choose to attack the Government's step-by-step approach.
They claim that the removal of the hereditary Peers will remove an "independent" element of this House, and will therefore be a retrograde step, while the Government's incentive to further reform will have gone, along with the hereditary Peers.
Our view, on the contrary, is that the hereditary Peers are not independent and therefore their removal is essential before any further changes can be made.
The Government's position remains simple and unchanged. We acknowledge the contribution of individual hereditary Peers, but we reject the hereditary principle as a basis for membership of this House of Parliament.
We have heard much in the recent past about the value of that hereditary principle in providing an independent voice in legislation. Hereditary Peers, and indeed some public commentators, may believe they are independent but the record tells otherwise.
I hardly need to rehearse in your Lordships' House the simple facts that the Conservative Party in this House has an in-built majority of three to one over the Government; or that the block vote has been deployed to defeat the Labour Government more times in the previous Session than in any during the 18 years of Tory rule; or that the contentious issue of the European Parliamentary Elections Bill would have been carried in each and every Division if only life Peers had voted. These are the unassailable facts.
I accept that some Cross-Bench hereditary Peers are independent. For them, independence is real. It is prized. It is valued and the Government are committed to maintaining that genuinely independent voice.
But this House knows what the reality is for the majority. This House knows which Lobby they go through time after time after time. "Independent" they may call themselves; well, independent by name—but not independent by nature or behaviour.
One further point: many of the hereditary Peers who claim a reserved seat in your Lordships' House actually take no part in its proceedings, in its important work.
Nearly 200 hereditary Peers failed to attend the House at all in the 1996–97 Session—not counting those who had sought leave of absence. As we approach the 21st century it is simply a nonsense to pretend that every hereditary Peer can automatically expect the right to serve as a Member of Parliament.
The status quo is simply unacceptable. It must be changed. Only then will it be possible to engage in constructive debate on the role, functions and composition of a fully reformed second Chamber, taking proper account of the whole of our evolving constitutional settlement.
The gracious Speech repeats our commitment to establish a Royal Commission to look into the issues in depth. The Government wish to ensure that a full range

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of options is examined and that everyone who wishes to contribute has the opportunity to do so. We hope to proceed further by consensus.
Perhaps I may stress to your Lordships that the Royal Commission is not a delaying tactic. It will work to a tough and tight timetable and its recommendations will be promptly considered.
I have heard it suggested that had we appointed a Royal Commission when we first came into office 18 months ago, we could have had the full reform package ready by now. That is simply unrealistic. The Royal Commission will have to undertake its deliberations in the light of the other constitutional changes I have already mentioned. The devolution process and the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights are significant and relevant changes.
If the Royal Commission had started its work 18 months ago, it could quite legitimately have said that it needed to see the final form of those changes before it could even begin to assess their implications for the House of Lords. Those changes are now on the statute book: their final form is clear. Now is the right time for the Royal Commission to start its work.
So I say again to your Lordships: the Government are as committed to the second part of their manifesto proposals on the House of Lords as they are to the first. We have reviewed the system for the appointment of life Peers in the future. The Prime Minister has made it clear that he is prepared to relinquish his sole power of patronage in this area. This will reform the systems by which in the Conservative Government of the 1980s and 1990s appointed twice as many Conservative as Opposition Peers. We will stand by our propositions that no political party should seek a majority in the House of Lords and that there should continue to be a significant independent element on the Cross-Benches.
We shall spell out in detail how we intend to fulfil those commitments in the context of this Session's Bill. Again the more we can achieve by consensus the better. I should also confirm that the Government will be re-introducing the European Elections Bill. 1 do not need to address the substance of that Bill—we are all well aware of it. How much of your Lordships' time it will occupy depends on the Opposition.
Perhaps I may simply observe that I have difficulty in following the principle, the logic, or indeed the political tactic, of opposition in this House to the elections Bill, which appear in some instances at least to be based on a perceived inexactitude in our general election manifesto, while opposition from the same quarters ignores the absolute precision of the manifesto commitment on the future of your Lordships' House. Perhaps someone in this afternoon's long list of speakers will be able to help me.
I am sure that we shall see challenge in this Session. The events of the last few weeks have left us on this side of the House in no doubt about that. But I believe, too, that we shall see change. And those on the other
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side of the House should be in no doubt about that either. It is change that we expect to see reflected in reform across the country—not just in Parliament.
As I made clear, I understand the interest of this House in the one measure of reform. But I believe that the House for its part must understand the interest of the people of this country in the Government's whole package of measures. The Government's programme contains a range of far-reaching steps which will benefit everyone through modernising the welfare state, improving healthcare, tackling crime and strengthening the UK's competitiveness.
These may seem mundane issues to those seduced by dramatic headlines of "warfare" over parliamentary traditions, but they matter a great deal to a great many people whose lives are led far from the political hot house. Members of this House often speak properly of duty. I hope that in this coming Session your Lordships will recognise their duty not only to themselves, to their own interests, but to the country as a whole. I enthusiastically commend the Government's programme to the House.
2.53 p.m.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I think the whole House should be extremely grateful to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for repeating to us, and devoting such a high proportion of her remarks in doing so, what we had already heard yesterday. It was extraordinarily kind of her to remind your Lordships that there are matters at least as important as the reform of this House. I hope that my remarks will reflect that fact. Perhaps I may also say how much we are looking forward to the maiden speeches of three noble Lords: the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, the noble Earl, Lord Dunmore, and my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth. I shall leave consideration of legal matters, which I acknowledge are an important element of the Government's programme, to my noble friend Lord Kingsland, who is eminently qualified to discuss them, when he winds up for the Opposition.
I for one was pleased to see the end of the previous Session. It was long—some say it was the longest Session since the 17th century, although in some quarters that is disputed. It certainly passed a great deal of legislation; the noble Baroness was right about that. However, I fear that much of that legislation was damaging in principle to the political and economic health of our country; it was based on policies that were almost universally ill-thought through and included innumerable provisions that were both illogical and inconsistent, as well as wrong. Furthermore, such is the control that the Government have established over another place—thanks to a combination of their vast majority and their determination to ride roughshod over the right of Parliament to hold them to account—that much of that legislation reached this House undiscussed by another place even for one split second at Committee or Report stages. Lest anyone dispute that, I pray in aid the example of the Welsh Bill as a classic case in point.
However, I wonder whether the Government are not more relieved to see the end of the Session than I am. In spite of their best efforts, the institution of

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Parliament, helped by a free press, has begun to expose the shabbiness of the Government's approach. And, if I may say so, the role that this House has played in that exposure has been a glorious one. I know that "glory" is an unfashionable word in New Labour, but some of us are pleased with the history of our country and not ashamed of it. As always, this House has been at its most effective when speaking and voting across party lines and demonstrating that independence of thought and action that has been the despair of Chief Whips of both main parties in this place throughout our modern existence. It is an indication both of our effectiveness as a revising Chamber and of the state of the preparation of government Bills that during an admittedly long Session we passed 3,963 amendments in 228 sitting days, which consumed 1,605 long hours of debate. Another place admittedly sat for 11 more days, but is not yet in a position to tell us for how many hours.
During the past 18 months I have listened to many heated discussions among commentators about the Government's motives for inflicting their policies upon us. No one disputes that the Government are bent on ushering in a constitutional revolution unparalleled since Henry VIII. The noble Baroness gloried in it again today. The question that exercises a number of us is: do the Government have a coherent vision of what they want us to achieve? The noble Baroness asserted that they did, although during the course of her remarks produced precious little evidence to support that assertion. Do the Government know what they want the living constitutional landscape to look like?
As month has succeeded depressing month, and as one ill-thought out Bill has succeeded another and piled inconsistency on inconsistency, I fear that the answer to that question is becoming nightmarishly obvious. The Government are obsessed with living up to at least half of their name—the first half. They know that there are few votes any more in being called "Labour", but think that there will continue to be votes in being called "New". So they are wedded to pell-mell change at all costs, no matter how ill-considered are the provisions of the Bills they introduce. That is why the word "modernisation" occurs 11 times in the gracious Speech.
But what does modernisation under this Government really mean? It certainly means one thing, and again it is something of which the Government are immensely proud. It means an assault on tradition, a view that history began on 1st May 1997. They therefore repudiate a distinct national history and pave the way for the triumph of an integrated Europe based on the role of Napoleonic elites instead of electorates, on big government, high taxation and protectionism. It means fiddling with the constitution while the economy burns. The resulting effect on our constitutional landscape is an awful parody of what should be a happy analogy: the enthusiastic amateur landowner Squire Blair, desperate to introduce his modish improvements, aided and abetted by Incapability Brown and Alistair, rather than Colin Campbell. The result, of course, will be a Serpentine Gallery of politics in which all forms are broken, real meaning is obscured and meaning is only what the political cataloguers, the spin doctors, give it.
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It could be exceeding wearisome to chronicle all the evidence for that assertion. However, it would be instructive to know what strategic vision dictated that four separate proportional representation systems should be used: first, for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly; secondly, for the Northern Ireland Assembly; thirdly, for the elections of London's mayor, and, fourthly, for the elections to the European Parliament. Of course, we already have a completely different system for elections to another place.
But if the Prime Minister were sufficiently to heal the splits in his own party to allow him to hold a referendum, on his usual rigged terms, on whether to change Westminster elections to another system, we would still be inflicting a fifth proportional system on our long-suffering electorate. Luckily for us, he risked splitting his party if he proceeded. Luckily for him, he has been able to kick that particular hot potato into touch with the active co-operation of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead. I am distressed not to see him in his place today, but no doubt he has important matters of an academic nature to detain him. Otherwise, the Prime Minister might have been in some trouble over his adherence to his doctrine of the manifesto.
The loser is the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, who will have to wait for eight more long years before being able to fulfil his ambition and use us, the British electorate, as an open air laboratory for his pet scheme, unsullied as it is by previous use anywhere in the world.
It is clear that the constitutional measures the Government have introduced so far have not been thought through, either as to their major consequences or as to how they might work in detail. As far as their major consequences are concerned, there is no better example, I submit, than the Scotland Act. There can be no doubt that the people of Scotland want devolved government. However, we have always felt that devolution carried within it the danger that it would not end there, that Scotland would sleepwalk into complete independence, carried there on a wave of anti-English emotion and comforted by the delusion that Brussels money would compensate it for the potential loss of English taxpayers' subsidies.
It became clear a few weeks ago that suddenly the Government have woken up to the possibility that we might have been right all along. Scottish opinion polls began to show that the SNP was running neck and neck with, even sometimes ahead of, Labour. The Government, not surprisingly, embarked on a frenzy of prophylactic activity. That old-fashioned socialist, Mr. Gordon Brown himself, in panic, delivered a speech in defence of the Union that would have done credit to any Tory.
It is now evident that the Government have realised, so far as Scotland is concerned, what we had understood all along: that to chant the word "modernisation" like a mantra is no substitute for thinking through the consequences before legislating. We should note that in the Scotland Bill there were a number of other matters on which the Government seemed less than certain of their ground—matters of detail. The matter of the link between the number of members of the Scottish

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Parliament and the number of Scottish MPs at Westminster is another case in point. I am told that the Scottish Office Ministers were desperate to give way on a point which made the Government look more than usually foolish. However, the Prime Minister— well-known for his defence of an existing position, however untenable—forbade them to give way at all.
The gracious Speech announced five other constitutional measures which make me wonder whether the Government, like the Bourbons, have learnt anything at all; and whether your Lordships will be forced yet again to draw the attention of another place and the public to the dangers of introducing legislation that is ill-prepared in both conception and execution.
It is true that there is one small glimmer of hope in that the Government have promised to introduce several Bills in draft, I hope to the delight of my noble friend Lord Renton. I greatly welcome that development, as I am sure he does. It can only improve the quality of legislation and increase public confidence in it. However, although the measures are certainly important and may in some instances be potentially useful, they certainly do not cover the Government's main programme. I fear that for important Bills we must resign ourselves to more of the same, in the light of bitter experience. There is absolutely no indication that they will use this admirable device to stem the tide of ill-considered legislation that is the curse of our age. After all, the only Bill which might be considered under this procedure, which might be thought to be part of the Government's principal programme of activity, is the freedom of information Bill. Since no other measure of a similar kind has been introduced under it, one cannot help wondering whether it is being used merely to kick a tricky question into touch—and not for the first time.
Nowhere is the Government's lack of forethought more evident than in the case of the Bill that in the current Session will most directly concern your Lordships' House: the first stage of the change in the composition of this place.
We have been discussing this question for some time—over 100 years. We discussed it again last month in the remarkable two-day debate in which I was privileged to take part. We will undoubtedly spend many delightful hours doing so again during our discussion of the Bill. I shall therefore not presume to weary your Lordships by once again embarking on a complete recapitulation of the arguments now, despite the noble Baroness's outstanding exercise in sourness this afternoon. Far be it from me to extend comparisons of the attendance of life Peers and hereditary Peers. I refer your Lordships to the records on the matter which the learned Clerks so helpfully keep. However, it must be a matter of extreme regret that the Government have insisted on tackling the question in the way they have.
The Government have tried to reassure us that they really do intend to proceed swiftly to a full stage two reform by promising us a White Paper and by undertaking to establish a Royal Commission. It would be useful to know when we can expect the White Paper and what it will cover. I welcome the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for the first historic time to
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the Front Bench rather than the Woolsack. I hope that when he comes to reply he could also tell us whether the White Paper will confine itself to the mechanics of the stage one House. Will it cover how Peers will be appointed from now on? Will it address itself in any way to the timing of stage two? Will it set out the terms of reference of the Royal Commission? Will it tell us who will sit on the Royal Commission? Will it set out the options for stage two which the Government wish the Royal Commission to consider? Will the Royal Commission consider the powers a stage two House might enjoy? Will the Royal Commission hold public hearings? Despite what the noble Baroness the Leader of the House told us this afternoon, I cannot but feel that none of that is as yet at all clear. The Government owe it not only to the House but more importantly to the public to enlighten us.
It would be even more useful if the Government could give us some guarantee that the Royal Commission's report will not gather dust in some Whitehall pigeon-hole, apart from the clear assurances that the noble Baroness gave us this afternoon. I have quite a long experience now, although not nearly so long as that of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, (drawing a bow at a venture) of such assurances from government Ministers. I have listened to them from Ministers of both political parties. The political history of this country is littered with undertakings of that kind which have been more honoured in the breach than in the fulfilment. A guarantee greater even than the one given us by the noble Baroness this afternoon would be extraordinarily useful.
After all, pigeon-holing has all too often been the fate of Royal Commission reports in the past. Since the noble Baroness is constantly assuring us that she regards stage one as a satisfactory stand-alone reform, we cannot help wondering on this side of the House whether the Government will kick stage two into the long grass with the same sense of relief as they have kicked the elegantly phrased report of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead.
In the absence of such a guarantee, I cannot help feeling that my noble friends will find it increasingly difficult, as I tried to indicate yesterday, to view the Bill with anything but the greatest of suspicion. Even at this late stage, I hope that the Government will be able to reconsider so that we can avoid a bruising contest in the weeks to come.
The noble Baroness rejected the idea that we could by now have had stage two had the Government proceeded as I originally suggested some 18 months ago. In spite of what she said I repeat that it could have been so very different if only the Government had done as we suggested. If they had set up the Royal Commission immediately after the last general election, we might by now have been considering its report.
As I have consistently undertaken, and the Government in their own interests have consistently disbelieved when I have said it, the official Opposition would have been entirely constructive in their response. There would have been no room for doubt that the Government intended to proceed to stage two. Above

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all, there would have been an opportunity to build a public consensus for reform that would have encouraged another place to overcome its distaste for a more authoritative second Chamber and so enabled us to navigate around the rock upon which all attempts at thorough reform have so far foundered. I refer to another place, not your Lordships' House. After all, in 1968 we voted by four to one in favour of reform.
I am not alone in this. The public overwhelmingly think so too if a recent ICM finding endorsing an earlier MORI poll is correct. When asked, 68 per cent, of the public said that we should leave things as they are for the moment until all of the details of the reform have been decided, as opposed to a magnificent 25 per cent, who supported the Government's approach—almost as much as the present Tory opposition's standing in the polls itself. We are witnessing a great wasted opportunity, born of the fatal failure of this Government to think through the consequences of what they have begun to undertake. As I said yesterday, governments and politics being what they are, this Government in particular will be tempted to kick stage two into touch no matter what the Royal Commission recommends, in spite of what the noble Baroness has said today. In the absence of guaranteed progress to stage two, it will be extremely difficult for my noble friends and me to accept the Government's proposals.
Faced with the consequences of their fatal incoherence, the Government are being forced to take refuge in a number of devices that are designed to protect their position in the short term. Perhaps the most notorious and recent of these is the Government's refusal to implement the recommendations of the Neill Committee on the conduct of referendums—one of the most barefaced pieces of impudence even from this Government that I could have imagined. We know that they rigged both the Scottish and Welsh referendums with the result that Wales almost certainly got the result that it did not want. If the Government wish to maintain confidence in the integrity of our system of government, this is a curious way of showing it.
We are promised a number of further referendums, notably a new voting system for Westminster and on whether we should join the EMU. Do the Government want to rig those as well? If not, they should reassure us to the contrary now. If they introduce a Bill to give effect to the proper regulation of referendums, I assure the noble Baroness that we shall give it our enthusiastic support. These devices only serve to reinforce the impression that the Prime Minister's principal objective is to undermine the position of Parliament as the bedrock of the constitution.
Yesterday I sympathised with the Leader of the House in that any attempt to report great matters to Parliament was being blocked. We all know that in our country any government derive their authority from the electorate. However, they maintain that authority by submitting themselves to continuous scrutiny in Parliament. The Prime Minister's all-too-evident distaste for subjecting himself to that scrutiny confirms the impression on this side of the House that he would much prefer to govern without Parliament at all. Certainly, the Government's constitutional programme appears to have addressed
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itself to everything piecemeal except the one matter with which they should have started their constitutional reforms: how to restore Parliament to the centre of our political life. For the only part of Parliament to which they have addressed themselves—the composition of your Lordships' House—they have made proposals that completely ignore the rest of Parliament altogether.
This is dangerous tinkering with the future of the constitution of our country. In the spirit of co-operation and friendship for which I am notorious, I suggest that for the Prime Minister himself it is short sighted. Paradoxically, were he to welcome greater parliamentary scrutiny and to think constructively about parliamentary reform as a whole, he would return from Parliament like Antaeus from each contact with the earth strengthened and with his authority enhanced. As it is, the Government must eventually collapse under the contradictions of the policies of which they claim to be most proud.
The kings of spin cannot fool us for ever as we begin to see that "devolution" means control of candidates from London; that "positive Europeanism" means the loss of national independence; that "directly elected mayors" means centrally vetted candidates: that "fair elections" for Europe means closed lists that give more power to the party apparat rather than the electorate; and that "a more democratic Lords" means a wholly nominated House. We are being sold snake oil by snake oil salesmen who want to perpetuate their hold on power only by rigging the system. They want nothing to do with genuine reform centred on a parliament that works better. As a House we should use the next Session to expose them ruthlessly.
3.15p.m.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, I am afraid that I am not sufficiently acquainted with the properties of snake oil to get the full measure of the noble Viscount's injunction. But there was a time when Members of Parliament of both Houses awaited the Queen's Speech with all the excitement of children eager to discover their Christmas presents. No longer. Almost all is now entirely predictable. For months Ministers—I do not mean merely the present Front Bench—go through the charade of pretending that they cannot anticipate the Speech while by winks and nods they indicate what it will contain. The press is given an even clearer indication of what to expect through Downing Street briefings. This year the prospect has been explicit. The Session will be dominated by a Bill to exclude the hereditary peerage from your Lordships' House. The only question appears to be how your Lordships will pass the time until the Bill arrives from the Commons some time before Easter.
When we debated in a very preliminary way the Queen's Speech yesterday the Leader of the House said that we would have a quiet time during December. We now know that after December, and before we get to the Government's legislative programme, we shall be dealing with a Bill that should have been allowed to pass a week ago in the closing days of the previous Session. No matter that Britain may be again poised on the edge of a conflict with Saddam Hussein, that Russia

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is collapsing into chaos, that a recession may still engulf us or that peace in Northern Ireland remains a subject of concern, the second Chamber of the mother of Parliaments will be arguing the merits of open and closed lists and whose name should appear on the ballot paper. Let us repeat time and time again—this is the core of the matter—that in so doing a wholly unelected House will be challenging a wholly elected one about the nature of democracy. That is the issue, and nothing could be more topsy-turvy.
I suppose that we should have expected the hereditary Peers to go down fighting and made allowances for that fact. But most of all I am puzzled—my remarks are directed at the legislation we debated last week and will shortly see again but they may also apply to the debates we shall have on the reform of this House—by the judgment of many Conservative life Peers with experience of the other place who lent themselves to the war of attrition last week and before, and who did not know where to stop.
There were some notable absentees, for whatever reason, from last Wednesday's Division, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Hurd. Eighteen former Conservative Cabinet Ministers voted to kill the Bill. It is inconceivable that they would have tolerated any comparable action on a matter of this importance when they were in Cabinet. The noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, who voted last Wednesday, would have been incandescent. Surely, they cannot believe that across the nation, in clubs, pubs, supermarkets and bus queues, the sole object of discussion is the gallant fight of Conservative Peers to determine the contents of ballot papers which on the previous occasion almost two-thirds of voters did not even bother to complete. Indeed, the great majority of our hereditary colleagues who serve in this place have never at any time submitted their names on a ballot paper.
As regards the position of the noble Viscount, it is difficult to know whether to be angry at what happened last week or to feel sorry for him. Indeed, when I consider the noble Viscount I am sometimes reminded of a description by Miss Beatrice Webb of Hugh Dalton—Dr. Dalton, as he was known when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer; and Lord Dalton as he became briefly. Beatrice Webb said of Hugh Dalton that he was,
"a subtle, wily man with a certain peculiar charm".
The noble Viscount is a very different person, but I often think of that description applying to him, and not, I should say, in pejorative terms. But where were his subtlety and wiliness last week? Yes, the Government could have brought the Bill back a second time on Tuesday evening and have been prepared to sit through the night. But the noble Viscount was obliged to deal with the situation as it was on Wednesday. It may have been a lack of judgment, which I think is not in character. He was perhaps upstaged by his heir apparent, the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish. Alternatively, he could have been acting under instructions from his party leader, William Hague.
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About his relations with Mr. Hague I have some sympathy. I am sure that although the noble Baroness would not admit it, she will be troubled from time to time by the Prime Minister believing that he knows better than she does about how to handle this House. To be fair, I must also admit to being provoked occasionally—very occasionally indeed—by a telephone call from another place. The truth is that those who have never served in this place generally have a very hazy idea of how it operates. I believe that, like the noble Viscount last week, the noble Baroness, and I from time to time, on future occasions will suffer from this lack of understanding of how we conduct our affairs.
I do not propose to rehearse today all the arguments made from these Benches and elsewhere in our two-day debate on 14th and 15th October about the future of this House, to which the noble Baroness referred. Our view from these Benches of what should be done has not changed even though we feel that the hereditary Peers were pushing their luck last week, and perhaps the Cross-Benches, too, in not following the lead of the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, and the view of the Lords Spiritual on some essentially temporal matters about the relationship between this House and another.
I join with the noble Viscount in saying that we still know very little about how the Government intend to proceed on the first stage of the House of Lords reform. We do not know precisely when the Bill will be published. We do not know when the White Paper will appear. We do not know what will be the terms of reference for the Royal Commission. We are presented again with a great deal of vagueness about a timetable which this House should know. We understand that the Lord Privy Seal is now in charge of these arrangements, and I hope that we shall see some acceleration of the process and greater clarity about what the Government intend.
It is important to make this point because again the noble Baroness said—I noted her words—that the Prime Minister made clear that the Government intend special arrangements to be made for the system of nomination of life Peers. That is stated in the Queen's Speech. But—it is the largest gap—we must not only have a better system of nomination. There must be a rational basis for the composition of this House when the hereditary Peers have gone. We still do not know what that will be. I hope that it is not too much to expect the Lord Chancellor at least to lean in the direction of giving us some hint this evening. It is not sufficient to leave matters as they are. This is the last outstanding issue which needs to be clarified irrespective of what the White Paper may seek.
I turn to some matters which are in the Queen's Speech, and some which are not. I leave to my noble friend Lord Goodhart the task of examining the Government's proposals on legal aid and whether they will extend access to justice. Later in our debates we shall examine what the Government have in mind on asylum and immigration. I say only this. Legal aid and law on immigration are among the issues that the Government want, in the words of the Queen's Speech, "to modernise" among others. But "to modernise" is

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entirely value free. It means to change and to bring up to date. It does not even mean change for the better, never mind whose "better" that would be. It can be a euphemism for abandoning well tried and defensible policies because the Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks they cost too much. And it can be a euphemism for restrictive policies that narrow rather than widen our freedoms. So let us not suppose that proposals to modernise are automatically matters upon which we can endorse what the Government have in mind.
There is the proposal to publish a draft freedom of information Bill on, I nearly said the spurious but perhaps 1 should say ingenious, ground of more open government. But we all know that there has been a row between Cabinet Ministers, and this is a way of marking time while, it is hoped, earning some Brownie points. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Goodhart will have something further to say on that.
Later in our debate we shall probe another proposal to modernise local government. Real modernisation would involve greater genuine financial independence for local government and the introduction of proportional representation. I should be surprised to find that in any Bill. There is a strong case for cross-party agreement on proportional representation for local government, whatever disagreements there may be elsewhere. None of us within this Chamber can believe that single party control by any party—because the turn of the Liberal Democrats will come—for a quarter of a century or more can be consistent with good, efficient, innovating and responsive local government. A heretic might even say that proportional representation for local government might once upon a time have claimed priority over PR for Westminster.
However, this is the first of five days of debate and I do not want to trespass unreasonably on what is still to come. But the constitutional and legal issues that we are discussing today come within the context of the Government's wider programme. Indeed, to legislate is only a small part of what any government do. Ministers are responsible for a whole myriad of decisions which affect people's lives; and they set the tone of much by their speeches and pronouncements.
Looking back on the first Session of a new government, and looking behind and beyond the Queen's Speech, let me make this wider comment. Taken as a whole, new Labour has had a successful baptism in office despite what the noble Viscount says, and there is no point in pretending otherwise. On constitutional matters—I do not know whether all my noble friends share my arithmetic—I would have to give it nine out of 10 for trying, and seven out of 10 for getting it right. History may well say—it is too soon to know—that in that respect its achievement is comparable, if different, from the great reforming governments of 1908 and 1945. Beyond that, I am inclined to give it five out of 10 at best.
The Queen's Speech makes many proposals to improve services, for example, in health and education. No doubt the Government would claim that modernising the welfare state also comes into such a category. We on these Benches shall not quarrel with that when the
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intention is genuine, the will is clear and the resources are made available. But how will they deal with the prickly, awkward but inescapable questions which command few votes in middle England? One of those prickly questions with which this House in all quarters has shown concern is the prison population. At the time of the previous Queen's Speech in May 1997 there was a prison population of 60,421. Last Thursday it was 66,109. Under a Labour government, in 18 months 6,000 more men and women have been sent to prison. There is not much sign there of a new regime at the Home Office.
Constitutional change will not diminish poverty. "Welfare to work" is a fine slogan, but it does little for those who cannot work or who become victims of rising unemployment in a recession.
As I have said—and I know that not all noble Lords will agree—on the whole, the Government have made a good start. However, we must look further ahead at the reach and weight of their total programme. Here they are yet to be convincing on a central aspect of how best to create a society at peace with itself.
The Queen's Speech is strong on the need for economic growth. We all read our newspapers yesterday and know that elsewhere the Government have been trying to find criteria for measuring the quality of life. But this Government, a Labour government, should be concerned not only with the creation of wealth but with the spread of wealth; its distribution as well as its growth. If at the end of their period in office the rich are still growing richer while the poor are no better off they will have failed, however much we applaud their constitutional settlement.
3.32 p.m.
Lord Butler of Brockwell: My Lords, perhaps I may start by thanking your Lordships, not just conventionally, for the warmth of the welcome I have received in your Lordships' House. Perhaps I may also thank the officers and staff of the House for the help and advice they have given me. It has been necessary and invariably courteous.
From the moment I was introduced, I felt that most of my former life was in your Lordships' House. There are those in all three parties for whom I worked during their careers as Ministers. There are many on the Cross Benches who are my colleagues and my friends. For me, it is not so much a case of upstairs, downstairs as of downstairs, upstairs. I noticed that during the debate on the European Parliamentary Elections Bill last week, there was a good deal of talk about whether your Lordships would accept advice from one of your Lordship's valets or from the noble Lord himself. I do not know about valets, but here is a Butler who is very grateful for the welcome he has received in your Lordships' House.
I had planned to make my maiden speech on the report of the Select Committee on the public services chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Slynn of Hadley. Since one of the recommendations of that report was that your Lordships should give more time to debating the public services, I had intended to say that it was a pity time

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had not been found for a debate on that most excellent and thoughtful report. I am delighted that since then a debate has been arranged for next week. In that respect, my fox has been shot and I shall reserve my remarks on the public services to that debate. Today, I shall comment briefly on a few aspects of the proposals on governance in the gracious Speech.
It was clear from the Labour Party's manifesto published before the general election that the proposals on governance would constitute an ambitious programme. It was also clear that it would be a hectic programme because of the Government's decision to process the Scottish, the Welsh and Northern Ireland legislation in the first Session. Clearly, there are differing views on the substance of that legislation and I shall not comment on it in a maiden speech. However, there should be no dispute that the processing of so many sensitive and difficult issues in the first Session of a parliament was a very considerable achievement. It was a tribute to the groundwork of the constitutional think tanks, to the industry and attention to detail of the Civil Service, and to the Cabinet committees, under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, which processed those issues. It was a working of the machinery of government of which a former head of the Civil Service could feel proud.
That brings me to the two points I wish to make on the programme for the coming Session. The first concerns a measure which is not in the programme; it is the freedom of information Bill. I welcome the fact that the Government are taking time to consider and to consult on that Bill. Some of your Lordships might be unkind enough to suspect that a former Cabinet Secretary would weep no bitter tears if the freedom of information Bill never saw the light of day. I want to assure your Lordships that that is not my motive. But it is important that the effect of that legislation should not be to prevent the frank thrashing out of policy issues within government.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, once described collective responsibility as being the right to change your mind in private. If a situation is created in which Ministers have to argue and civil servants have to advise for the record, because that advice and discussion is liable in very short order to be published, the candour and frankness of the discussion within government will be damaged. The greatest mistakes which I saw within government took place when the freedom to discuss issues freely, to bring to bear all the expertise and experience which was available within government, was for one reason or another interfered with.
The second point I wish to make relates to the reformation of your Lordships' House. That is territory on which it is not safe to trespass far in a maiden and, I hope, non-controversial speech. The other day, I was reading Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Your Lordships may think it appropriate that now I have become an academic I should be devoting myself to such works. I came across a passage which your Lordships might think had some relevance
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to the position in your Lordships' House. Gibbon was writing about the reforms of the Emperor Augustus of the Roman Senate. He wrote of Augustus:
"In concert with his faithful Agrippa, he examined the list of senators, expelled a few whose vices or whose obstinacy required a public example, persuaded near 200 to prevent the shame of expulsion by a voluntary retreat, raised the qualification of a senator to about £10,000 and created a sufficient number of patrician families… But, while he then restored the dignity, he destroyed the independence of the Senate. The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost when the legislative power is nominated by the Executive".
The situation in your Lordships' House is not at all akin to that faced by Augustus in the Senate. But that last sentence should give us thought:
"The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost when the legislative power is nominated by the Executive".
Speaking as a nominated Peer, it is perhaps appropriate for me to say that I think it of the highest importance, in the absence of hereditary Peers, for the Royal Commission to find a way in which to select Members of your Lordships' House which does not depend solely on the patronage of the Executive.
3.40 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Bristol: My Lords, I have the honour on behalf of your Lordships' House to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, on his maiden speech. It was a speech characterised by graciousness and salted with not a little wit. It is clear that 30 years of public service, not only in the Treasury but also at the centre of political life, will bring to your Lordships' House a wisdom and an overview of which we have had a glimpse this afternoon. We thank him for what he has already contributed and look forward to sharing in many other occasions in the future.
As a leasehold Member of your Lordships' House and a Bishop of the Church of England, the issue of reformation is life and breath to my life. But I recognise the unease in parts of your Lordships' House in relation to its proposed reform. That unease represents not only the shock it entails for the status quo but also uncertainty and legitimate concern about embarking on a journey for which the destination is not clear at the time of departure.
One declared stop along the way is the transitional arrangements for a House whose numbers may be made up by appointed Peers. We may well ask, as has already been asked, how that will be done. My friend, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, on 14th October in your Lordships' House suggested the model of the Crown Appointments Commission as a useful starting point. I hope that that will be kept in mind and become part of our deliberations.
For the rest of the journey, much will depend on the Royal Commission, not least on its membership and terms of reference, which we await with interest. There is an opportunity to contribute to an important process. It will clearly be important for the membership of the commission to be sufficiently broadly based to consider effectively all aspects of that complex matter, including the future of faith community representation in your Lordships' House.

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The reform of your Lordships' House, as indicated in the gracious Speech, is concerned with democracy and representation. We need to ask what is the purpose of the reform. If it is not for the good government of this country, questions must indeed be raised. Good government must be for all the people and must include as many as possible in the life of our community. The noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, referred to that passionately and eloquently in her speech yesterday.
I wish to underline the issue of representation. The Church of England is happy to see a broadening of that representation, but the key question concerns the framework in which that representation is set. At present, Bishops not only strengthen the spiritual dimension of the work of your Lordships' House—at least, I trust they do that although I heard the rebuke of the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, as to whether we should be involved in certain aspects—they also contribute to its regional diversity. The fact is that the Bishops in your Lordships' House represent diverse parts of the country in a manner unmatched, perhaps, by any other element in your Lordships' House. Bishops are related to parishes, local communities and dioceses and they have local knowledge and points of reference which enrich debate and inform the legislative review.
Her Majesty's Government have indicated that devolution is one context in which Lords reform will be set. There is clearly value in placing reform of the House in the framework of the broader constitutional arrangements being developed for the United Kingdom. But for that undertaking to be useful in the reform of the House, the issue of English devolution will have to be considered as well as devolution for Scotland and Wales.
So far, the process is in its infancy, with the regional development agency initiative. Bishops and dioceses already actively engage in that process and we need to report to your Lordships' House that our experience is extremely patchy. In some parts of the country it is welcomed, but in others there is a great deal to fight for to enable the faith community's voice to be heard. That suggests that it will be necessary for the Government to indicate their intentions regarding English devolution in order to set the reform of your Lordships' House effectively in a desired context.
The Bishops and the Church of England, because of their parochial and diocesan system, are able and willing to contribute to that important aspect of debate on the future of your Lordships' House. We commit ourselves to ensuring, to the best of our ability, that the reform will be such that it will be for the sake of good government of the whole nation, for all its people, so that they may participate fully in the life of our country.
3.46 p.m.
Lord Norton of Louth: My Lords, having spent more than 20 years studying and writing about Parliament, perhaps I may say what a delight it is to be a Member of your Lordships' House. The attitude that I have adopted towards Parliament is one that I should describe as critical affection. Now that I am a Member of your Lordships' House, I should claim that the critical
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aspect has been directed at the other place and the affection retained for your Lordships' House. This is a maiden speech. I must confess that it is not the first time I have given it but it is the first time that I have given it to an audience and out loud.
We are debating the future of this House. We are doing so under the rubric of constitutional affairs and I should like to take that rubric as the basis for my comments. I wish to place one proposition before your Lordships and to develop two points which derive from that proposition. The proposition is simple. It is that we must have greater intellectual rigour in our debates on constitutional affairs, not least in discussing the future of your Lordships' House. That is not some pedantic, academic point—although there is nothing wrong with academic quotations—but it is crucial to the quality of our debates and the decisions which will flow from those debates.
The first point that derives from that proposition is that we must have greater rigour and clarity in defining the principles and concepts which underpin our discussions on constitutional affairs. All too often terms are bandied about as though their meaning is clear and uncontested. In debates about the future of your Lordships' House, it is quite common to refer to representation or, at a more fundamental level, to democracy but without those terms being defined in any proper sense and, indeed, quite often without their being defined at all.
Those terms mean different things to different people. There is an important literature that identifies those different meanings. If we are to avoid talking at cross-purposes with one another, it is essential that we clarify and express clearly and unambiguously what we mean by the very terms that we employ.
The second point derives from the first and is fundamental to the debate about constitutional affairs; that is, that we must learn to talk about the constitution as a constitution. We must learn to develop a language which reflects an understanding of constitutional norms and relationships. We must learn, or perhaps re-learn, to engage in what might be termed a constitutional discourse. The history of this country demonstrates that we have that capacity. But we rather lost the habit of it in the quarter century after the Second World War. Our constitutional arrangements were largely taken for granted. They appeared to be delivering what was expected of them and were mentioned essentially for the purpose of praise and for recommending that they be emulated elsewhere.
The situation has clearly changed since. Over the past quarter century constitutional issues have come on to the agenda of political debate but without our really learning how to debate them in relation to the constitution as a whole and the relations that are at the heart of that constitution. It is essential that we do so. In debates about the future of this place, some argue that hereditary Peers are undemocratic; others that they provide a necessary degree of independence in a second Chamber. Those are legitimate points to advance. But we need to go beyond them to ask fundamental questions that derive from our understanding of what a constitution is.

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We need to ask: what is the role of a second Chamber in our constitution? Indeed, we need to ask what shape the constitution should take. Those are the sorts of issues that we should be addressing. Once we know what form of constitution we want, then we know what shape the second Chamber should take and the composition that is appropriate to it.
That is important, especially—indeed, necessarily— given the Government's proposals for change. The proposal to reform your Lordships' House must be put alongside those constitutional changes that were enacted in the last Session and the proposals that may come forward in future Sessions. Taken together, they change the very framework of our constitution; they move us away from what I termed the "traditional" constitution. That is what distinguishes the Government's proposals from previous essentially singular changes that sought to modify or strengthen the existing framework but did not seek to replace the constitutional framework with another.
Thus, we face a new situation. That situation creates challenges both for those who want to defend the existing constitution and those who wish to change it. But those of us who wish to preserve the existing arrangements must identify the form, the coherence of our present constitutional arrangements and the benefits that derive therefrom. I variously attempted to do so, identifying in particular but not exclusively the accountability that is at the core of our present system.
As a complementary Chamber, this Chamber serves to facilitate the accountability of the elected Chamber. If we move away from the existing constitution, if it is changed as it is proposed to be changed, we will need to decide our response to that change—doing so on the basis of a principled perspective of what is the most appropriate constitution for this country. A wish to retain accountability as a fundamental feature of our constitutional arrangements will have clear implications for the form of the second Chamber and the method by which its Members are selected.
For those who wish to reform the constitution, the challenge is equally clear. They must identify and justify their alternative framework to the present constitution. They must identify where they wish to go. We know where they are coming from; we know that they are against specific aspects of the existing constitution. But where are they going? I am not altogether sure. If I may be permitted to be a bit mischievous in a maiden speech, I would say that it is akin to a young tearaway who has decided to leave home but has not yet decided where to go.
Where are we going? What will the constitution look like in five or 10 years' time? By that, I do not mean what changes will have been enacted; I mean what form the constitution will take. What are the principles underpinning it? What are the benefits that it will deliver to the people of this country? And in what way do they outweigh the substantial benefits of the existing system?
Those are the type of questions we should be asking and the type of debate in which we should be engaging. As I said, it is central to the quality of our debates and
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the decisions that will flow from them. If there is a recommendation that flows from what I have said, it is that the proposed Royal Commission should have a fairly wide remit and not be restricted to a narrow focus. Instead, it should be allowed to look at the second Chamber from the perspective of the needs of the constitution rather than to allow proposals for the second Chamber to determine the shape of our constitution.
My conclusion—to return to my earlier analogy—is that before we leave home, we need to be sure where we are going; otherwise, what may beckon—I say only "may"—may be a constitutional wilderness.
3.55 p.m.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, it is with great pleasure that I thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, on behalf of the whole House for an exceptional maiden speech. It is fair to say that it was a controversial maiden speech, but it was a very good maiden speech. I have no doubt that the noble Lord will make an exceptional contribution to this House at stage two of the debate of the reform of the House of Lords.
I am particularly pleased that the Government are honouring their manifesto pledge to establish a community legal service which will widen access to legal services, particularly for the very poor and particularly in the areas of housing and welfare. It is wrong that the present legal system does not give that kind of access to the poorest people in our country. Therefore I welcome that proposal and I am pleased that the Lord Chancellor will be introducing those measures.
The main issue I want to address is the reform of this House. I want to speak not only as a member of the Labour Party, but also as a hereditary Peer. I wish too to send a message to one group within this House; that is, the hereditary Peers who take the Conservative Party Whip. My message is this: question your leadership. The Conservative leadership is sacrificing your interests by engineering a possible constitutional crisis in the coming year.
The gracious Speech confirmed what we all knew. The hereditary peerage is to end within this House and the European elections Bill will be reintroduced and, if necessary, the Parliament Act applied. I had not intended to dwell particularly on the issue of removing hereditary Peers. But it is worth bringing the House back down to earth and addressing some of the points raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, and the noble Lord, Lord Norton.
There are 1,200 Members of this place. It is the largest second chamber in the world. Once all the hereditary Peers have gone, there will be 500 Members of your Lordships' House and it will still be the largest second chamber in the world. On top of that, the life Peers are the ones making the vast part of the contributions to the debates in your Lordships' House. I have undertaken a study with the help of the Library. Apparently, 70 per cent, of the contributions are made by life Peers. There cannot be any real doubt therefore that during the transition period this House will function very much as it has done in the past.

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Another point worth making is that life Peers have been appointed by nine successive Prime Ministers. A Prime Minister would need to be in office an extremely long time to substantially change the political balance of life Peers. But the Prime Minister says that he does not wish to have a majority in this House. He has gone further; he says that he will set up a commission to appoint Cross-Bench Peers. No other Prime Minister has volunteered to reduce his influence in this House. On the contrary, as my noble friend pointed out in her speech, when the Opposition were in government, they increased their majority in this place.
There can be no doubt that the hereditary peerage will cease to exist within this House within this Parliament. The Government could not have been more plain about their intentions. The Bill has been announced and, on top of that, the Opposition Front Bench says it accepts that the Salisbury Convention applies to the measure. So hereditary Peers will lose their right to sit and vote.
In this context the European elections Bill is to be reintroduced this Session, and the Parliament Act may be applied. We have heard the arguments again and again on the merits of open lists versus closed lists. But whatever one's view, this cannot in any way be dressed up as one of the great constitutional issues of the last 50 years. No, it is a device, a ruse, engineered by the Conservative leadership to give it the potential to disrupt the Government's programme in the coming year. My plea, addressed to Tory hereditary Peers, is that they should play no part in this device as it undermines the traditions they have obeyed and under which they and their forebears have served in the House of Lords.
I wish to quote two noble Lords sitting on the Benches opposite. I hope they will agree that I am quoting them in context. The first quotation is from the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, who said last Wednesday after the Leader of the House announced that the European Parliamentary Elections Bill had been lost:
"We are aware of the limitations on the rights of this House … and I hope that we will behave accordingly when the Bill is reintroduced."—[Official Report, 18/11/98; col. 1361.]
That was, I believe, the instinctive reaction of the noble Viscount. It was the correct reaction. But now we are faced with potential behaviour from the Tory leadership which is very far from the traditions of this House. I wonder quite honestly how comfortable the noble Viscount is with this change in stance. The noble Viscount, Lord Torrington, commented in last month's debate on reform that as a hereditary Peer he volunteered to take the Conservative Party Whip. At the time I slightly teased him about that comment, but of course he was absolutely right because all hereditary peers who take the party Whip do so voluntarily, and I have to admit that the Conservative Peers I know jealously defend their independence within the Conservative Party.
So we have a Conservative hereditary peerage which instinctively understands the practical limitation of power in this House and which regards itself as volunteering its allegiance to the Conservative Party and overwhelmingly accepts that the end has come so far as their voting and speaking rights in this House are
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concerned. Is it right therefore that the Conservative leadership should ask its hereditary Peers to act petulantly on a puffed-up point of principle? Is it right that they should be asked to throw away their tradition of respect for the limitations of power within this House? Is it right that when hereditary Peers finally leave this House they will be remembered for the trouble they have caused rather than for the service they have given?
No, the way for hereditary Peers to leave this House is by respecting the traditions under which they have served in this House, by respecting the will of the elected Chamber and, above all, by demonstrating an independence from the Conservative Party.
4.3 p.m.
The Earl of Dunmore: My Lords, I crave the indulgence of this House for my maiden speech. As the twelfth Earl of Dunmore, I stand with pride and humility in this great institution among distinguished and influential Members—proud to be part of what I so admire and humble because I come from so far away, Tasmania, the jewel of Australia, to take my place among you.
Australians at this time are endeavouring to come to terms with the proposed reform of their constitution: whether to stay with the constitution as it was designed, a constitutional Monarchy, with the Crown as its linchpin, or become a republic and try to patch and fill the present constitution, or to write a new constitution designed specifically for the purpose of becoming a republic.
Earlier this year a constitutional convention was held with elected delegates from both sides of the debate. It has become clear that the preparation of a draft republic constitution for presentation to the Australian people in a referendum will not be straightforward. The implications of a republic on the Statute of Westminster, the Australia Act, and the separate constitutions of the Australian states will take much consideration and deliberation. It is my belief that Australia becoming a republic is not inevitable. A referendum might remove the Queen and replace the Governor-General with a President. But I remind the House that Australia is a commonwealth of states, all of them with their own constitutions, and all of them would have to be in agreement.
In the gracious Speech there are proposals to reform your Lordships' House. The first stage in this process will be the removal of people like me. It is not my place, as the holder of an ancient title dating from 1686, to question this. I pray that the new-look second Chamber will not lose the rich tradition and heritage that have made it such a respected place and one which has made a great contribution over the centuries.
I suspect that this may prove to be my first and also my last speech in your Lordships' House. My first visit from my home in Australia to the United Kingdom has been the experience of a lifetime, and it is an honour to have had the opportunity to speak in your Lordships' House.
4.5 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, it is a singular privilege as an expatriate Scot to follow the noble Earl, Lord Dunmore, a fellow expatriate, whose family left Scotland about three generations ago, and to congratulate him on his maiden speech. It was a memorable speech and his interest in constitutional affairs is of particular value coming from the Cross-Benches at this time. I should have looked forward to hearing the noble Earl speaking in the future, but I understood him to say that he might not be doing so. I am sad to hear that. It would have been nice to have had the privilege of hearing him again, particularly on the subsequent stages of the abolition Bill, in which the position of the Cross-Benches is of crucial importance.
In her speech the Leader of the House made no reference to the functions of this House as the guardian of the constitution and as affecting the conduct of proceedings. My noble friend Lord Cranborne adverted to order of conduct of proceedings on the abolition Bill and to some of the problems arising, together with the failure of the Government to clarify their position—a point most cogently made, if I may say so, by the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers. The Government Front Bench listened to my noble friend Lord Cranborne with deaf ears. Their attitude is dangerous to the constitution of the country, as my noble friend said.
With respect to my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, I fear that my speech will be rather short on intellectual rigour, but I shall do my best to entertain a constitutional discourse such as my noble friend might approve. In particular, I take two of his points: one is that the terms of reference of the Royal Commission should extend to envisage a new type of constitutional settlement as to the powers and functions of both Houses as well as to the composition of a new second Chamber. He also made the point that one cannot get to grips with the question of the composition of a second Chamber before the respective powers and functions of each House have been decided.
The function of your Lordships' House, as sole guardian of the constitution, is somewhat loosely defined so as to provide some measure of constitutional protection and safeguard, always subject to the grant of Royal Assent for any Bill under the Parliament Acts, to impose the will of another place. But there is no constitutional court or any other body competent to declare any provision in a Bill as unconstitutional, and assuredly your Lordships' House has no such competence. So the exercise of this function may be advisory where there is not a Bill before the House or it may also be to delay a Bill, but in either event in deference to the state of public opinion, as was the case on closed lists. That could well be the case on the stand alone stage one Bill to abolish the hereditary entitlement and then to set up a wholly nominated Chamber.
The broad nature of this guardianship function and the flexibility of an evolutionary constitution, afford fertile fields for conflict if no accommodation between the two Houses may be found. The legality of the function to delay—one has to distinguish between that
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and legitimacy—derives from the Parliament Acts. The legitimacy of the exercise of that function requires that it should afford time for the opinion of the nation to be expressed on a matter of fundamental constitutional consequence on which it is divided, or it should reflect the view of the vast majority of people, as already expressed. It was said yesterday on Radio 4 that the priority of this Government, this self-styled "people's party", was not the wishes of the people, but the priority of the party.
As regards the closed lists, it was legitimate to insist; but whether it was wise to do so, contrary to the conventions and the working relationships which had evolved between the two Houses, is a matter for the judgment of others. I simply say that the superb speech of the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, all but persuaded me to abstain. In the opinion of the majority of your Lordships it was a wholly exceptional situation in which there was compelling justification for insistence. A basic tenet of the constitution, as expounded by Burke, was to be eroded to the point of deprivation at the behest of the Government with an overwhelming majority in another place. It was a deprivation which fostered resistance to what appeared to be the obdurate, overt, unconstitutional abuse of power at No. 10.
As a somewhat independent Conservative who does not always follow the Whip, I entered the Lobby to mark a personal protest against the abuse of power. There was no electoral advantage to my party in the MEP elections. That protest was echoed by an honourable Member of another place, the Member for Wrexham, who is also a somewhat independent Member.
When that Bill returns the view could well be taken that your Lordships' House had already sought to discharge its guardianship function to the best of its ability, but to no avail, and that further protest is sterile.
As to the stage one abolition Bill, the main principle of abolition is accepted. The speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and others, in dealing with that point, are wide of the mark. The principle of abolition is accepted save as to delayed enactment in accordance with the wishes of the people. An amendment which reflects such wishes shall either be tabled or supported. It would not be a wrecking amendment contrary to the Salisbury Convention. The question of rejection does not arise as the main purpose of the manifesto commitment and the main principle of the Bill are accepted.
An amendment will propose that before enactment the substance of the reform shall be known, the report of the Royal Commission on all the proposals for reform shall have been debated in both Houses and that options for reform shall have been put to the people in a properly conducted referendum. As my noble friend Lord Cranborne said, according to the poll released on 18th November, 68 per cent, favoured delayed enactment until all the details of reform had been decided. But what my noble friend did not point out was that, of that category, the largest section comprised first-time voters aged between 18 to 24 years. They

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voted 73 per cent., which is about three to one, against the Government's proposals and whose priorities are not the wishes of the people. It is a dangerous situation.
In the MORI poll released on 2nd November there was a clear majority against a proposal to set up a wholly nominated Chamber. About 50 per cent, of those polled were in favour of some form of elected second Chamber. Again, those are the wishes of the people. As an octogenarian life Peer there will be no sustainable interest for me to declare in this affair as nominations will be subject to an age limit and to an appropriate degree of political correctness, which, in my particular instance, would inevitably be found wanting. Those nominated would have to be certified as fit to sit and vote in a Chamber subservient to party apparatchiks. The House of Lords would cease to exist.
But pending abolition, whenever that might be—it could take a little time for the details of reform to be decided and for the processes of your Lordships' House to be undertaken—the hope must be (it is assuredly my hope) that amity between the two Houses may be re-established; that the usual working relationships may be restored; that there may be some accommodation on the closed lists and on amendments to delay enactment of the abolition Bill for such time, and no more, as reflects the wishes of the people. The Bill will have the fundamental constitutional consequence of affecting the workings of Parliament.
The main questions are whether all options for reform will be referred to the Royal Commission or whether only those acceptable to the Government will be referred; whether the reference will be made before or after the abolition Bill, where there is a clear issue; how the ethos of independence will be preserved; what is to happen to the Cross Benches; will there be a referendum and, if so, will it be conducted under proper rules; how is it to be ensured that no party in your Lordships' House ever has a majority; who is to nominate and renominate; what are to be the criteria.
My noble friend Lord Cranborne referred to "this modernising". I think that the noble Baroness, the Leader of the House, used the word "legitimise" in some context the other day. The noble Baroness shakes her head. Perhaps it was a report in the paper of what she said. If she did not say it, I withdraw my remark. But, whether it is called "modernise" or "legitimise", one wants to know whether, in this process of curbing the powers and functions of the second Chamber, any provision for the guardianship of the constitution will be made.
It is not understood how, pending the enactment of the essence—in whatever form it may be cast—there should be interim disruption of the entitlements, not only of the hereditary Peers but of people like myself: life Peers who have a Patent. We have an expectation of receiving a Writ of Summons to attend for life and that, as I understand it, is to be removed. I accept with good grace that it should be removed at some time. I have accepted with good grace, I hope, that the hereditary peerage should be abolished. But what I will not accept, and will continue to fight, is that we should not know and approve of the substance of what is proposed by way of reform before we all go on our way.
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The enactment of the proposed abolition Bill before all details of reform have been decided would lack the authority of broad electoral consent, an authority which is ever subservient to the pretended authority to govern by manifesto. There is widespread anxiety as to the prospects of resolution—let us not pretend that there is not—and as to orderly transition and the preservation of the ethos of independence. Would not imposition in such circumstances evince an order of hubris which could well displease the gods and augur ill omens of utter disaster?
4.24 p.m.
The Marquess of Bath: My Lords, I express my delight that the Government, by turning their attention to the formation of development agencies for the English regions, are about to create an identity for these English regions which will gradually bring them into direct comparison with the territories of Scotland and Wales. I regard this as a real start towards the conception of a "United Regions of Britain", which we might regard as a precursor to an eventual "United Regions of Europe", if not for the world as a whole.
I hope that the Government will be careful at this juncture to get the size of these regions appropriate to the broader purpose of defining the map of Britain, so that it serves as an inspiration to the rest of Europe concerning the workings of a truly democratic spirit within the Continent as a whole, for we should envisage that the ideal of one man, one vote, will follow along this path of political evolution to become one region, one vote, for which reason I must stress the importance of getting the boundaries of each region drawn from the very start so that territories of equal gravity are conceived. I am here speaking of an approximation of that equal size in terms of each regional population.
This is really a plea that the Government do not introduce the idea of these regions being too small for such purposes. To speak in terms of a single example, there is much danger that the concept of Wessex could be broken down into a series of smaller regions which certainly have an identity of their own but which would be too small to furnish the gravity for any future political development of a "United Regions of Europe". Despite the fact that western Wessex does not identify closely with eastern Wessex—let alone with northern Wessex—I am concerned that the boundaries of each of the regions should be drawn wider than one might initially conceive of them.
This is not to say that any portion of a region should be coerced into union with another portion. There are bound to be areas which look in two or more different directions concerning where their future cultural identity should lie. Far from advocating that any decisions in such matters should be taken behind their backs, I would ask that such matters be decided by holding local referenda, with local debate on the subject initiated as quickly as possible.
It is most important that the principle of consent should prevail in the creation of these regions. It would be on a point of principle that Cornwall should never be told that it has to join with Wessex, unless Cornishmen

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proclaim that this is their wish. I think I can say that it would not be, unless the region as a whole were to be called "Wessex and Cornwall". I speak here as someone who is half-Cornish. I envisage that there would be much 11th-hour negotiation between neighbouring counties to determine where the boundaries were to be drawn between any of our English regions.
In order that the Government should not end up with a proliferation of regions that are too small to have appropriate significance for these purposes, I might suggest that they should start with a clear idea of where the regional heartlands might be situated, and then add to or subtract from these in accordance with the response from the territories concerned. I am hopeful that by this process the number of regions thus emerging on the new map of England might be just nine. I mentioned those regions in the debate on the gracious Speech at the start of the previous Session so I shall refrain from repeating myself today.
I am urging the Government to give the new development agencies as much gravity as they deem possible both in terms of their geographical size and in terms of the functions that they might perform. There could be encouragement, for example, that they liaise not only with the development agencies for the other English regions but also with their counterparts in Europe so that the regional approach to government might more easily come into focus.
One of the most important of all the functions for these agencies to perform might be in overseeing the touristic image of their region, inspiring the tourist boards that already exist to present their territory as somewhere most attractive to visit, while co-ordinating such activities to maximise the effect so that tourists find it easy to perceive the overall character of the region. Perhaps the boards should be amalgamated within any one region so that a conscious effort can be made for them to be promoting the same unified concept, with all the emotional appeal that this involves, thus engendering a desire in the hearts of their tourists to return there frequently. For it is through tourism that all regions will discover their identity—because of their efforts to promote it in co-operation with all other regions for reasons of pride as well as for financial gain.
I am hopeful that once the development agencies have been established here in England the Government will consider incorporating the delegates that are elected by them and by the county councils of their region as life Peers within your Lordships' House, perhaps to constitute 50 per cent, of the total of life Peers, for that would truly transform the whole nature of government in this country, and perhaps in Europe too, on regional lines, with the ultimate goal of a "United Regions of Europe" emerging not far down that road.
4.32 p.m.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, when I first read the list of speakers, I imagined for one dreadful moment that the "M" against Bath stood for "maiden" and I contemplated having to say a good many polite things about the speech made by the noble Marquess. Well, I
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am freed of that obligation, but I will say something polite about his speech. I think that he put over his case with considerable eloquence but I do not agree with him. I am against regional government simply because I believe it would be a move towards a federal Europe of the regions, which is something I fear. Perhaps I may be allowed to return to that point in a few moments.
The gracious Speech is unusual in that it harks back to last year's legislative programme and reminds us of next year's fall-out from it. I refer in particular to elections to the Scottish Parliament. What, of course, the speech does not mention is that those elections may herald the break-up of the United Kingdom. If the worst does not happen, which will be no thanks to the Government, we shall still see relations between the English and the Scots embittered, with the Scots blaming every badly run hospital on inadequate funds from London and the English railing at the unfairness of Scottish MPs interfering in English affairs when English MPs have no right to have their say about the affairs of Scotland.
Scottish devolution, whatever it does, means a diminished role for this Parliament. But I have to say that it is not just by legislation that the Prime Minister is contributing to a decline in the authority of Parliament. He is doing so by his reluctance to turn up in the other place, voting, for instance, only seven times in the first year of this government; by his resentment at being questioned and having to take part in what he insultingly refers to as a bun fight; by his habit of announcing government policy to the media rather than to the House; and by—this has been referred to already—the disdain and contempt with which he often treats his own Back-Benchers, imposing on them a grotesque discipline designed to prevent them from carrying out effectively their constitutional role as watchdogs for the public against an over-mighty Executive. Throughout, the Prime Minister presents himself indeed as someone who finds Parliament a bit of an irritating nuisance. Therefore, I found particularly surprising this afternoon the observation by the Leader of the House that the Government plan to modernise Parliament. Well, usually modernisers have an interest in the institutions which they wish to modernise, whereas this Prime Minister has shown scant interest in the important role that Parliament—the whole of Parliament—plays in our affairs.
For obvious reasons, the gracious Speech is silent about last week's debacle over the European Parliamentary Elections Bill. I say "for obvious reasons" because presumably the Speech had gone to the printers and those were last minute events. It is silent also about where the Government have got to in their rather tortuous negotiations with the Liberal Democrats regarding proportional representation for Westminster. But there can be little doubt in my mind that changes in the electoral system for England and Scotland and the planned changes for election to the European Parliament make far more real the threat of a change to proportional representation for the House of Commons, a change which would open the way to unstable coalitions and give the Liberal Democrat Party what it has coveted— power out of all proportion to its electoral strength,

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power to the party with the least votes to decide which of the major parties should govern. A move to proportional representation would indeed be an act of constitutional vandalism. But the gracious Speech tells us nothing of the Government's intentions as to whether there is going to be a referendum, and, if so, when.
It is against this background that the proposals for further changes in our constitutional arrangements should be viewed, and we should constantly be reminding ourselves that for centuries now Britain, alone among the countries of Europe, has enjoyed stability and security and escaped tyranny; and we have enjoyed it not least because of the strength of our constitution—the institutions, laws and traditions which bind us together as a nation. In my submission, he who tampers with these institutions, which have stood us in such good stead, does so at his peril; and he should certainly tell the public plainly where he hopes he will finish up and where we will all finish up.
In the case of Scotland, Mr. Blair does not look like a man with a plan. He looks like a man in a panic. And when one comes to the European Union, about which I should now like to say a word, I think he does know what he is up to but has been very careful to conceal his ambitions from the public. I think—and here I come to what was said by the noble Marquess, Lord Bath—that a clue to his intentions can be found in his plans for regional government. I do not think anyone believes that the Regional Development Agencies Act does not pave the way for regional government.
The regions in the Regional Development Agencies Act are, of course, quite absurd. The north-west region, for instance, which lumps Carlisle in with Merseyside is not a political or economic entity or an area to which local people feel any loyalty at all. There is no community of interest whatsoever between the farmers on the banks of the Solway on the one hand and those who live in Merseyside on the other. These regions are artificial creations which make little sense except as pieces of the country large enough to make possible a system of proportional representation. However, it is an open secret that these areas would be the framework for a federal Europe of the regions if one were to come about. From the moment regional government is set up in this country, the authority of Parliament would be further grievously weakened as Brussels establishes direct links with the regions and the regions look directly to Brussels for subsidies.
But far more important than this issue when one is talking about the constitution is the issue of the single currency which has not yet been mentioned at all this afternoon. The gracious Speech is silent on the subject and, in my view, the Government have been busy spreading misinformation about this issue ever since they attained office. The Prime Minister vies with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the one trying to shout louder than the other, that whether we join the euro or not is purely an economic matter, a question of whether it is good for business, good for trade, good for our pockets. But that is stuff and nonsense. There is not a single independent democratic country in the world which does not have its own currency. Whether we join the euro—it may be right or it may be wrong and I
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personally think it is wrong—will be one of the biggest political decisions we shall ever make. I am quite sure that Mr. Blair and Mr. Brown know that.
A few months ago—well before the Left's victory in Germany—a senior official in the Foreign Office, to whom I was complaining that the Foreign Office's obsession with Europe and the commitment of so much effort in that direction had gravely weakened our influence in the rest of the world, told me in all seriousness that with the arrival of the single currency the high water mark in moves towards a federal Europe would be reached. We had to sign up to the agenda or be left out in the cold, he said; but we need not worry, he continued, because the tide was nearly on the turn and there would be no more progress towards supra-nationality. In my experience the Foreign Office has not usually been right about the European Union and the intentions of our partners. The House will not be surprised to hear that back in April, not last month, the "mandarin" in question had scarcely finished his final sentence before almost every European leader was telling the world's press that the single currency was going to be a further massive step towards political union and must be followed by co-ordination of budgetary and economic policy.
In view of that it was not with amazement but weary resignation that I read over the weekend of how the Chancellor of the Exchequer, while telling the British people that he was wholly against tax harmonisation, had signed up to a document drafted by his own adviser, the aptly named Ed Balls, The New European Way, in which he and other socialist Finance Ministers pledged themselves to a greater role for the European Union in economic matters, including "closer tax co-ordination". If that is not tax harmonisation, I am a Dutchman. It is as sure as night follows day that the Chancellor's robust remarks—his expressed intention to fight tax harmonisation—will be followed by another abject surrender when the other member states follow their usual tactics and threaten to go ahead without us if we will not go along with them.
Many of the most disastrous decisions of recent years have been made after inane cries from the media, opinion formers and pundits that Britain once again risked being out of step with Europe, and that she could not afford not to sign up to whatever new initiative was being proposed, however inimical it might be to Britain's interest. She could not afford to be the odd man out. I see that the Guardian newspaper was at it again yesterday. It stated:
"Britain blocks tax harmonisation. Chancellor risks further isolation within Europe".
In one respect we really are out of step in the sense of being the only member of the European Union whose government affect not to be able to see what is staring everyone else in the face; namely, that tax harmonisation is an inevitable consequence of the single currency and the single currency is a milestone on the road to political union.
Against those terrible dangers and the threat to sovereignty posed by developments in Europe, the Government's threats to change the composition of this House look pretty small beer. However, it is an

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important matter. It is another dangerous development and one that in my belief highlights some of the dictatorial tendencies of this Government.
After the defeat of the Government on the European elections Bill, Downing Street announced that what had happened made an overwhelming case for reform of the Lords, and that the hereditary Peers, without whose votes the Bill would not have been lost, were an affront to democracy. If the hereditary Peers do not have much to do with democracy, neither has the Bill we are discussing. It is not designed to make the House more democratic and representative, to quote the Labour manifesto. It is not a Bill to create a second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of an hereditary basis, to quote the preamble of the 1911 Act. It is a Bill to create a House no more democratic than the present one but rather more easily capable of being manipulated by the government of the day. The time that has elapsed since the 1911 Act, with its bold preamble, is proof enough that if the Bill abolishing the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote is enacted without any provision being added to implement the second part of Labour's manifesto commitment, there will never be proper reform and we shall be stuck with a nominated Chamber for the foreseeable future, if not for ever.
There may be some who think that a wholly nominated Chamber—free of the inhibitions this House has simply because of the hereditary element—will show considerable spirit and independence of mind. All I can say is that it is certainly not the Government's intention that that should happen, judging by their comments last week—repeated by the noble Baroness this afternoon—when they made great play of the fact that if the hereditary Peers had not voted they would not have lost the European elections Bill.
I stress that as it is virtually impossible to find anyone, except those sitting on the Liberal Benches, who thinks the Government were right on the issue of closed lists. What the Government are saying is that the life Peers—the undemocratic life Peers—would on their own, without the votes of the hereditary Peers, have ensured the passage of a bad and wholly undemocratic measure. There we have it. The Government expect to get a second Chamber which would not even delay a measure which is as manifestly wrong as the European elections Bill, and is seen to be manifestly wrong by almost every newspaper in this country and by every informed person. They intend to get rid of a House which, for all its obvious imperfections, can within the limits of the Parliament Act check the Government and to substitute for it a Chamber which they believe will not. That is really what we are talking about.
If I have got it wrong, if that is not what the Government want, why do they not bring forward proposals for long-term reform? What would be lost if a Bill were introduced after the Royal Commission had reported—a Bill which took away the rights of hereditary Peers as part of a comprehensive reform designed to make the House more democratic and representative? There can be only one explanation: the Government would prefer a wholly nominated House because it would be less likely to challenge their actions.
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In the absence of a written constitution, amendable only by special procedures, there are few safeguards in Britain against a government supported by a hefty but perhaps very temporary majority in the House of Commons destroying our most precious institutions, including the Monarchy itself—institutions which have grown up over the centuries and which most people recognise are not the playthings of politicians to be tampered with at the whim of a temporary majority in the Commons, but are held in trust for our children and our children's children.
It is difficult to see how we can safeguard ourselves against the exercise of arbitrary power without a second Chamber genuinely independent of the government of the day—and it is surely our job to try to see that brought about.
The battle shortly to be joined will not, therefore, be a battle between the Lords on the one hand and the people on the other; it will be a battle between an arrogant Administration, which resents any check on its ambitions, and a growing number of people throughout the country who can see that a House of placemen would be a poor guardian of our freedoms.
4.52 p.m.
Lord Judd: My Lords, like others who have spoken, I believe that the Government are to be congratulated on the Queen's Speech. As my noble friend the Leader of the House said, it sets a challenging pace in the continued modernisation of the United Kingdom. I, for one, trust that the Government will never allow themselves to become defensive or apologetic about their constitutional commitments. These are not just institutional adjustments; they express the kind of society we aspire to be. In so far as those commitments affect this House, I hope that the Royal Commission will be able to go back to first principles and start by examining the case for a second Chamber amid all the other changes envisaged. If it concludes that there is, indeed, a case for one, I hope that it will then take a clean sheet of paper and set out what it believes is needed rather than limit itself to the concept of reform of the House of Lords as presently constituted.
There could be something paradoxical about a reforming government basing their plans for the future on the evolution of an institution rooted in what we are about to eliminate: the political power of the traditional peerage. There is a real opportunity to break free from the culture of privilege and social status. Terminology and style are important if that is to be achieved. At the same time it will, I suggest, be a missed opportunity if what emerges remains the preserve of the increasingly self-contained political community. It should make sense in terms of the real drive, flair and dynamism of the United Kingdom in the century ahead.
I hope that I will be forgiven if I take the opportunity of this strategic debate to reflect on some of the wider issues. The first reality of existence, let alone of politics, is the global interdependence of humanity. This is true of culture, finance, trade, environment, migration, climate change, global warming, drugs, crime, terrorism, security and much else besides. The overriding

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responsibility of relevant political leadership is to recognise this and to make a success of it. In that context it may well be that the time has come to end the tradition of a separate foreign service and home service in our Civil Service. Those who resist the challenges of globalisation will be seen in history as having betrayed their children and grandchildren. If enlightenment is to prevail, we inevitably have to play our part constructively and co-operatively in developing and strengthening relevant international institutions. We protect the interests of the British people by putting those interests together with the interests of humanity as a whole.
This is already happening in, among other places, the European Union, the World Trade Organisation, G7, OECD, environmental conferences, NATO, OSCE, the World Bank, IMF and the UN itself. More and more key decisions and policies are being made and formulated in those spheres. What have not kept pace are our methods of scrutiny and accountability. As we reform our political institutions in the United Kingdom in the cause of a healthy democracy, this issue simply has to be addressed. How do we keep the international deliberations accountable—and felt to be accountable— to the people on whose behalf they are theoretically being undertaken? Perhaps whatever replaces our House as we know it could have a key part to play. As it is, significant changes may currently be happening with very little analysis in our representative political institutions.
Perhaps I may take just one example: in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq, what is the de facto constitutional transfer of political—not just operational—mandate from the United Nations to NATO and what are its long-term implications? International co-operation always involves some pooling of sovereignty. This has openly and consciously happened in our membership of the United Nations; but what is happening now? Are we now settling for pax Americana?
As the globalisation takes hold, there is for many an increasing sense of helplessness. To compensate, there is a search for identity which can take sinister forms: racism, religious militancy and nationalism. The frustration and uncertainty can become a fertile breeding ground for what have been described as the ethnic entrepreneurs. It therefore becomes essential to develop a political culture which does not deny identity, but which recognises it and leads on to self-confident co-operation based upon it. I hope that, as part of the millennium, we will give pride of place to the celebration of ethnic and cultural diversity within the United Kingdom and to the excitement of having become a multi-cultural society. For me, the joy of creation is precisely that diversity.
It is for those reasons that I believe what the Government are doing on Ireland, Scotland and Wales— indeed arguably on regionalism as well—is to be applauded. For those concerned with conflict prevention, proactive diplomacy and reconciliation, what the Government are introducing through devolution and decentralisation could well represent exactly the kind of policies the absence of which we
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have lamented as we have faced the nightmares of the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia and too many other parts of the world as well.
In our concern for democracy we must not be simplistic. It is about far more than institutional arrangements and processes alone. At its best, it is based upon a complex dynamic which involves strong leadership and muscular accountability. It requires representative institutions, but it also requires pluralism, which is not always the same thing. If thriving civil society is the best guarantee of democracy, part of that civil society will involve representational strength, but part will involve the quality of ideas and originality. Part, of course, will involve a mixture of the two. What it all involves is the self-confidence and strength to challenge: a self-confidence and strength which is found when people are able to come together and work on their own ideas and priorities against the background of their own engagement and experience. It is a positive, not passive, concept of society. Alternative centres of deliberation and checks and balances are indispensable to sustain democracy.
That must apply to our political parties themselves. That is, of course, the undeniable underlying agenda in our deliberations on proportional representation and open or closed lists. I think it is altogether sensible and honourable for a political party to say: these are our policies and these are the people we put to you as committed to their implementation. What matters in a democratic society is the open nature of the political parties themselves and the genuine arrangements for their members to play a full and positive part in determining the policies and deciding who should fight for them. It is to that that we should all give maximum priority.
Of course, for good, highly motivated people, democracy can be frustrating. They see the quagmires of self-indulgence and delay. They yearn for effectiveness, efficiency, expeditious decision-making. The trouble is that, without a system of meaningful accountability and positive engagement, people as a whole become diminished and the dangers of self-destruction in government abound. Perhaps the most disturbing trend of all in recent decades has been the tendency to confuse consumerism with citizenship—sometimes, I fear, a deliberate tendency. Pace Decartes, "I shop, therefore I am". Citizenship and its responsibilities is not a matter of consumer politics. Democracy is, surely, above all about empowerment, fulfilment and the dignity of all.
Before I conclude, there are three other matters which seem to me to be essential for thriving democracy. One is the quality of the information on which it operates. Open government and access to information are indeed essential. A freedom of information Act is not just an addition to the cause of revitalising democracy; it is central to it. Similarly the media provide the lifeblood of democracy and it is not enough to leave it to laissez faire competition alone. That, frankly, is in effect naive as the self-generating downward thrust in standards takes over. There has to be a positive approach to sustaining pluralism.

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Another matter is law. If globalisation is the new reality, law is no exception. The international dimensions of law, not least on human rights and war crimes, become vital. But they must be accessible to all, not just to the wealthy and the powerful, be they individuals or nations. Universality and consistency of application will be the criteria by which history judges them.
Above all, there is education. We need to be certain that our educational system is about producing creative, inquiring, critical and confident citizens, able to come to terms with the world and age in which they live and able to take on the very considerable responsibilities of active citizenship in a highly complex democracy.
The Government are, I believe, to be commended for their refusal to take democracy for granted and for their determination to regenerate and nurture it. It seems to me that specific legislation will always be the better for being approached in the context of a wider vision of what democracy is all about.
5.3 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, in preparing for this debate—and I am at that moment when I am completely certain that my preparation is hopelessly inadequate—I found myself considering our present situation in two metaphors. I hope that by the time I have finished I shall have neither mixed them nor fallen between them.
The first is to consider the British constitutional settlement as if it were a heavily laden goods wagon on a railway track but with no engine. Successive teams of men in the form of various governments have for a very long time been struggling to sweat that wagon across a very long plateau. Now at last, with a shout of triumph—if I understood the noise behind us as we listened to the gracious Speech yesterday—they have shoved the wagon over the brow of the hill and it is on the down slope, although, of course, that picture is already out of date. The wagon began to roll with the programme of constitutional change and the devolution Bills in the previous Session. It already has considerable momentum. The hill will extend much further than the Government either wish or expect, and the wagon has no brakes.
Into this flurry of piecemeal change that must affect the whole of Parliament and the way we work together, the Government have thrown a mouse. And in the name of democracy, an idea they appear to resist in many ways, they declare a victory for democracy, for changing the membership rules. Really, my Lords! In relation to all the problems we face, that is what they have come up with. I am sorry.
The British constitution and government practice have evolved over centuries. Two events are of major significance and relevance today. The first took place in 1715 when George I came to the throne. Because he spoke no English, he chose an eminent parliamentarian to be his Prime Minister and chief executive. That was Sir Robert Walpole, who then picked from among his friends in the House of Commons other Ministers. In that way we firmly ensconced the executive within the
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legislature—only just after Montesquieu had propounded the ideal of separating the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. It is a strange coincidence.
The next event to which I wish to refer brings us rather closer to the present, by almost 200 years. At the end of the last century—unsurprisingly since we still have the problem—we were having difficulties with Ireland. But in those days there were Irish Members of Parliament in the other place. They decided that the issue of Irish independence was of such significance that they would disrupt the business of government—which they did, extremely successfully.
As a result, standing orders in the other place were changed to guarantee that the government could get their business through. Those two events have created what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, has called an "elective dictatorship". Patronage ensures that the system works to the advantage of political leaders. That applies equally to governments and opposition parties, and not necessarily any more to the advantage of the British people at large.
Parliamentary reform is part of constitutional reform and needs to be considered in the round, not piecemeal. I refer particularly to the Scotland Bill, passed in the previous Session, but also to the Northern Ireland Bill and the Wales Bill. All those Bills have created different classes of Member for the other place. But the Scotland Bill is unquestionably the most significant because for Scottish MPs 50 per cent, of their function will now be removed. So we have 78 Scottish MPs with half a job. Will they have half a salary? I do not suppose that it will be suggested. Alternatively, as I suspect is more likely, will they simply duplicate the work done by members of the Scottish Parliament in order to justify their existence down here?
Of course, there is discussion of reducing that number. Scotland, because of its geographic problems, is overweight, so to speak, in terms of constituency size and it has more MPs than might otherwise be justified. There is talk of reducing the number to 58 or 59 so that the Scottish constituencies match the English constituencies. But they will still only have half a job. Perhaps 30 would be a more reasonable number, but I have never heard anyone suggest that, at least no one in a position of some authority and responsibility. The whole question is being treated as a matter of party convenience, perhaps with electoral considerations in the background.
Whatever we might do to Members of the other place numerically in relation to their coming here, it is no answer in any event to the West Lothian question. Nor is any proposal for regionalism in England an answer to the West Lothian question. What happens if one makes the pessimistic assumption and the Government win the next general election but with a much reduced majority? The Government may become reliant on what may well be a rump of Scottish Members of the other place in order to pass English legislation. The English will wake up. The Secretary of State for Scotland cannot say, as he did in a lecture only a week ago, that an English parliament is a danger because it might raise feelings of

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nationalism when he has just brought such a body into being in Scotland and done just that. There is a wonderful inconsistency there.
My second metaphor is that of a safari photographer. Many of us have done it; I certainly have. We go out to collect trophies for our album. In this case, the photographer has seen a particularly picturesque and attractive animal to put in his album, one that is absolutely safe so long as he does not get within kicking range—the zebra. In order to improve the picture, he steps away from the Landrover that has taken him out into the forest and forgets the possibility of the lion in the long grass behind him; he has come between the lion and its prey. It happens to be a horrible fact that almost every year someone's life is lost in that way.
The truth is that the whole of Parliament is ripe for reform. I follow the right Reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol in saying that an English settlement is necessary. I take the view that it is necessary to have that in order to hold the United Kingdom together. In that situation a Royal Commission to consider the future of the House of Lords is hopelessly inadequate. It happens to be my view that a wholly appointed House is becoming completely unsustainable. It will be, and it will have to change rapidly. I also take the view that a partly appointed House and a partly elected House will equally be unsustainable in the long term. Whether we like it or not at this stage a wholly elected second chamber might perhaps be the bottom of the hill where we arrive at some point of stability once again. I do not accept the mantra so often proposed that the other place would never accept such a solution. The other place is itself ripe for reform and will become involved in a much more general and wider operation than has been considered until this time.
It is not a question of what Members of the other place want. In the end, it is a question of what the people of Britain at large want and will accept. I have tried to apply the intellectual rigour in my suggestions that the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, asked for. The lion is waking up and the Government need to be very wary lest they are caught.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, it is a wise lawyer who desists from criticising suggestions to be found in a written document until he sees the document itself. Very occasionally I have made mild, respectful and somewhat hesitant criticisms of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary. Both Ministers have stressed that they listen and, as a result of listening, learn and, as a result of learning, occasionally change tack. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor did so in regard to an amendment which I raised to the Human Rights Bill. I duly thanked him.
I do not therefore know whether the strong judicial criticisms, made in written responses to the paper by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, The Way ahead, will have had any effect when one sees whichever Bill will reflect what his views are. I do not
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know whether the powerful speech by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Steyn, accusing him of a serious breach of the doctrine of the separation of powers—a copy of which is to be found in your Lordships' Library—will have had any effect. I therefore desist from addressing any criticisms on that subject until I see what is in the documents.
In the same way, I make no observation at this stage on what is proposed to be done about vulnerable witnesses until I see whether the Home Secretary has paid any regard to the observations made by the former Lord Chief Justice, my noble and learned friend Lord Lane, or my noble and learned friend the former Chief Justice of Northern Ireland Lord Lowry now sitting next to me, or what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice himself said in a case in which he expressed his view on the desirability of the judge and the judge alone dealing with the problems of the difficult defendant in person.
I do not know whether the Home Secretary will at last, after about 30 years, do something about the Butler Committee's suggestion of reviewable sentences so that the public may be protected from persons who would otherwise be released at the conclusion of a determinative period which they have served. I only hope that something will be done. I do not know whether my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor will pay any attention to the very serious misgivings voiced by the Bar Council and in a recent speech by the Lord Chief Justice about the suggestion that legal aid should not be available in money claims and should be replaced by the conditional fee system.
In those circumstances I turn my attention to the constitutional issue. In regard to legislation, a great proportion of which will be highly controversial, it is important to place on record exactly what are the powers of Peers. I say that because some odd observations were made on 17th November when the Commons amendments were considered by your Lordships' House. It was observed by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that those who continued to insist on their amendment were "committing a constitutional outrage." The noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, said in terms at col. 1143 that the Opposition and anyone else who was minded to vote with them had no right so to do. He even suggested that they knew that they had no such right. When the Minister replied he commended what the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, had said. He said in terms that he could do no better than repeat what his noble friend Lord Callaghan had said. He went on to say, somewhat tautologously, that it was now becoming a wholly improper abuse of power. It sounds as if one can have a proper abuse of power.
My mind was taken back to the debates in your Lordships' House on the War Crimes Bill. At that time this House was robust enough on two occasions to deny a Second Reading to a Bill that had been supported by an enormous majority in the other place. True enough

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there were free votes but that does not change the principle. My noble and learned friend Lord Shawcross referred to the differences, if any, that existed between the first and second occasions on which the question of whether there should be a Second Reading was considered:
"The only difference is that the Bill now comes to us for the second time with an indication—I will not say a threat—that the Parliament Act will be used to pass it into law if we repeat our rejection of it. That seems to me to present no kind of constitutional problem and no problem of principle. There is one restriction on the right of this House to disagree and veto measures that have come down from another place and that is not by law but by convention. That is known as the Salisbury-Addison convention. Nobody has suggested that that convention has the slightest application to this case … If that is so, by implication it follows that it is our duty and constitutional right to express our own independent view. That is the right and duty which is left to this House under the Parliament Act. We should exercise it for the public expects us to discharge it by taking an independent view of those measures that come down to us from another place and to say exactly what we think about them. There is nothing to suggest in this case that if we did so on this Bill we should be doing anything to thwart the views of the electorate as a whole. But even if that were so, and even if there were the slightest evidence that the electorate as a whole is in favour of this Bill, it would still be our duty to vote against it if we believe that it is wrong".—[Official Report, 30/4/91; col. 642.]
My noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham put it a little shorter at col. 637:
"There cannot be a constitutional issue for this House. Since the Parliament Acts have been passed it must surely be the duty of this House to vote in accordance with its conscience. Not to vote in accordance with its conscience just because other people with greater legal powers than ourselves take a different view would be to vote against our conscience, which is the voice of God, in order to please man".
I refer to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, in the earlier debate:
"We should be quite clear in our own minds that there is no question that it is competent for the House to take this step. If the reasoned amendment of my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway were to be accepted and the House declined to give the Bill a Second Reading for the reasons stated in the amendment, it would be open to the Government to re-introduce the Bill in the next session of Parliament. They could then secure its enactment under the Parliament Acts, despite the opposition of the House of Lords, provided that a majority of Members in the other place still supported the Bill on its second introduction".
I stress the following passage:
"A mechanism therefore exists to ensure that where a clash occurs between the two Houses of Parliament, the will of the elected House will prevail, although there will be some delay in the legislative process. Beyond that point, we are in the realm of convention and of political judgment".—[Official Report, 4/6/90; col. 1131.]
This makes it perfectly clear that the submission of the noble Lord, Lord Shore, on the final consideration of the amendments was totally correct. I hope that in future it will be accepted that the obligation upon Peers in this House, altered, amended or otherwise, is to vote in accordance with their conscience. They have a perfect right, indeed a duty, to do so. I believe that I have quoted all that is required, and accordingly I rest my case.

Agriculture Council: Outcome
5.30 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Donoughue): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement on the outcome of the European Union Agriculture Council held on 23rd and 24th November at which the United Kingdom was represented by my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. My noble friend Lord Sewel, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Scottish Office, was also present. The Statement, which was made earlier in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, is as follows:
"The Council voted on a proposal made by the Commission for the lifting of the worldwide ban on the export of British beef in respect of meat from animals born after 1st August 1996. Ten member states voted in favour of the measure; only one, Germany—for understandable domestic reasons— voted against. Spain, France, Austria and Luxembourg abstained. This vote represented a substantial move towards the Commission proposal by five member states from the earlier vote in the Standing Veterinary Committee. Most importantly, the procedures under which the vote was taken in Council enable the Commission formally to adopt the decision.
"I can now announce to the House that within the last three hours the Commission has adopted the proposal, which permits the export from the United Kingdom of boneless beef and beef products from animals slaughtered between six and 30 months of age and born after 1st August 1996. That is the date on which the Commission has verified that all contaminated feed was removed from the feed chain. There are further conditions which aim to prevent the offspring of BSE cases from entering the export scheme; a requirement for the slaughter of offspring of BSE cases; and strict rules on slaughtering and processing. The Government will shortly issue a consultation paper on our proposals for implementing these rules. I shall be laying before Parliament secondary legislation which will make the offspring cull, which has been operating since July on a voluntary basis, compulsory. The legislation will provide compensation at the market rate to owners of animals slaughtered.
"This is an excellent outcome which I am sure the House will welcome. It has been achieved against a background of scepticism about the seriousness with which we have tackled BSE. We have now overcome these misconceptions and had our case judged objectively on its scientific merits and supported by independent Commission inspections, taking as our over-riding principle the absolute need to safeguard public health.
"Every agriculture Minister who spoke in the Council, including those who did not vote in favour, had very positive things to say about the commitment

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shown by the new United Kingdom Government to tackling the problems presented by BSE. The outcome is also an affirmation of the value of this Government's close co-operation and dialogue with our partners in Europe and with the European Commission.
"The lifting of the ban comes hard on the heels of the support measures for the agriculture sector which I announced to the House on 16th November. Both demonstrate the Government's commitment to securing a viable long term future for the sector.
"The Council also held a discussion of the Commission's proposals for CAP reform in the context of the Agenda 2000 measures. These proposals are essential for the future stability of European agriculture and in order to facilitate a successful enlargement of the Union to the east. The Council agreed a report to the Vienna European Council next month identifying the main outstanding issues and expressing its determination to reach conclusions on the package as a whole by next March. It is an important government objective to secure an ambitious reform of the CAP which serves the national interest and I very much welcomed, on behalf of the Government, the commitment by the Council to take early decisions. My right honourable friend the Chancellor made similar points in the discussion in ECOFIN on 23rd November on the future financing of the European Union.
"This was a very important Council meeting for the United Kingdom. We have achieved a major objective of our policy towards Europe in the lifting of the beef export ban. Although it would take time for the British beef industry to win back markets which have been lost to them in the past two-and-a-half years, I believe we have now created the conditions in which we can now plan for the future, confident that its industry is operating to the highest possible standard. Our immediate task is to work with the industry to ensure that the scheme which we have successfully negotiated in Europe works effectively to regain recognition of the quality of British beef on world markets".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
5.37 p.m.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. We on these Benches warmly welcome the Council decision to lift the beef ban. Will the noble Lord also acknowledge that many of the measures that were needed to satisfy the EU Commissioners were in place before the last general election?
While welcoming the lifting of the ban, I must point out that it is only a partial lifting, not a complete one. Restrictions are still in place for beef on the bone. Those countries which prefer to buy carcass beef will still be unable to buy British beef on the bone. Will the Minister accept that one of the ways in which that process may be speeded up is to lift the current ban on beef on the bone in this country? That would not only stimulate
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confidence in the UK; it would also help to rebuild confidence abroad. While the ban is kept, it reflects our uncertainty.
The Statement details further conditions, mentioning the specific requirements of the slaughter of offspring of BSE cases. In addition to that, does the Minister accept that there are still animals from the cohort cow which need to be traced. What progress is being made in that regard?
The Statement refers to proposed rules of slaughtering. Will the Minister tell the House how the relevant abattoirs will be selected? Will they be export-only abattoirs? How quickly will that process be put in hand? Who will be part of the inspection team? What is the geographical location? And, with regard to the inspection team, will Germany be included? As we know, Germany voted against lifting our ban. If there is to be delay in the process being put in place, will the Minister accept that such delay will reflect a lack of will in Europe to open our export markets?
In the Statement the Government acknowledge that it will take time for the British beef industry to win back its markets. What additional help will the Government give to speed up that process? Within the home market, will the Government give more direction to encourage greater consumption of beef in our public sector? And will they make it possible for our servicemen once again to enjoy British beef?
The Statement mentioned nothing about labelling. As there is so much concern not only among beef producers but also among pig and poultry producers, does the Minister accept that, in promoting the best of British beef, all producers wish to see honest, clear, proper labelling of our food? It should state clearly that the product was produced in the UK and was subject to our very strict animal welfare standards. That should not include meat produced abroad but processed in the UK. Perhaps the Minister will respond to that important issue and reflect on whether it was discussed at the Council meeting earlier this week.
Finally, might I press the Minister to tell the House what progress has been made since the March meeting? The Statement refers to ambitious reform, so will the Minister enlarge on some of the specific proposals which are under discussion? For example what is the Government's view on labour unit modulation? What is the Government's view on the proposal for national envelopes? Does the Minister still hold the view that there should be a cut in milk prices of some 30 per cent.?
Those are all very serious questions. While we on these Benches welcome and congratulate the Government on achieving their partial lifting of the beef ban, it is just a start. How soon will we see our exports being restored? How soon will our farm gate prices begin to rise? How soon will our great British beef be available on menus all around the world?
5.41 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and I congratulate the Government on their limited success, which is

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definitely a step forward. The Government's tactics in co-operating with and talking to those in Europe have been infinitely more successful than the tactics of the previous government, who threatened the countries of Europe with non-co-operation if they did not get their way. That was a dismal failure, so this Government have done better.
The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, clearly made many good points to which we shall have answers and I shall not repeat them. I wish to make some more general points. The Statement informs us that there will be legislation to provide compensation at the market rate to owners of animals slaughtered. Which market rate are we talking about? Is it the market rate before or after the tragedy of BSE? It is important that the compensation is reasonable so that the Government have full co-operation from people who have cases of BSE.
As regards the promotion of exports schemes, the Government have already made a start by giving farmers £300,000 to put towards another £300,000 for certain exports. They should carry that measure a great deal further because, as the noble Baroness said, there is a great deal of work to be done before the process is re-established. I agree with her about the removal of the ludicrous ban on beef on the bone so that once again I can buy sirloin on the bone which tastes much better. There is a certain amount of BSE all over Europe where beef on the bone is still being sold and I believe that progress can be made on that issue.
A big effort must be made in the export of lamb to Germany. The Germans are good trenchermen and they do not eat a great deal of lamb. Lamb, as we know, is very good and its consumption needs to be encouraged.
Another point which the Government should make strongly in Europe is that our suckler herds had hardly any BSE. The beef from the Aberdeen Angus herds and their cross herds is far superior to the miserable stuff which comes off a Friesian cow or a Friesian bullock. Such produce is worth promoting and can be promoted. Help and instruction needs to be given about that.
The Government had good intentions and I hope that they continue. Co-operation with the farmers on marketing is a way forward.
As regards Agenda 2000 and the hopeful statement that agreement might be reached by next March, how does the Minister believe that we shall reach agreement on acreage payments in eastern Europe when those countries join? Are the acreage payments to the western countries of the European Union to be reduced so that the same budget can apply? I know from friends who are farming in Poland and other eastern European countries that at the current prices they are making good profits simply because their costs are so low. We face a most curious situation, so perhaps the Minister could tell us a little more about the mechanics of making the present budget stretch over any new entries into the European Union. It is a very difficult issue and he needs to tell us more about it.
5.46 p.m.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her thanks and congratulations. We believe that this is a major achievement. I confirm that the detailed measures of the agreement were on the table before the election. However, that was of little relevance to British farmers or to the exports of British beef because of the way in which the previous government conducted themselves towards Europe. No progress would have been made under the previous regime of waging a war on Europe. The difference is not in the details of the agreement that is being reached. They were rational details agreed at Florence and they meet the requirements. Progress has been made in putting in place a regime for safe British beef and a policy towards our partners in Europe which makes them more willing to trust us. That is the difference. One cannot be certain to a date exactly when exports will begin, but we are looking hopefully at the spring.
As regards beef on the bone, the ban will be lifted when we have scientific advice from SEAC, from the Chief Medical Officer, that it is safe. We had firm scientific advice from the Chief Medical Officer that it was unsafe and that was why we rightly banned it. When I attended the Agriculture Council, I understood from our partners in Europe that there was no prospect of getting the beef ban lifted if we did not ban beef on the bone. But when we receive scientific advice that beef on the bone is safe we shall be as happy as anyone to lift the ban.
As regards progress on the maternal cull, a voluntary cull has been in place since July or August. Some 850 animals have been culled and we anticipate culling up to 3,500 by the spring. That process of tracing, which is very complex and involves the state veterinary service, is currently in operation.
As regards abattoirs, many of the details will emerge in the consultation process which will take place in the months ahead. We shall also have to bring in secondary legislation.
The inspectors will be the appropriate inspectors acting on behalf of the Commission. They have already been to inspect during the summer and have given a favourable report. Therefore, the proper inspectors will come. It would be quite outrageous to suggest that any single country's professional inspectors should not be allowed in. It is as though the Iraqis were able to veto American inspectors in their process. We anticipate that there will be two inspections—in February and March. I know of no evidence of lack of will because they have been already and have reported positively.
The noble Baroness asked me about the military and British meat. I personally have been in negotiation with the Ministry of Defence in relation to British beef. It has been arranged that the British Army at home will be eating 100 per cent. British beef. The export market now begins to open up as a possibility for British troops abroad. But certainly if one looks at non-beef—for example, lamb—then there are other complications. In the end, it is a question of price. But we are currently involved with the Ministry of Defence and

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representatives of the farming and meat industries to see what progress we can make there. But already some progress has been made.
The question of labelling was raised. Discussions continue in Europe. I should point out that it is not the Agriculture Council but the General Affairs Council which discusses labelling. However, we are continuing to have discussions on that. Your Lordships will be aware that we have already made some progress with British retailers who have agreed certain changes and improvements in labelling which should make clearer the origins of meat and, in particular, the origins of British beef.
There are a whole number of issues in relation to Agenda 2000 and I shall not detain the House about that. We have made statements about it and it is quite a long programme. I should be happy to write to the noble Baroness about that.
I have answered some of the questions which the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, asked. In particular, I thank him for his appreciation of our tactics. I share entirely his view of the unsatisfactory and totally negative tactics which operated before 1st May last year.
I have answered his comments about beef on the bone. He asked about compensation and the market rate. All productive adult and pedigree animals will be valued individually. Other stock will be valued to a scale linked to market prices. I was interested in what the noble Lord said about promotion and marketing in Europe. It will be for the Meat and Livestock Commission, and not for the Government, to undertake the marketing for the industry. The industry must, in my view, put more emphasis on modern marketing and less just on production. However, what the noble Lord said was interesting.
I agree entirely with what the noble Lord said about co-operation. Since I have taken up this post, I have been struck by the fact that the British farmers need more co-operation or collaborative marketing—call it what you will. We have far less mutual collaboration than almost anywhere in Europe. For example, if there is concern about the negotiating position in relation to powerful retailers, the farmers should look to their own marketing and to joint and co-operative efforts, which will give them relative strength.
5.53 p.m.
Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, I appreciate that we still have a long way to go but the lifting of the beef ban is certainly welcome news. I am sure it will be welcomed by the British agriculture industry.
At the outset of her questions, the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, tried to claim credit for the work done by the previous government. But is it not the case that we are indebted to my right honourable friend Jack Cunningham for the work that he did in Europe during the period of the British presidency of the European Union? Secondly, is it not also the case that if the
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previous government had handled the matter differently, we should not have found ourselves in the mess we were in?
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, I thank my noble friend and agree with every word he said. We did not inherit any benefits or assets whatever. We were definitely in a negative game and it is indeed true that my right honourable friend, especially during the time of the British presidency, managed to undo much of the damage that had been done before.
Lord Monro of Langholm: My Lords, perhaps the Minister will accept my warm congratulations on what Ministers have managed to achieve. But does he agree that life would be much easier if governments on the Continent would accept independent scientific advice, because they took a long time to accept that?
Perhaps the Minister will answer three further points. First, as one who tries to deal with cattle passports and other difficult red tape in the meat industry today, I ask the Minister whether he will streamline the administration in relation to exporting cattle. Secondly, he attends as a representative of the Government at food fairs on the Continent. Will he do all he can to help to promote British beef by helping MLC and others? Thirdly, I cannot understand why the scientific committee in this country is taking so long to make up its mind about beef on the bone. It was a marginal decision a year ago which has been totally discredited. I hope now that a conclusion will be reached before Christmas that at least in Britain we can eat beef on the bone.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord about the streamlining of administration. I am not enormously optimistic. It seems to me that it is an intrinsic feature of any highly complex regime such as the CAP that it will be hugely bureaucratic. That is one further reason for trying to alter the regime.
I entirely agree with what the noble Lord said about promotion. As Ministers, we must go to European food fairs—it is basically the MLC—and we must do all we can to help. Today I have been—and only just got back in time for this Statement—to the Birmingham food fair, where I did what I could to promote British beef.
I can only say what I have said before about beef on the bone. It was not a ludicrous decision but a decision which was in favour of British farmers, because it contributed towards restoring confidence in British meat. That was essential. We shall lift the ban when we receive scientific advice that it is safe to do so. But while we have advice from the Chief Medical Officer that it is unsafe, it would be irresponsible to do that.
Lord Hardy of Wath: My Lords, has my noble friend detected an attempt to seek to spread the blame for that dreadful matter across both sides of the House? Is it not the case and should it not be recognised clearly that serious suspicions were entertained more than 15 years ago; that the severity of the disease was diagnosed more than 12 years ago; that the government were slow to introduce prohibitions on infected material;

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and the clear position was not allowed to emerge until in most weeks more than 1,000 cows were being diagnosed as diseased? Therefore, is it not right to expect congratulations to be offered to my noble friend and his colleagues in the Ministry?
Will my noble friend stress that the ban on beef on the bone, which clearly contributed to the favourable situation we are now enjoying, was a tough decision but one designed to help, though some of those helped were not particularly appreciative of that decision? Also, will my noble friend encourage the Meat & Livestock Commission and all those involved in this trade to develop urgently the marketing techniques that are clearly necessary?
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for those congratulations and for that contribution. Since taking office, on the whole, we have tended not to dwell on blame. The parties involved in this terrible BSE scandal were widespread and often well-meaning. But there is no doubt that it was a terrible scandal which cost the farming industry and the British taxpayer billions of pounds. We set up an inquiry into the scandal and await a report on it, some of us with great interest and some opposite, perhaps, with trepidation—of course, I do not mean individuals.
The decision to ban beef on the bone was a tough decision. We knew that it would be an unpopular decision in this House. But it was not as unpopular in the country as one would imagine from listening to the debates in this House or reading some of our more curious newspapers. When a major opinion poll was carried out some months ago on whether or not it was important to lift the ban on beef on the bone, the number of people who said yes was so small that it had to be significantly upgraded to reach 1 per cent.
Earl Peel: My Lords, surely on that basis alone it should be a question for the consumer to decide. I appreciate that the Minister has to take advice from the chief vet based on all the scientific evidence in front of him and that risk assessment is always a difficult matter, but, because of the enormous publicity attached to this matter, the consumer is fully aware of the situation. It would be in the farmers' interests if that decision was left to the consumer, and the Government should authorise the lifting of the ban on eating beef on the bone as soon as possible.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, that is the dilemma that Ministers face. We would prefer to leave consumers to choose. But the noble Earl will be aware that in a whole range of areas affecting public health we do not choose to leave the individual citizen to choose. Where there may be a major risk to public health based on proper scientific advice, Ministers have to act. Whatever their failings, on every occasion the previous government, when advised that there was a need for action, took it. They were acting in a responsible way, as we are now acting.
I am sure that the noble Earl is aware of the large number of deaths from CJD. It is a horrendous disease for which there is no cure. If taking that risk meant more
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people died—that could still prove to be the case; we do not know the incubation period—that would damage confidence in British beef. That is bad for the farmer; it is bad for the food industry; and it is one of the reasons that countries like Germany, even though the ban is lifted, will probably buy very little of our beef. They do not have full confidence in our measures. We believe that they are wrong to be so sceptical. But if we had taken a loose approach and said that it is for the consumers to choose whether they will risk eating the beef and dying from CJD, it would have made it much harder for our beef exporters in Europe. No amount of clever marketing through the MLC would get through to people in Germany if they thought that we were not taking every measure possible to prove that our beef is safe. What we did was in the interests of British farmers and the British meat industry.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I hesitate to intervene in farming matters. The question of the science behind this issue triggers a response from me on the basis of my experience in the European Select Committee.
On a number of occasions reports from your Lordships' Select Committee have been highly critical of the science base of some of the Commission's findings. The same can be said about the science base of some of the decisions relating to the BSE crisis.
Are the Government confident that the scientific advice being given in Brussels is adequate? Are they worried that some of it may be politically slanted? What can they do to pressurise the Commission to make sure that the scientific advice given is transparent, that we know who is giving the advice and that the advice can be subject to peer review in the future?
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, the noble Lord raises a number of important points which Select Committees of this House have raised. In this country we can only establish and take the best scientific advice that we have available. It may not be perfect, but we will do what we can to make it as comprehensive and professional as possible. The advice in relation to beef on the bone came from our Chief Medical Officer based on other scientific advice.
The question of risk is a complex one. We do not have perfect systems of risk analysis and one periodically spots anomalies and incongruities—we have all done that. But in MAFF and the Department of Health we have units of risk analysis and we take the best risk advice we can. As Ministers we can only be as responsible as we can with the best analysis available. In the European Union there may be different levels— some better and some worse. We and the European Union must accept what advice there is. There have been suspicions of political awareness in some of the scientific advice but, in the end, the scientists recommended lifting the ban. We still have BSE in cattle. The work of the committees of this House is a major force for good in that area. But we welcome

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anything that can be done to improve the situation. My impression is that the quality of the scientific advice in this country is extremely high.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: My Lords, I add my congratulations to the Minister and the agricultural team on the excellent progress they have made on lifting the beef ban. However, perhaps I can press the Minister on some of the longer-term and deeper lessons to be learnt from the BSE exercise, particularly in terms of the increasing intensification of agricultural production. We have a lesson to learn about the risks of intensive production, certainly for human health. We are already aware from a whole variety of sources of the risks of intensification of food production on the environment.
We also heard praise heaped upon the ministerial team for their new approach to Europe and for the increasing confidence that our European partners have in the United Kingdom within the European setting. I would add my praise to that, but I would ask the Minister whether, in taking that approach forward, he will be urging the agriculture team for the United Kingdom to use this well-developed track record in European negotiations to support the Scandinavian member states, including the Danes, in their commendation of the introduction of environmental conditions on all payments under the common agricultural policy, particularly the mainstream and compensation payments, including, where necessary for public health and the environment, intensification payments and conditions as part of the Agenda 2000 Agreement.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, I thank my noble friend. She is quite right in saying that we should look into the longer-term implications. I think the longer term is the main question hanging over British agriculture at this moment. Although we are all obsessed with the problems of the short term, we cannot have a longer term that comprises a series of short-term crises. I think we have come to the end of that particular programme and so I agree with my noble friend on the long term. As to her particular concern about intensification, that is absolutely right. Ultra-intensification has led us into some of the problems that we have with food health, and of course in Agenda 2000 we are looking to see whether there are ways of becoming more efficient while not being over-intensive. That is a rather difficult balance, and almost a dichotomy. It is an important point to raise.
On supporting the Scandinavians, when I attended the Agricultural Council I would say that we frequently took the position of supporting the Scandinavians, and they supported us. As regards environmental conditions, cross-compliance and so, that is quite a complicated matter, in which historically our position has been to try to go for absolutely clear and clean environmental conditions. The cross-compliance ones involve an element of compromise over direct subsidies of which we are a little wary. On the whole, I think my noble
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friend will find that on these broad issues we are standing with our Scandinavian colleagues, especially our Swedish colleagues.

Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech
6.13 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, returning to the debate on the gracious Speech and the British constitution, I should like to point out that the British constitution has undergone massive changes over the past 200 years—changes inconceivable in the 17th century. The Monarchy has lost most of its former powers; the franchise has been extended beyond anything our ancestors might have imagined; and the ancient common law has undergone extensive reforms. However, this massive revolution has been achieved without any violent reaction: changes enormous, yet no violent reaction.
Our last revolution was in 1688, and that was a pretty mild affair. The upheavals of 1789 in France, of 1848 in almost every part of Europe, of 1871 in France again and of 1917 in Russia were not paralleled in any manner in Great Britain. I should like to suggest that this peaceful, vast and dramatic change was accomplished for at least two reasons: first, reform in Great Britain was gradual, responding gently and perceptively to popular demand. It was not imposed from above. Secondly, and possibly more importantly, in Great Britain we kept the outward forms and trappings of history while transferring and transforming powers. The Monarchy looked the same and the rituals of the past remained. The Monarch still wore the Crown and opened Parliament in traditional ways; but behind the facade all the powers had gone to the Prime Minister and to Parliament.
The structure of Parliament changed. Its membership altered, and altered drastically, but again its outward forms remained. It kept its links with its past. The common law was transformed, but the judges kept their wigs and administered justice in a manner inconceivable to their 18th century predecessors. Let me point out a comparison. Our neighbour, France, has also witnessed massive changes over the past 200 years—changes in many ways similar to those in Great Britain—yet the manner was different. The great revolution of 1879 to 1894 destroyed almost all the past. It was a clean sweep, modernising, transforming and changing everything. Very little remained the same, but the result was not two centuries of gradual and peaceful development. I think it would be well to consider what followed the dramatic changes of the great revolution.
Further revolutions occurred in 1830, 1848 and 1871. Between 1789 and 1794 there were five republican constitutions, two royalist and two imperial. What I am suggesting is that security and harmony—the psychic security that society needs—was lost. I would further suggest that France has only experienced that security

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which we have had for 200 years in the past 40 years, when it seemed that the divisions of the past had, hopefully, finally been healed.
We used to boast, when long ago I was a young student at school, about our success in achieving change while preserving our historical past. We felt—and it was constantly proclaimed—that this gave our society a security and an avoidance of the distress that had been produced by revolutionary change. Let us remember that of those continental countries which experienced a French revolution and the aftermath in the Napoleonic conquest seven were ruled by dictators on the eve of the Second World War.
My main reason for making a contribution tonight is not to give your Lordships a history lesson: I was paid for that for 40 years and I do not need to earn money doing it now. I say this because it seems that we are in danger of abandoning the proven patterns of the past in our approach to constitutional change. We seem, under the present Government, to have rejected that ancient idea that change should only be a response to great popular demand. As far as I can see, popular demand in the present climate of change seems only to have existed in Scotland, where I acknowledge that there was a great demand for devolution. However, in the public bars and the clubs that I frequent I do not find individuals coming up to me, even in the Garrick, and saying, "My God, that House of Lords, those hereditary Peers!" It does not seem to touch hearts.
We also seem to have abandoned the idea of maintaining the trappings—the historical links with the past—which masked the radical nature of the change that we have accomplished. For example, we talk now of changing the Monarchy—not so much its powers, which have all gone, but the trappings are suddenly seen to be in need of change. The traditional patterns of Parliament, which were borne by radicals throughout this century, and were even valued by the former Prime Minister, Mr. Attlee, are now under question. There appears to be a feeling that we lost by not having those great modernising and revolutionary changes which France and other large parts of Europe experienced between 1789 and 1815. Then the past was erased and a new world was created.
I hope that that is not the feeling of the present Government. I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will reassure me about that fact. If it is, I believe that they are wrong, and dangerously wrong. I hope that in all constitutional changes that they are inaugurating they may give thought to the manner of constitutional growth in the past and the way in which the disturbing effects of change were masked by preserving the appearance of continuity. Without that we may find that that security, which has been characteristic of British history over the past 200 years and which enabled us to be at ease with our past while adapting to change, will be lost and lost for ever. As all history shows us, societies are fragile entities and care must be taken in dealing with their structure and forms.
I end by saying that French history did not begin on 14th July 1789 as France found out to its cost in the violent and divisive century that followed. I can only
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echo the words of my noble friend Lord Cranborne and hope that the Lord Chancellor also does not believe that it began on 1st May 1997. The forms of the past often mask massive change and avoid revolution.
6.21 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, by intervening in this debate I should like first to pay tribute to the Leader of the House, my noble friend Lady Jay, for the very effective way in which she introduced the debate this afternoon. I also pay tribute to the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, for his contribution—not, unfortunately that which he made today, which did not come up to his usual high standard—to politics that he has made over the past 18 months.
In the short period of time in which I shall address the House I wish to touch on two matters. The first is to refer to some statistical facts. Secondly, I shall talk about timing. The main subject I shall be addressing is the reform of your Lordships' House. I pay tribute to the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, for his political acumen over the past 18 months. We need to recognise that it is almost solely due to him that we are looking at accelerated progression to what one might describe as stage two in the reform of your Lordships' House. Unfortunately, one of the difficulties is that he has also put on the agenda the suggestion that life Peers are somehow second-class Members of your Lordships' House. As a Labour hereditary Peer I refute that entirely. In my experience during 13 years in your Lordships' House I hope that I have come to respect every Member of it. I do not necessarily agree with their political stance, but I respect them for the contributions that they make to the way in which the House works.
One matter which has not been touched on greatly this afternoon, and in previous debates on the reform of your Lordships' House, concerns the numbers involved. Currently there are 1,166 Members of your Lordships' House of whom 41 per cent, are Conservative; 15 per cent, are Labour; 6 per cent, are Liberal Democrats; and 38 per cent, claim no political allegiance and are generally referred to as Cross-Benchers. It is interesting to reflect that out of 750 hereditary Peers, only 18, which is 2.4 per cent., take the Labour Whip. I have argued before that that demonstrates that the hereditary peerage in general is totally out of touch with the modern political realities of the United Kingdom.
If we were to look at the situation after we hereditary Peers have left the Chamber, membership of the House of Lords will amount to about 540 Members. As my noble friend Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede said in an excellent speech this afternoon, it will still be the largest second Chamber in a parliamentary system in the world. If one considers the make up of the life Peer Members of this House as it will be constituted later on—I hope, in this parliamentary Session—the figures are as follows: Conservative 177, which equates to 33 per cent.; Labour, 159, which is 29 per cent.; Liberal Democrats, 45, equating to 8 per cent, and Cross-Benchers 159, equating to 29 per cent. The reason I have quoted those figures is that there is a considerable amount of misconception that a reformed House of

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Lords will be a House of Prime Ministerial patronage, Tony Blair's poodles. I cannot imagine that the 130-odd life Peers which the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, created during her term of office, would be described as Tony Blair's poodles. One remembers life Peers created by nine Prime Ministers since the days of Harold Macmillan. I hope that we shall hear no more argument about the fact that a reformed House of Lords would not be independent and be able to do a very effective job in revising and questioning Government legislation brought forth from the other House.
The second matter is timing. My family has been involved in British politics since 1832. One of my ancestors was elected as the first Member of Parliament for the City of Plymouth. I suggest to the House that the development of modern democracy that we have seen evolving in this country stems from that landmark, the Reform Act 1832. It began the progress of parliamentary elected democracy in a real sense in this country. Over the period from 1832 we have seen, first, an extension of the franchise to women and, in Harold Wilson's government, an extension of the vote to 18 year-olds. There has been a continuing march of democratic modernisation. In that process the powers and responsibilities of the peerage have declined. I believe that we all recognise that it is totally right that that should be so.
We are faced with the situation where either just before or after the millennium the hereditary Peers will no longer have the right to sit and vote in this House. I hope that it can be agreed across the Chamber that the manner of the going of hereditary Peers will reflect well on the contribution that we and our ancestors have made over the past 200 years of British political development. It would be pleasant to believe that at the beginning of the new millennium the hereditary peerage will no longer have a place in the House of Lords. I am worried about the possibility that we could go into the next century having to be dragged kicking and screaming from this Chamber. That would be a stain on the new century and on our characters. It would be remembered throughout the new century. I make a plea that we go with dignity. By going with dignity, we can gain the respect for the contribution that we and our forefathers have made to public life. We should go with respect.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Harmsworth: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, deplores the small number of hereditary Peers sitting on his Benches. That could be explained by the policies of his party during the 1960s and 1970s.
I feel I should ask the indulgence of the House for speaking on reform of your Lordships' House for the first time today. We were flying back from Penang on 14th October, the first day of the excellent debate on the subject. We arrived early in the morning of the 15th by which time it was too late for me to make a contribution.
One thing I would not like to see is a change in the balance of powers between your Lordships' House and the other place. For me, the most important consideration in any reform would be success in retaining the essentially revising nature of your
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Lordships' legislative business. How many times have I heard from the Cross-Bench judges that we must get the legislation right here or they will be making judgments based on bad law. I fear that the kind of changes I have now read about, which were extensively aired in mid-October, promise only a more powerful upper Chamber, with the possibility of less attention to drafting detail. Competition is hardly something which the House of Commons should or might want.
In a way, I am surprised that the Government, with their passion for control, would wish to strengthen the status of this Chamber. Removal of hereditary Peers will, in one fell swoop, place control of legislation further from the grasp of government—government of any hue. Like it or not, hereditary Peers must provide what is, as near as can be, an automatic and copper-bottomed guarantee of the status of this House as a revising Chamber. Remove the hereditary Peers and the immediate result will be a change of authenticity, resulting in a competitive Chamber with the Commons, with the possibility of loss of legislation on a scale hitherto unseen.
Many years ago I read Lord Shackleton's brilliant report, which was to become a Command Paper, on the Falkland Islands. Shortly afterwards I was talking to a very senior diplomat. He told me that there was a value in the Falklands to the Argentines. It was this: when domestic politics reached very heated and difficult stages, the head of state would rattle his sabre and cry, "Let us go and get the Falklands." Everybody would forget what they were arguing about and the matter would then be quietly dropped, the ruse having done its job. In this context, the mistake that Galtieri made was that he actually invaded. The tool was valuable only as a tool. Members of another place and your Lordships may wish to consider whether there is some parallel here with the presence of hereditary Peers in this Chamber.
Apart from wishing to perpetuate constitutional change in the English way, from the bottom up and not from the top down as is done on the Continent—and how much better have we been than our continental friends over the centuries at constitutional change—for my money, I would much like to see the present balance of power little changed, and the role of this House likewise, other than possibly in ways suggested by my noble friend Lord Hurd. Even then, reform should start at the bottom end of the legislative production line and not at the top. Stabbing at reforms before watching how imbalances lower down the line shape out is no way to manage anything.
My impression is that your Lordships' House in the past year or so has been beginning to behave more like it will inevitably do with the hereditaries gone. If it is not too late, and until we have sight of the Government's detailed plans, let us keep our imperfect but largely efficacious automatic balancing mechanisms.
6.35 p.m.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, there was much to be thankful for in the gracious Speech of 1997. Many useful alterations were made towards the much-needed reform of the United Kingdom, and for

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those I am particularly grateful, especially the Scottish Parliament. This time around we have more constitutional change, and some omissions from what I believe ought to have been in the gracious Speech.
Certainly, the reform of the membership of this House was well heralded. Had it not been in the gracious Speech yesterday, it would have proved to have been one of the greatest wind-ups of all time. More of a pity was the mention of, rather than proposals for, the reform of the work of this House. Clearly, there is a need for real proposals, as the antics of last week may have confirmed. One hopes that the Royal Commission will come back speedily with practical proposals within the timeframe mentioned. I hope that the peerage Bill—or whatever it is called—and the preceding White Paper will be published soon.
In the meantime, I hope that we can see an end to the blanket criticism of the hereditary peerage. There has been far too much of it in recent months. The individual's right to reputation extends to all citizens, even to hereditary Peers.
I conclude this section of my remarks with three reminders. First, hereditary Peers are not a corporate group. Secondly, Peers in receipt of writs of summons are legitimate Members of the House, with a duty to attend, participate and vote. Thirdly—this is my most substantive point—the peerage of Scotland have always attended by statute, as do Peeresses in their own right and life Peers. Of course, statutes can be repealed, and I claim no protection from those provisions.
This brings me to more positive thoughts about the reform of this House, allied to reforms of the constitution of the United Kingdom and Scotland's future participation in it. Stage one, the reform of this House, will bring about a need for new provisions for a statutorily guaranteed number of working Peers domiciled in Scotland. Despite devolution, there will still be Scottish clauses of UK legislation and Scots law provisions being scrutinised in this House. This is best done, with the greatest commitment, by citizens who will be subject to those new Scottish provisions.
To back up that claim, there is an important constitutional principle which the Government would be foolish to ignore at a time when scepticism about the United Kingdom connection is rife in Scotland. The peerage of Scotland have attended this House by statute since 1707, as have at least 45 MPs. Their attendance is a condition of the Treaty. Articles 22 and 23 and the two supporting Acts confirm all this. For the past 291 years Scottish representation in this House has been guaranteed by statute. In 1963, Section 4 of the Peerage Act repealed the mechanism for, and the need for, the election of 16 Peers representative of the peerage of Scotland. Since then the whole peerage of Scotland, which is about 130 in number, has been eligible to attend this House.
To be competent, any reform of this House will need to deal with the appropriate repeals and, more importantly, to ensure a continuing guarantee of Scottish representation. Any government who tinker with the foundation statutes of the United Kingdom, or any other Union state, do so at their peril.
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At this time the issue of Scottish membership of the United Kingdom is really only one of principle, despite the scare stories, many of which come over in the category of either pathetic or out of date. Membership of the United Kingdom needs to be presented at all times in Scotland as a positive. Hence my continuing enthusiasm for the radical reform of the United Kingdom, one in which the people of Scotland can find their true and unstifled destiny and pursue their rightful task of autonomous government. Anything less and the new Union project will fail.
Perhaps I may move on to a completely different subject which interests me. On an environmental tack, I am surprised by the omission of any proposals for public access to the hill country in England and Wales. This is a serious issue which needs to be dealt with by government with real vision—a vision of how to marry up the recreational and health needs of the urban population with the working needs of the rural population. At present I feel that the various sides are just shouting at each other. The preparation of a balanced and heavy duty new countryside code will help, backed up by a means of sharing the load of liability, and wear and tear from increased use of footpaths and other recreational facilities. I am pleased to read in The Scotsman newspaper that the Scottish Office is well ahead in this respect, with the aim of presentation of a Scottish public access Bill in the first session of the Scottish Parliament.
Given the substantially different legislative and philosophical background to public access in the Scottish jurisdiction from that of England and Wales, I suspect that the process south of the Border will be very different and there may not be too much to learn from the Scots law process. It is an issue that needs to be brought down off the hills and into the low country. The demand for recreational walking is predominantly in the low country adjacent to urban areas. This is a health issue as well as being one of sustainability. I believe that there is a means of resolving the conflicting demands of public access and cultivation or stock rearing. I look forward to initiatives by the Government along these lines.
In conclusion, I look forward to participating in the scrutiny of the new criminal justice measures, the constitutional Bills and the Scottish clauses of UK legislation. My immediate view is that I am a working Peer from Scotland until I am sent home.
6.43 p.m.
Lord Vivian: My Lords, I very much regret that I was unable to speak in the recent two-day debate in your Lordships' House on the reform of this Chamber. I now have an opportunity to do so with the advantage of having read your Lordships' contributions in that debate, for which I am indebted and which have made me better informed. In my contribution I shall try to summarise the position we have reached on the reform of your Lordships' House, looking at the background and effects that the current government position will have on this Chamber.

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Before I do that I should like to stress to your Lordships that I have not met anyone on these Benches who does not wish to see reform take place provided that those reforms improve the purpose, functions, powers and composition in your Lordships' House and make it a better place. I should like to remind your Lordships that this House voted substantially for reform in 1968, but that was axed by a Labour Prime Minister in 1969.
I should also like to comment on the Labour Party manifesto statement. First, why is there such a rush to abolish hereditary Peers, and why does it have to be done as a first stage and not as part of overall reform of this Chamber? Many of your Lordships and a large section of the general public fear that once they have been thrown out no reform of this House will ever take place. Perhaps the Government feel that their task will be very much easier if there are no hereditary Peers within the consultation process. There was no mention in the Labour Party manifesto that this had to be addressed with such speed, and in any event surely it would have been courteous to have entered into cross-party consultation. I understand that there has been no cross-party consultation, no proposals made to any of the parties and no logical reasons given as to why hereditary Peers should be abolished. My Lords, surely this is a most arrogant way to address this subject and not becoming to the manner in which matters are conducted in your Lordships' House.
The second question I should like to raise about the manifesto statement is why the abolition of hereditary Peers as a first stage will make this House any more democratic and representative. The appointment of life Peers with party ties through prime ministerial patronage could be considered to be less democratic than those who sit by the rights of their ancestors. While nobody would deny that an accident of birth should not automatically qualify a person for high office, it is equally undemocratic to disqualify someone arbitrarily for this same accident. The Government have yet to explain what is intrinsically more democratic about a nominated House than the present one, especially one where nominations are made by, or on the advice of, an unelected committee. The hereditary Peers provide much of the independence which is so essential to a second chamber, and many of them encompass broad horizons as they do not necessarily focus on a single career.
It is not true to say that the Government lose Divisions only because of the votes of undemocratic hereditary Peers. Discounting the votes of hereditary Peers, a number of government defeats would have taken place on the votes of life Peers alone; for example, by 71 votes to 66 on 5th March on the protection of pharmacies in the Competition Bill; by 99 votes to 80 on the principle of equal treatment for Scottish students on 23rd June; by 152 votes to 91 on the same issue on 7th July; by 77 votes to 70 on 2nd July on the School Standards and Framework Bill and by 93 votes to 89 on 13th July on the same Bill; and by 128 votes to 93 on the age of consent on the Crime and Disorder Bill. So, my Lords, perhaps the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will explain why there is such a hurry to
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abolish hereditary Peers and why this matter cannot be addressed as part of the overall reforms for your Lordships' House.
The Government's position is having the effect of splitting your Lordships' House into two camps. The happy atmosphere that existed, the courtesy extended to one another and the kindly and helpful attitude shown to each other are fast disappearing. This is not helpful at a time when the House is to be reformed and in fact is damaging the good relations that have always existed in your Lordships' House. In addition, it is clear that without detailed agreement on the shape of a new House, stage one—the abolition of hereditary Peers— would bring about a second chamber nominated entirely by the Prime Minister or agents appointed with his approval to undertake this task. This is a power that no politician has sought since Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s.
The abolition of hereditary Peers would increase hugely the Prime Minister's patronage. It would throw two-thirds of the independent Cross-Benchers out of the Lords at a stroke; erode the independence of the Lords and allow the political party in power to turn the Lords into a rubber stamping organisation, not a true revising chamber.
There is also a disturbing pattern of political authoritarianism in the Government's proposals. I should like to draw to your Lordships' attention the fact that the Labour Party has already subjected the right of local parties to choose councillors and Members of Parliament to the diktat of party headquarters. Noble Lords will be well aware that last week the same would have happened to MEPs if your Lordships had not decided to vote against the closed list. It would be a potentially highly dangerous matter if Members of this House were nominated only by the Prime Minister or by a committee approved by him. The reality is—
Lord Hacking: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will allow me to intervene. I do not know whether the noble Lord heard the noble Baroness the Leader of the House speak at the beginning of this debate, but she said most plainly that the Government are producing a White Paper to look at the whole of the selection process for life Peers. She also said specifically in her opening comments that the Prime Minister was giving up any role of patronage he has in the selection of life Peers.
Lord Vivian: My Lords, I am grateful for that intervention, but it is still an unelected committee. I was present at the start of the debate and I have been present throughout.
To save time I shall not repeat my noble friend Lord Cranborne's six main principles for reform as they have been well documented. However, I believe strongly that these principles should constitute an agreed baseline for further consultation when the purposes, functions, powers and composition of your Lordships' House can be addressed. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor may wish to comment on those principles when he replies to the debate.

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I accept the main purposes set out by the Mackay Commission, which are to share with the Commons the responsibility for the enactment of legislation; to act as a check on the House of Commons' use of its powers; to balance the political dynamics of the Commons within Parliament by providing an alternative parliamentary forum for political activity; to provide a mechanism for reconsideration of issues within Parliament; to supplement the work of the House of Commons; to balance the relationship between Westminster and the assemblies and any further devolved bodies; to provide a means of mediating between European institutions and the United Kingdom and to represent other institutions and interests in this country.
I believe that the main functions of your Lordships' House should continue to be discussing legislation and debating public issues and policy in a way that is frequently different from, and in greater depth, than discussion in the House of Commons. It should continue to provide additional scrutiny of the activities of government and to conduct in-depth policy reviews through the Select Committees. It should continue to provide safeguards for the integrity and balance of our constitutional arrangements. It should encompass special responsibility for the parliamentary supervision of human rights and undertake detailed scrutiny of, and exercise special control over, the policies and legislation of the European Union as they affect the United Kingdom, over and above the work undertaken by the House of Commons. It should be more representative and cover the Scottish parliament and the assemblies, the United Kingdom regions, the European Union, local government, professional, academic, industrial and trade institutions, the trade unions, the Churches and other faith communities, minority and special interest groups, individuals with special expertise and experience, and the peerage.
This brings me to the powers of the House of Lords. On the basis of existing parliamentary practice, the key powers and privileges that the second Chamber might enjoy might include the power absolutely to block, delay and amend primary and secondary legislation; the power to compel individuals to appear before the House or its committees and to provide parliamentary privilege conferring immunity from prosecution for offences such as libel for remarks made in debates in Parliament. Other powers might include the approval of certain government appointments and increased powers over financial legislation.
I now turn to the composition of a future Chamber. If reform goes ahead, the composition of any future Chamber should be dependent on the purposes, functions, powers and representation that are required. If your Lordships were to agree with what I have already said, I would suggest that the second Chamber should not be composed on a political basis, but on a functional and representative one. It should either be a fully elected Chamber or an appointed one. If it is to be the latter, a Royal Commission or some such body selected from the Privy Council, should be appointed to establish a representative Select Committee of Peers, which should be empowered to nominate both hereditary and life
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Peers, after application to them, as members of a functional and representative Chamber. I suggest that these members should be known as Lords of Parliament, LPs, a title in line with MPs, and this should dispense with any distinction between these two types of Peers.
This body should also decide the number of Peers that should constitute this Chamber. Perhaps a figure of about 800 would provide some 400 Peers who attend daily, which is similar to the present daily attendance. A government Bench would be required from which the government would introduce their case for new legislation. The rest of the House would table amendments in an attempt to improve this legislation, propose Motions, ask oral and written Questions and vote in Divisions in accordance with their own assessment, their experience, their conscience and what is in the best interests of the country.
I say in summing up that your Lordships' Chamber should be independent of any political party. It should continue to give good value for money and remain the main place for the scrutiny and revision of legislation. It is hard working. It has been called one of the busiest chambers in the world. It has sat for an average of 143 days a year and in the past four sitting Sessions has sat for an average of seven hours a day with about 84 sittings after 10 p.m. Your Lordships' Chamber has made over 2,000 amendments to Bills most years and in the past Session some 3,963 amendments were made, almost all of which were accepted by the other place. This signifies that between 75 per cent, and 80 per cent, of all amendments to Bills are made in this Chamber. Since May 1997 this Chamber has asked the Government to think again on various issues, for example students' grants and tuition fees in Scotland, the age of consent for homosexuals, freeing Churches and Church schools from interference by secular European human rights laws, and the proposal that closed lists should be the system for voting in European elections. These are all subjects that affect the interests of the nation.
There should be cross-party talks before any stages of reform are entered into; otherwise the second Chamber could become the largest quango in the land purely rubber stamping business from the other place. That would lead to a complete elective dictatorship. In the interests of the nation there must not be abolition of hereditary Peers before any proper reform of your Lordships' House takes place. The position of these Peers must be taken into account as part of overall reform. I believe the case for combining the first and second stages of reform is compelling.
6.58 p.m.
Lord Wilberforce: My Lords, if I do not follow the noble Lord who has just spoken in his comprehensive review of these great constitutional issues which face your Lordships now and in the course of the next year, that is not because I wish to minimise in any way their importance or the difficulties involved, or because I do not have views on the matter which I should like to share with your Lordships. I do have views on the matter but there is a limit to your Lordships' patience, even

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during a long debate such as this. I know that many others have and will discuss those issues comprehensively.
The debate encompasses both constitutional and legal affairs. I wish to lay emphasis on the latter. In her illuminating speech, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House had hardly mentioned the word "legal" before she was able to say that such matters would be dealt with by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. Equally, the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, had hardly uttered the word "legal" before he was at pains to say that such matters were being dealt with by his noble friend Lord Kingsland. I notice, unhappily, that those two eminent authorities are right at the bottom of the speakers' list. Therefore, perhaps it may not be inappropriate if one of the foot soldiers in the middle tries to say a little about legal matters. After all, as the noble Viscount reminded us, life has to go on, whatever we are trying to do with the constitution—and there are important matters with which the Government will have to deal.
I want briefly to comment on one legal topic: reform of the substantive law mainly through the enactment of Law Commission report recommendations. I find it disappointing that the gracious Speech, although containing the usual,
"Other measures will be laid before you",
did not, as often happens, contain the codicil, "including measures of law reform". Last year, I did not speak on this subject because it seemed to me to be obvious that, with a new Parliament, there would be a period of ample legislative vacation and time before the flood of legislation started to flow. There was indeed a considerable period at the beginning of the previous Session when we did not sit on Fridays, had early nights and a very light programme, but there was no flood of law reform measures. The whole year can be signalled as one of very disappointing action in that area. Although the present situation is much more difficult, with a much greater burden of legislation facing us, I want to urge the cause of law reform this year.
I am, of course, perfectly aware that very important measures of modernisation in the legal field are to come. References are made in the gracious Speech to the justice system, a community law service, the youth courts and the protection of witnesses, and the Government have on hand the mammoth task of modernising legal aid. In the course of the year, the whole system of civil litigation will undergo vast changes under the Woolf reforms. All that is extremely valuable and will call for much work and effort in this place and elsewhere. However, it lies almost wholly in the area of administration and procedure and there is very little left for the substantive law. Perhaps I am not being unduly cynical when I say that the reason may be that administration and procedure cost money and, as we know, big money in the area of legal aid—£1.5 billion in a year—whereas substantive law does not, on the short view at any rate, do the same. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will be able to give us some assurance that the cause of law reform is not forgotten or even postponed for another year.
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There are already a number of excellent Law Commission reports which are all ready and crying out for legislation. There will be more in the course of the year. I shall not weary your Lordships with a list, but shall single out one—I refer to that relating to offences against the person—which has been outstanding since 1993, and as to which there is a draft Bill which has received favourable consultation. The existing law is out of date, confused and wrong, giving rise to a great many unnecessary prosecutions and so even attracting a money dimension. That is just one example. There are many others of equal merit.
Of course, the answer may be, "No legislative time", but that easy answer simply will not do. If the present system does not provide enough legislative time, we must change the system to ensure that it does. In this House we already have an excellent procedure for handling comparatively simple and non-controversial measures which has worked well. I refer to the Select Committee procedure. However, I respectfully urge the Government most urgently to consider selecting and adapting that procedure to deal with major matters. One such major matter is establishing a criminal code. A criminal code is urgently needed. All the work has been done. Nobody who has heard the recent speech of the Lord Chief Justice at the Lord Mayor's Banquet can doubt any longer that the time has really come for the enactment of such a code. Again, that would save a great deal of money.
The same theme was enlarged yesterday by the Hardwicke Lecture, given in Lincoln's Inn by the chairman of the Law Commission. I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the chairman of the Law Commission for her extremely good and distinguished work during her period of office. However, enacting a criminal code would require a new procedure. Several hundred clauses cannot be handled in the normal way in Committee, even in the Moses Room. The same problem will occur even more intensely if we come to the project on simplified and modernised tax legislation which we were told very reassuringly only a few weeks ago, is well under way. That is an extremely important subject. It is of great interest to everybody and, again, a great money-saver. Such a Bill would involve at least 1,000 clauses, if not more, and could not possibly be accommodated within conventional procedures.
So I urge the Government to consider, either through the Select Committee on Procedure or an ad hoc committee, how we can carry such matters forward so that in the next Queen's Speech—I have given up for this year—we may be assured of such legislation. Do not let law reform be forgotten. It should be cherished. It is well within a programme of modernisation. It is well worth finding time for, and well within the capacity and ambition of the Government. I urge the Government to take it seriously.
7.6 p.m.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, the rude interruptions yesterday to the gracious Speech were something which saddened and shocked us all. As far as I can ascertain, nothing like that has ever happened before. They were

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an insult to Her Majesty, an insult to Her Majesty's Government and an insult to the whole of your Lordships' House. What was even worse, the Evening Standard, the BBC, The Times, and the Daily Telegraph attributed the noise to the hereditary Peers. That was not true. Every single person in this Chamber sat as silent as a stone. The baying came from beyond the Bar. It was not until we had all been to many jolly parties and with family and friends enjoyed the amazing banquets which Mr. Bibbiani, Miss McWilliam and all the refreshment staff had clearly been working round several clocks to achieve—we thank them enormously—that we began to feel restored.
Yesterday's opening speeches also contributed much to restoring your Lordships' House to its usual high level of peace, harmony and good sense. Although she is not in her place, I should particularly like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, who is also my noble friend when we are not in the Chamber, on her charming, funny and witty speech. "Scotland forever", I would say!
I am against discrimination. I am sure, on reflection, that all your Lordships are also. I do not like being discriminated against because I am a woman, Scottish, an hereditary Peer, old and fat—although I mind less about the last because that is my own fault; none of the others is. Only in the last year has this element of discrimination crept insidiously into your Lordships' House cloaked under the guise of reform. I do not personally think that your Lordships' House needs reform. I think that it is perfect as it is.
However, if reform is felt to be necessary, I suggest that we retain, without discrimination of any kind, all the Peers who regularly attend and contribute to this House. There are only between 400 and 500 of them, and we all know who they are. Those who failed on either of those criteria would be entitled to speak but not to vote. There should be parity between the strengths of the two major parties, with the balance being held by the Cross-Benchers, which I am sure the usual channels, mindful of the milk of human kindness that flows along them, could easily arrange. Perhaps—though I say this reluctantly—after 10 years without a maiden speech, the privilege of speaking might also be withdrawn. Every new Peer, either on creation or on succession, should have a year's grace to see whether he or she fulfils the two criteria. There should be no discrimination on the ground of age—many noble Lords are only beginning to peak after their 90th year—although I should not personally lower the younger age limit below 21.
Noble Lords must be aware by now that the first Lord Strange of my creation was beheaded at Bolton for supporting his monarch in 1651. He was wounded in the fight in Wigan Lane in August, taken prisoner after the Battle of Worcester in September and beheaded on 15th October, at the age of 44. His last words were: "I die for God, the King and the laws, and this makes me not be ashamed of my life nor afraid of my death".
7.11 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, in her delightful speech the noble Baroness said that this House was perfect. I have been in the House for 53 years and I love it. After being here so long I should despise anyone who did not. The House has rendered great service to the nation, and in a lesser sense to the world, and has not done any harm that I can think of. So I go a long way, if not quite the whole way, with the noble Baroness when she says that it is perfect.
On an earlier occasion I paid tribute, as I do again, to the collective services rendered by the hereditary Peers—not, I am bound to say, all of them, but a sufficient number to earn the gratitude of the nation for their work collectively speaking. On a previous occasion I made a speech which later drew thanks from Members. I do not know what the Front Bench thought about it. But they are kindly, youthful people—
The Lord Chancellor: Youthful or useful?
The Earl of Longford: Both youthful and useful, my Lords. I know that they are tolerant of senile deviations. I consider the intellectual quality of debates in this Chamber to be unrivalled, and there is a special quality of civilised decency which I have not heard of or read about as existing elsewhere. So there are great values attached to this House. Reform is bound to come. I only hope that in the new Chamber the essential values of the existing Chamber will be retained.
That said, I may be asked how I relate these high-sounding propositions to the Bill that will come before us. I suppose that the duty to vote will fall upon us every now and then during the next few months. I see that the noble and learned Lord is leaving, so I have already lost one distinguished member of my audience. I hope I have not said something shocking. I have not referred to breeches or any such indelicate subject. I am bound to relate these high-sounding remarks to actual voting intentions.
Before expanding on that, I wish to back up the remarks of the noble Baroness in denouncing an age limit. On a previous occasion, one of the most distinguished Members of this House suggested an age limit of 75, which found very few supporters at the time. I admit to bias in this regard. I confidently submit the proposition that as we get older, we get wiser—until, of course, the moment comes when we lose our marbles! But it is up to the House to say of any speaker, including myself, that that moment has arrived. On the whole, that does happen. I remember sitting on the Benches opposite, near to the Bar, and a great friend of mine, who was then rather past his intellectual prime, was sitting within a yard or two of his wife. When the matter came to a vote, he turned to me and asked (I shall not use his wife's actual name): "Can Daphne vote?". I could see that there was something wrong, and he did not reappear. So on the whole the House knows how to deal with people who have rendered great service but whose time has come.
On the whole, as we get older, we get wiser, as I feel sure the Prime Minister, whom I greatly admire, would agree when he is as old as a former Labour Prime

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Minister whom I have admired for much longer; namely, the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan. I am sure the Prime Minister would agree that, 40 years from now, he will be wiser than he is today. It is an eternal proposition. Of course, we do not become more energetic. We could not compete with younger people, for instance those who work at the Bar and may sit up all night over cases, and so on. This is not intended to be a full-time Chamber. People bring valuable contributions from their work outside. Except for the leading politicians on the Front Benches, Members are not expected to attend full time. Therefore I do not think that age should enter into these calculations.
Returning to my previous point, if there are to be votes in the coming months, how shall I vote?
Lord Hacking: With the Government.
The Earl of Longford: Every now and then, my Lords.
I was Leader of this House 30 years ago—I dare say before some of the younger Members were born or before they had grown up. I was here before the present Prime Minister was born. Thirty years ago I moved an amendment to a Bill introducing the "two-writ plan", under which hereditary Peers would attend and speak, but not be allowed to vote. It was accepted with firm acclamation by all the party leaders. It was sabotaged in the House of Commons by a strange combination whose Members I need not mention now. I still believe that it is the best idea, and indeed the only sensible compromise. I hope that someone of more contemporary significance than myself will reintroduce that proposal. If not, I shall have to do so myself. If it falls for lack of support, that is too bad. I shall have done my duty. Assuming that it falls by the wayside, there will no doubt be other amendments, and I might do well to keep my options open.
However, in the last resort, if my noble friend puts me to the test, I shall support the Government. I shall consider the issues. I shall feel great reluctance to take any step which would damage the real and lasting values of this House. As I think and pray about these matters, I shall remember that I had the great honour of being appointed Leader of this House by a Labour Prime Minister and was brought into the House before that by a Labour Prime Minister. Without the Labour Party I would have been and would be politically nothing.
7.20 p.m.
The Earl of Clanwilliam: My Lords, it is a daunting task to follow the noble Earl after his eloquent and charming speech. He sits as a Baron in two respects: first, as a hereditary Baron of his own creation and, secondly, as the fifth Baron created in 1821. That was the same year as the creation of the barony for which I sit. I said that I could not speak with the same charm and eloquence of the noble Earl and I am afraid I shall be more controversial. However, anything which removes the right of the noble Earl to sit and speak in this House would be to its great disadvantage.
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The removal of the hereditary rights of the hereditary Peers raises the question whether it is the intention to score party political points or whether it is to weaken the power of the upper House. Neither seems to me a positive contribution to the constitutional question. It is the privilege and duty of the hereditary Peers and of all Peers to ensure that a viable alternative is secured in place of them. Without infringing the customs of the House, perhaps I may mention the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Butler of Brockwell and Lord Norton of Louth, both of whom pointed out the need to ensure that a viable alternative is secured in place of them. It does not seem to me from the proposals put forward in the gracious Speech that such a position will be secured in the course of the deliberations of the Royal Commission. As has been adequately mentioned already, it may take so long to come to a conclusion that there will have been established either a unicameral legislature or a committed quango of acquiescents.
The noble Baroness the Leader of the House pointed out that there would be a tight timetable. My noble friend Lord Cranborne asked that the subjects to be covered in the White Paper should be clearly and eloquently pointed out today. It is time to have that because without it there can be no realistic discussion of the future course to be taken.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Strange, pointed out, it was noticeable that during the gracious Speech there was a cheer—to put it politely—if not exactly barracking from some Members of the other place when the point came to mention the removal of the rights of hereditary Peers to sit and vote. It may have been bad manners, but it was also a significant precursor to the assumption that there would be no more interference with their wishes, regardless of the constitutional consequences, of which this House is the guardian.
For that reason, it is likely that there will be considerable resistance to the legislative programme until it is certain that there will be an established form of reform for both Houses. It is worth recalling that the 1911 Act, which fell by the way, insisted on,
"a strong and effective House of Lords".
That is what we need and what most hereditaries are calling for. There is no great personal benefit to me. I am in my 80th year. And it means nothing to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, whose age I am approaching. I do not expect great benefit from whatever decision may be taken. There has been mention—I hasten to admit not from the Government Benches—of some form of compromise such as granting Government, Liberal and even Cross-Bench life peerages.
That brings me, by a somewhat circuitous route, to the second point I wish to mention: the disenfranchisement of the Irish Peers. Incidentally, they have the same rights as Scottish Peers from a treaty more recent than the Act of Union; indeed, under the auspices of Castlereagh and Pitt in 1800. This may not be the time to ask for reconsideration of their plight, but it occurs to me that this may be the last opportunity to mention the slight they feel has been put upon them. If there is to be any form of compromise, then their position should be considered within that compromise.

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The Peers of Ireland owed the creation of their peerages to English sovereignty. From the 13th century to 1800 the two Houses in Ireland and England developed along broadly parallel lines. Under the terms of the Act of Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1800, the Irish Peers consented to the elimination of their 150-seat assembly in Dublin in return for 28 seats in the more powerful House of Lords at Westminster, to be filled by an election among themselves.
The Act set out in considerable detail the manner in which,
"the twenty eight lords temporal to represent the peerage of Ireland in the peerage of the United Kingdom",
were to be elected. Since 1919, however—incidentally, the year I was born—nothing was done to honour the agreement and the last Irish representative Peer died in 1961. The Irish Peers Association, of which I have recently been made a committee member, was formed in 1963 to promote the interests of the Irish Peers who had thus become disenfranchised.
It is not that they purport to represent the people of Ireland but that they are the inheritors of a personal right secured to them by law. In my submission, it is proper that the matter should be raised at this time and appear on the records of the House. There is much additional detail which I shall refrain from extrapolating as the matter has already been before all-party committees, especially in one instance the Committee of Privileges in its report of 5th July 1966 when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, dissented. I see that the noble and learned Lord is in his place. He kindly agreed to allow me to use his name.
It came up again in 1971. The Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills voted only by a majority to deprive the Irish Peers of their rights. The father of my noble friend Lord Massereene—my noble friend is not in his place—and the noble Lord, Lord Rees, dissented from the findings of the committee. I submit therefore that this is not an open and shut case. There has been dissent.
7.27 p.m.
Viscount Mountgarret: My Lords, I expect your Lordships will be pleased to know that the majority of the speech I wished to make has been torn up, not least as some of the points I wanted to make have been clearly outlined this afternoon. That was done notably by the noble Earl, Lord Clanwilliam. I was interested in his comments on the Irish Peers; we are both members of the Irish Peers Association. That line might commend itself for recommendation by the proposed Royal Commission.
Like one or two previous speakers, notably the noble Lords, Lord Vivian and Lord Harmsworth, I regret that I was unable to attend the magnificent debate that your Lordships had last month, simply because I could not be here for the two days. I could do one but not the other. It only goes to show that there being about 130 speakers plus another 35 this afternoon on the one subject seems to demonstrate the enormity of the subject put before us by the Government.
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One constructive point which came out of the first debate was that, I think I am right in saying, the Government then realised that the matter should be considered in depth by a Royal Commission. We heard in the gracious Speech that a White Paper would be published. That is a tremendous step forward.
I support reform of your Lordships' House, as I believe do most people on all sides of the House, but completely to abolish something that has worked, is working and will go on working is very regrettable, to put it mildly.
I have a good deal of sympathy with the Leader of the House and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, who referred to the in-built Conservative majority and how unfair it was given the perceived allegiance of hereditary Peers to that particular cause. It cannot be much fun always going in to bat knowing that one faces the best bowler in the world and one will be out without scoring a single run. I believe that this is the root cause of why this matter is being discussed. If one had the privilege of being able to issue strong Whips to enable legislation to be frustrated or pushed through, depending on which side of the argument lay the Conservative Party, we would not be in this position and the Government would find the situation tolerably acceptable. They would not care to admit it but I believe that they could live with it. That would be a tremendous step forward in making this House more publicly acceptable in areas where many people probably find it unacceptable.
One must remember that the ultimate role of your Lordships' House is to prevent the Government from prolonging their life and, in the end, to act as the guardian of the constitution. It stops any government— I do not mean this particular one—with a large majority from undermining the constitution. That was ably demonstrated last week. Although a rather unedifying spectacle took place which I do not believe enhanced British politics very much, we were absolutely right to do what we did. That shows the definite need for a Chamber such as this in a modified form. But to try to consider all of the various options open to us—everyone has excellent ideas, all of which deserve recognition and consideration—is perhaps too much for a debating Chamber in one debate, two debates or what you will and to get the answer right.
I am extremely grateful that the Government have agreed to set up a Royal Commission. They are to publish a White Paper setting out their ideas which are to be worked upon. Surely, the Royal Commission should operate from scratch and should not try to come up with something that we have already debated and that may be part of an approach that it may or may not recommend. We cannot legislate on something until we are aware in depth of the arguments and the reason why this, that or the other idea is acceptable.
I urge the Government to think about this very carefully. In any organisation it must be wrong for management to do away with something before it has the slightest idea of what to put in its place. I do not share the perceived fears that the Government may get rid of hereditary Peers and then sit back and do nothing. That would reflect lack of faith and trust, and I do not

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believe that the Government could conceivably behave like that. That fear should be treated with caution. But we must have the results of the Royal Commission, it having listened to the many arguments advanced by noble Lords the other day and today. We should be able to attend the commission and put forward our points. Let the commission consider the matter and come up with an answer. If the answer took a slightly different route from that which I would like—the noble Earl, Lord Clanwilliam, has hit the nail on the head—I would accept it. I would feel on that basis that it had been properly considered. But I cannot accept, and I hope that this House will not accept, that there should be any change of this House in any shape or form unless and until we have heard the recommendations of the Royal Commission about what should happen having heard all the arguments.
Perhaps the Government should also bear in mind that with this House they are onto a very good thing. After all, we conduct ourselves reasonably well. There are only a very few occasions on which we find it absolutely necessary to put our foot down and frustrate government business. If the hereditary Peers were not here and the House were composed of life Peers the whole concept of the Salisbury convention would be ignored. There would be no reason for it; it would be far more democratic and therefore the convention would not apply. What would happen then? The other place would have far greater trouble with a House made up of life Peers and nominated Peers. To a great extent the hereditary Peers would be of great use to the other place. A good number of people may not agree with that but I am sure that that is so.
If power, which is finite, is transferred by one means or another to this House—that will happen inevitably if the hereditary element disappears—it will reduce the powers of the other place. I have never heard of anyone who wants to give up power. What about the farmer? Has one ever heard of a farmer who voluntarily gives up one square yard of land, let alone anything else? By the same token, I do not believe that the other place would be very happy to wake up one morning to find that some of the powers that it presently enjoys have been slightly eroded.
I am not very moved by the perceived idea that because this is an unelected Chamber it has no right to act according to the dictates of conscience and what it believes to be correct. I do not believe that it is possible to have it both ways. In Brussels the European Commissioners, who are responsible to no one, spend a good deal of time dictating to this country what it can and cannot do. Conservative governments, Labour governments and Liberal Democrat governments—if they are ever in power—have to go along with those instructions that come from an unelected body. They are not patriots and they are not British. Why is the country prepared to accept that but not the contributions and suggestions made by an unelected House, which at least is made up of patriotic British people? That is a point of view.
Many points can be made but I believe that they are better made to a Royal Commission. I echo the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord
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Wilberforce. Please let the commission consider the matter and then take action. Please do not take action first.
7.39 p.m.
Viscount Brentford: My Lords, subject to one question on a related matter, I do not propose to follow the noble Viscount down the path of discussing the future of this House. Primarily I wish to make a few comments on the legal issues raised in the gracious Speech.
First, the gracious Speech refers to modernising legal aid. I have no problems about a reformed legal aid system. But I should like to make sure that any reform means that the legal aid system will be cost efficient, competent and give choice to the consumer. When the Legal Aid Board considers the awarding of contracts I hope that it will make sure that the whole country is covered and that there are no gaps. The right to choose a solicitor is surely a basic human right for a member of the public. While I fully endorse the plea that any change should ensure the highest professional standards, I hope that the Government will encourage all firms that reach those standards to apply for a franchise to give the maximum choice to the consumer.
Secondly, I fully endorse the modernising of the youth courts and the power to refer young offenders to a special panel with the possibility, if they are prepared to plead guilty and admit the offence, of an apology to the victim and perhaps community service as punishment. In your Lordships' House I have fully endorsed some pilot schemes along those lines. I believe that it is extremely valuable to bring the offender face to face with the victim. That will be of real psychological help for the rehabilitation of the offender and in giving support to the victim. I appreciate that it will not always work, but I strongly support the move to allocate the young offender to a special panel which can make a judgment.
The gracious Speech refers to the protection of vulnerable witnesses. From some of the stories that 1 have heard, and while going round the courts and prisons in my county of Sussex, I have appreciated the need for that. From information that I have gathered, many judges do not treat witnesses the same, even in the same legal area. There is a case for uniformity. I have spoken to some judges who seek to bring uniformity at least to their own area. We need steps to protect vulnerable witnesses. I am glad to see that aspect referred to in the gracious Speech.
I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will consider one small matter in his review of crime. It relates to the state of mind and health report, about which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will know, although non-lawyers in your Lordships' House may not. When a person who has psychiatric problems commits a couple of offences, let us say within a fortnight, he is entitled on each occasion to demand a state of mind and health report. If it is made twice within a fortnight, the report will be exactly the same. It is a great waste of time and expenditure. The

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Government can economise on their expenditure by changing the rules so that it is not binding on a court to award a right to such a report to an offender.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jay, spoke about human rights. There are references to human rights in the gracious Speech. I understand that at present the United Nations is considering a human responsibilities charter. I believe that that would be a potent balance to our emphasis on human rights. I welcome the move by the United Nations. I hope that the Government will give consideration to incorporating a human responsibilities charter into our law as they have done the human rights charter. I believe that that is needed to balance the present system.
I have one question on constitutional matters. It does not relate directly to the future of this House. In his admirable address yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, spoke of the manifesto commitment to make Parliament more democratic. If I understood the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, correctly, she said that the Royal Commission will consider the role, function and composition of the House of Lords. My question to the Government is this. At the same time, could not the Royal Commission also consider the same qualities for another place? If we are to have the great procedure of a Royal Commission, could it not endorse the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, to make Parliament more democratic? In his admirable philosophical discourse on democracy today, I wondered whether the noble Lord, Lord Judd, would make the same point: that we need to look at another place as much as at this place. For instance, is the balance of power between the Executive and the legislature in another place correct for the 21st century? I question that.
Members of the general public frequently refer to the use of the guillotine in another place. I know that governments of every colour enjoy the use of the guillotine, but members of the electorate are appalled that another place can be stopped from discussing and considering legislation by the Executive use of the guillotine. I should like a Royal Commission to consider such questions along with issues relating to the role, functions and composition of your Lordships' House. That would be valuable in promoting democracy which, as I understand it, is what this Government wish to do.
There are many valuable issues in the gracious Speech. I do not agree with them all, but I support the legislation that I believe is beneficial to this country.
7.48 p.m.
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, in the past hours I have been experiencing the terror of someone who realises that the speech he has prepared does not meet the high quality exhibited by his elder Peers. I therefore say that I have learned much and look forward to reading Hansard tomorrow.
I make one request. Could the Government please commission a business consultancy to produce a report on the contribution that active hereditary Peers make in this House; and the likely consequences of their removal?
7.50 p.m.
Baroness Wilcox: My Lords, as your Lordships know by now, I have a particular interest in consumer issues. I listened carefully to the gracious Speech to hear what good improvements the Government will be making for consumers. I know that there are Members of your Lordships' House who detest the word "consumer". Earlier tonight I had it explained to me over two sherries in the bar, so once again I shall define a consumer. A consumer is each man, woman and child in this country—your Lordships and me—when at some time during each day we use or buy goods or services, whether publicly or privately provided. It is not a citizen's issue; it is a consumer issue. I hope that your Lordships will bear with me and accept the use of the word which some of you find so difficult.
I looked at the gracious Speech to see what good work we could welcome. Some of the work that has been done by our new Government is very good indeed. We have on the statute book a reformed competition policy and we on these Benches have supported it. I was grateful for some of the amendments which were made. We have had White Papers on freedom of information and the Food Standards Agency and utility regulation reform. Therefore, together with many others, in particular the National Federation of Consumer Groups and the National Consumer Council, I am very disappointed that a freedom of information Bill will not be reaching the statute book this Session. I had hoped that this Government would build on the efforts of successive governments who paved the way for a freedom of information Bill this coming year.
The first significant move was in 1977. Then, under the government of the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, the Croham Directive was issued by the Head of the Home Civil Service. It created a government policy to publish as much as possible of the analytical material used as the background to major policy studies. While chairman of the National Consumer Council, appointed by the Conservative government, I was free to lobby for more openness from that government—successfully.
The next important development towards freedom of information came during the previous Conservative government. The Prime Minister, John Major, introduced an open government code which came into effect in April 1994. The code set out circumstances in which the government would volunteer information and those in which it would produce information on request to individuals and organisations. People who were refused information under the code could appeal to the Parliamentary Ombudsman and ultimately to his Select Committee. The code was an important step towards opening up government to the scrutiny of the governed. But it operated at the discretion of the government department concerned, and then ultimately at the discretion of the ombudsman. Under this system, which 18 months on still operates, the Government still hold the cards because of its voluntary nature and because the ombudsman has no power to force the Government to provide information.
The White Paper, Your Right to Know, published at the end of last year, proposed significant improvements. It would give people a statutory right of access to all

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information held by government and their agents unless there was a compelling reason not to disclose it; for instance, in respect of the defence of the realm. This would enshrine an individual's right to information in law. The proposed freedom of information commissioner would have the right to order disclosure and impose penalties for non-compliance.
I wish to give the reason why I, a Conservative, believe that freedom of information legislation is so important for everyone. I will use the example of medicines. In the United Kingdom, the decision about whether a drug should be available is taken by the Committee on the Safety of Medicines. Suppose that I am suffering from a condition for which a new drug is on the market. How do I decide whether to take it? What information will I have available to me on which to base my decision?
My doctor will receive a brief data sheet basically saying who the new drug is intended to help, who should not take it and how it should be used. If I am lucky, I might have a glimpse of that data sheet, but normally I will have instead a patient information sheet with general information about taking drugs and some very basic information about taking this one. Neither I nor my doctor will ever see any information about the trials of the drug or the thinking behind the decision to licence it, including what negative results have been disregarded and why. And, perhaps more importantly, those publications such as Health Which? or the Drugs and Therapeutic Bulletin, which could be providing information to help me decide, have access only to what the doctor receives.
By contrast, in the United States, which already has a Freedom of Information Act, anyone who requests it can get much of the information used by the regulator when deciding whether or not to licence the drug for use. And the regulator will also supply a justification for the licensing decision. While I myself may not want to plough through the hundreds of pages of the licensing information, I would know that the American equivalent of Health Which? or the Drugs and Therapeutic Bulletin had access to the information and would publish it in a way that I can understand. When in this country a drug which I have been taking for perhaps the past 10 years is withdrawn I cannot know or be told why I cannot use it any more. I may be very afraid of what has happened to me in the past 10 years, but ridiculously I can fax to the United States and within seconds receive across the airwaves that information—and that is not from my own country but from a foreign land.
Back in the UK, the regulator will tell me if the drug is safe for me. That has two implications. First, I believe that I have a right to be reassured that the regulator has taken decisions wisely. I can only really have that confidence if the information on which the decisions are based is publicly available. Secondly, once that decision has been made and the medicine which can help my condition is on the market, I need the fullest possible information about all the potential consequences of taking it. Only then can I take an informed decision. I am then "empowered"—something for which the noble Lord, Lord Judd, pleaded in a democracy.
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Your Lordships may ask what is wrong with the ombudsman taking the decision. Who better than a regulator to decide what is safe? But medicine is not an exact science. There is no absolute safety. A decision to license a drug for use is not based on whether it is absolutely safe but on whether it is safe enough. It is often a political judgment as well as a scientific decision. In relation to drugs, decisions are often based on the absence of evidence that the drug is harmful rather than on the presence of guarantees that it is safe. The people of America can freely know that information, but in the United Kingdom—in my country—I cannot.
The uncertainty for the consumers about whose interests are given priority is compounded by the fact that the Committee on the Safety of Medicines does not contain one consumer representative, although I understand that from next year there are to be two out of a total membership of 34. That is a very closed shop!
A good freedom of information Act would make regulators and government much more accountable to the people on whose behalf they regulate. It would allow us to see the process of regulation, warts and all. If we had a better appreciation of that imperfect science, perhaps we would be more careful and perhaps we would read more carefully the instructions we are given and work in tandem with regulators in order to minimise the risks.
I am sorry that the Government appear to have lost their appetite for freedom of information. If they bottle out by giving our people a weaker Act than the White Paper promised, or if they let freedom of information quietly slip off the legislative agenda, we will all be the poorer in two ways. First, consumers will not have access to vital information to help them make proper decisions about important aspects of their lives. Secondly, the myth will be perpetuated that regulators, being all knowing and all powerful, can be left to make important decisions for the people of Britain while we sit back, childlike in our innocence.
In a world of ever-higher technology, rapid growth in our medical capabilities, vast multi-national enterprises, mass consumption on an even bigger scale and increasingly complicated investment opportunities, that myth cannot be maintained for much longer.
Over several decades, but notably more in opposition than in government, the party opposite has spoken with a great passion about the need for open government. But rather like an unfortunate groom, just as this Government's enthusiasm for the consummation of a partnership with the consumer is reaching its peak, their passion appears to be deserting them. I warned that the result is likely to be deep disappointment for the bewildered bride. For the sake of all Britain's consumers, I hope that the Government rediscover their ardour—and soon.
8 p.m.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, in addressing the House, I remind your Lordships that I have no interest to declare. If I am abolished tomorrow, well and good. If I am not, nature will do it in any event.

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I wish to refer to two politicians whose speeches I have studied: Robert Walpole and Edmund Burke. They gave much attention to the representation of interests but they did not give any sort of exhaustive analysis of the ambiguity in both those words.
First, I take the word "representation". We say that a sample represents the bulk from which it is drawn. That is a short-term affair because the bulk from which it is drawn in nature will be changing the whole time. Your Lordships are well aware of the results of opinion samples in newspapers. From time to time, there is a surprise because public opinion has changed completely from what it was on the last occasion.
Then there is the other sense of the word "representation" where a barrister represents his client in court. That is a totally different meaning from the sampling of a procedure. That is a professional meaning of the word "representation".
As regards interests, there are two kinds of interests— short-term interests, which is what people want, and long-term interests which is what they need. An alcoholic wants a drink. That is a short-term want that can be serviced by the nearest bartender. What he needs is drying out. That is a long-term professional business.
If we then combine the two, we have a model for the House of Commons and the House of Lords with the House of Commons tending to people's short-term wants and the House of Lords tending to their long-term needs. One must note that people are frequently reluctant to take good advice when it is given. Therefore, the House of Commons would have the last word when wants and needs conflict.
How can we avoid the nomination to this House falling into the hands of one person? We can do that if, following the abolition of the hereditary peerage, we start to build a House from the professions.
I have found some figures. I must confess that they are about two years old, so they are probably out of date. However, 225 hereditary Peers were members of one of the chartered professional institutes out of a total membership of 527. Therefore, approximately 50 per cent, of the membership of this House has a professional standing and half of that comprises hereditary Peers. Their average attendances compare favourably with party attendances in the House. My statistics show that 34 is the average attendance of a professional man in this House. That compares with 30 for the Conservatives, 41 for Labour, 37 for the Liberal Democrats and 27 for the Cross Benches. In the future, we may turn the House of Lords into a senate of the professional classes, thus giving the patronage such a wide distribution—there are more than 91 chartered institutes—that it can never get into one pair of hands and end up virtually a unicameral legislature because, of course, that would be on the way to dictatorship. I agree very much with the picture painted by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, about the dangers of that. We must avoid it at all costs.
So the model I have given is a model for the eventual Royal Commission to study and to fill in the details which I have only sketched for your Lordships' House.
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In the meantime, I must deal with things as they are. One of the works I commend to your Lordships for study is a book by a German sociologist, one Helmut Schoek. It is an extremely large, fat and expensive book which I bought and gave to the Library. At least one person has borrowed it because I cannot get it back again to check the quotation for the time being. But Schoek has a very high reputation and his generalisation at the end of his study on envy is that equalitarian societies are envy-ridden societies. That is something from which we must suffer. That is why the hereditary House of Lords has become a target for envy, much more than it was in the past. Exactly how we are to cure that manifestation, I do not know.
In conclusion, I was rather struck by what seemed a complete irrelevance in the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, in the last Session of Parliament when we had the two-day debate on the constitutional future of the House of Lords. She suddenly threw in, as though it were a criticism of the hereditary Peers, that 45 per cent, of them had been at Eton. Exactly what was the relevance of that I cannot imagine. However, out of curiosity, I started to check on the statistics of Prime Ministers from Robert Walpole to Harold Macmillan. I found that 41 per cent, of them had been at Eton which compares favourably with the 45 per cent, quoted by the noble Baroness. I do not know what inspired her to that quotation and I am sorry that she is not here to answer for herself. She has a copy of the statistics. I have given them also to all leaders of parties in both Houses and to my friends. Having said that, the time has come to sit down and just hope that things come out all right in the wash.
8.7 p.m.
Lord Harding of Petherton: My Lords, due to other commitments, I too was unable to speak in the two-day debate on the reform of this House which took place in the last Session. Therefore, I am afraid that I shall talk about reform of this House and I hope that I shall not bore your Lordships in so doing.
As an hereditary Peer, I recognise that it is time that we departed as legislators. Indeed, as was stated implicitly in the Parliament Act 1911, that has been so for the past 87 years. It is not the fault of hereditary Peers that they have remained in Parliament for so long. If blame should be apportioned, the fault is with the governments and MPs over those years.
The difficulty has always been to devise a membership of the second Chamber so that it has legitimacy and yet does not take away the overriding power of the House of Commons. Many believed that by instituting life Peers, the problem was solved. Some still believe that. I am afraid that I do not share that belief.
This House as at present constituted is very good at revising legislation. Not all government amendments are as a result of the second thoughts of Ministers and civil servants. Academics speaking about this House often do not know what they are talking about and they get it wrong. Many amendments are as a result of Peers from the other two parties and the Cross-Benches forcing the

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government of the day to produce their own amendments. That is particularly so when the government have a small majority in the other place, which happened before the last election. Government Ministers and their civil servants are loath to accept amendments other than their own. However, when it comes to contentious legislation, because of the large hereditary element in this place, the House of Lords cannot do its job properly. That has become glaringly obvious in recent weeks over the closed list system in the European Parliamentary Elections Bill. Because of its make-up, large numbers of the general public and respected political journalists such as Mr. Peter Riddell (who talks a great deal of sense), believed that the House of Lords had no right to hold up that Bill, even though they may not like the closed list system; even though it is quite legitimate—as other noble Lords have said much better than I—under our constitution that the House of Lords can only hold it up for a year. It was seen as an outrage.
We must have an upper House that is perceived as legitimate enough to be able to insist on amendments and, if necessary, to hold up a Bill for a year. Whatever the composition of this House, there will always be governments and their supporters—in the Commons and outside—who will be outraged at the Commons being defied and having legislation held up. However, the general public will not be concerned if the House of Lords is looked upon as a legitimate check on the government of the day.
Obviously, a reformed House should not do that too often. As presently constituted, this House has rarely sent back amendments or held up Bills such as the War Crimes Bill and, more recently, the European Parliamentary Elections Bill. The amendments insisted upon must have wide support with respected opinion in the country. As the Leader of the House said, if not today during earlier exchanges, why have not the Conservatives (my party) done this before? I would have supported my party leadership if they had. But that is easier said than done. As the Labour Party is aware, it must carry its supporters with it. At the moment the Labour Party seems to have solved that problem and is managing to do it with a small leadership. But for how long? In the end the party's supporters must be brought along.
Conservatives—with both a big "C" and a little "c"— have great affection for the House of Lords as it is presently constituted. I spoke to a Conservative audience three-and-a-half years ago in Dorset and said to them that hereditary Peers should go and the House of Lords should be reformed. It did not go down at all well. If I had been well known or a thrusting ambitious young Turk, my line of argument might have produced results. However, as a Back-Bench Peer it did not seem to me that I would do any good trying to change traditional attitudes.
That is why my party leadership has not wanted to tackle the problem in recent years. I would have liked my right honourable friend John Major, when he was Prime Minister, to have done so, but he would have had to carry Conservative opinion in the country with him. The easy part would have been to carry both life and
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hereditary Peers and MPs; the difficult part is to carry Conservative voters and conservative thinkers. I have talked to many people about the reform of the House of Lords and was often told, "We like this place". They did not necessarily vote Conservative in the last election. They like the House as it is. Opinion polls show that many people throughout the country— perhaps even those who vote Labour—may not like what the House of Lords does, but have affection for it.
I have great sympathy with those who say, "If it works, don't fix it" and "No change for change's sake". But the present arrangements do not work and it is important that they are fixed. I may be accused of hypocrisy in holding those views. But I have been interested in politics since I was a boy and have therefore been extremely lucky to be able to come here regularly over the past seven-and-a-half years. As my noble friend Lady Strange said, to me it is a perfect place; it has a marvellous atmosphere; but as a hereditary Peer I recognise that it is an anachronism, and has been for a long time.
The Prime Minister said that he will divest his office of most of the appointments of life Peers to the House of Lords. That is welcome. We will take him at his word, though we must also see that it is laid down by statute. In my opinion, that is still not good enough. The upper Chamber must have a substantial elected element. As my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith said this afternoon, it may be that a wholly-elected second Chamber is the only real answer in the end. However, that is not realistic in the foreseeable future. Hereditary Peers may go with regret and resignation; I cannot see life Peers leaving so easily.
I would favour a partly-elected upper House as an interim measure. Although I am totally against proportional representation for election to the House of Commons, I do not see why it should not be applicable for Members of the upper House—but no closed lists. The Government say that they are determined to reform the House of Lords in two stages. That was stated in the gracious Speech. I urge the Government to be wary of doing that and to think again even at this late stage. Reform should be undertaken in one go. I will support my noble friend Lord Cranbome in any parliamentary action he takes and advises us on these Benches to take to force the Government to change their mind. However, I am not in favour of the proposal of my noble friend Lord Onslow to act as hooligans. That is not the way that Members of your Lordships' House should act and I am sure that my noble friend Lord Cranborne will not be doing that. I shall trust his judgment.
With the election of the Labour Government with a large majority and a mandate to do away with hereditary Peers, we on these Benches must face reality. However, as far as we are able, we must insist that proper reform takes place which preserves this House as a revising Chamber with a legitimacy recognised by the majority of the electorate. I look forward to the Government's White Paper and the setting up of the Royal Commission.
8.17 p.m.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I wish to speak on the legal affairs aspect of this debate which has so far not attracted a great deal of comment. Yesterday in the gracious Speech there appeared the commitment:
"My Government will introduce legislation to modernise legal aid to make the system fairer and more cost effective; to provide for a community legal service; and to make other changes to overhaul the justice system".
In the other place the Prime Minister confined himself to saying that legal aid would be "radically" transformed. This afternoon the Leader of the House stated that, with what she called a "heartland" issue for the Government,
"citizens [will have] better access to justice in our courts".
As a still practising solicitor after 34 years' qualification, who spent five years in a general country practice before setting up my own firm in London, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on what seems to me a crucial underlying issue vis-àvis justice; namely, access. My preoccupation goes back a long way. I seem to recollect that the Lord Chancellor and I were in attendance at a conference in Oxford in 1967 or 1968 which preceded the launch of that seminal Fabian pamphlet, Justice for All. Whatever I may say by way of criticism, I do not doubt the just and good intent of the proposals which the Government have put forward. Afterwards I was the first chairman of the Legal Action Group.
I make two things clear. The first is that, showing proper concern for the cost of legal aid to the taxpayer and with the ballooning complexity of ordinary citizens' legal lives, there are no easy answers to legal aid improvements, especially if there is no extra money. In the present year the net cost of all legal aid will be £1.6 billion, split roughly one-third each in respect of crime, family and civil legal aid. In fact last year legal aid expenditure was less than budget, and in three years' time the Government estimate that it will have dropped to £1.55 billion. Given that this sum is not inflation adjusted and that the cost of running legal services, as with health, tends to run ahead of inflation, that represents a significant real decline in solicitors' income.
If calls on the system go on rising—and last year they were three per cent, up at 2.3 million cases—the shoe, already pinching, will pinch even more for the hard-pressed legal aid solicitor. Rates of reward for legal aid work have fallen further and further behind inflation, and even more behind remuneration for private practice, particularly for commercial firms. For example, the hourly rates for giving advice under what is called green form legal aid work is rather less than the typical central city firm will charge for the time of a trainee solicitor. By and large, legal aid work is hard, intensely pressurised and attracts little public notice, thanks or esteem.
Many are giving up, heading for easier pastures, and I predict that many more will do so if these reforms come to pass unaltered. The thrust of the Government's proposals is to seek to control legal aid, both as to cost and quality, principally by means of what is called
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exclusive contracting. Over five years ago the previous government introduced franchising of legal aid, giving firms which took out a franchise—and there was no exclusivity, importantly—some modest advantages over those who simply did legal aid work on a case-by-case basis, particularly in terms of more regular payment.
The Government wish to take this process a crucial stage further and over time propose to confine legal aid work to those firms which comply with the whole range of Legal Aid Board criteria and tender for the work covered by exclusive contracts at a price which the board is willing to accept. The overwhelming effect of the exclusive contracting proposals will be an unprecedented and dramatic reduction in the number of solicitors and firms doing legal aid. Whereas at present there are no fewer than 11,000 solicitors' offices undertaking some legal aid work, the Legal Aid Board proposes that only 2,000 to 3,000 exclusive contracts will be awarded to solicitors in the family case category, and a mere 100 to 200 contracts to cover other areas of civil work.
On top of that, 200 to 300 contracts are expected to be awarded to charity providers of legal services—and I wholly applaud that—the majority of them in the field of death and welfare benefits. The Prime Minister was certainly right when he said legal aid would be radically transformed. Who could have believed that it would be at the expense—not just the choice—in a minority of cases of any practical access to lawyers at all?
Yet geographical access, I need hardly say, is vital. The issues we are dealing with here have some similarity to the plight of the general store in villages or country towns without the countervailing benefit of big firms panting to snaffle their business at cheaper rates. The reality here is the very reverse. The larger firms of solicitors have much bigger fish to fry at far, far higher fees. When Sir Hartley Shawcross, as he then was, moved the Second Reading of the Legal Aid and Advice Bill in 1948, he said that the Bill was,
"the charter of the little man to the British courts of justice."
So it was, but whatever else this Bill is, it is certainly not an "access to justice Bill" at all. If one remembers that legal aid is these days available to less than half the population—originally it covered 80 per cent.—and if one realises that for all the general affluence, a sizeable and increasing minority of our countrymen are poor as well as confused and if one recollects, too, that for all the general mobility, public transport is simply not available in many parts of the country and invariably expensive when it is, and if perhaps above all one realises that there is a major psychological barrier to access to legal services, one will then realise what a catastrophic reform this has the potential to be.
In response, the Legal Aid Board will say, as reported to the Lord Chancellor last month, that access is really not a problem. What it calls "outreach work", particularly via telephone services, is to be the substitute. The board claim that,
"these outreach services may provide us with a means of ensuring access in certain rural areas and for specific client groups."
The PSI research on which this startling judgment is based seems seriously inadequate to support such a heavy weight of policy. In saying that, I make no

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criticism of the researchers. They were not asked to do any research with solicitors in private practice at all but confined themselves to charitable organisations, 200 to 300 of which will be awarded contracts.
Secondly, the researchers were not asked to look at the results of the advice by telephone from the client's viewpoint, nor at the objective quality of the advice given. In short, they did not look at actual cases but at systems. The whole tendency of the proposed exclusive contracting reforms and, to be fair, some which have preceded them, will be to create a two-tier and ultimately two-class profession—something which the original architects of the legal aid scheme strove mightily to prevent.
Already many firms which undertake a significant amount of legal aid work are asking: is it worth it? Even if they are able to meet the new criteria for exclusive contracts, the bureaucracy, the inflexibility and the demands of the new legal aid regime are increasingly being seen as too onerous. Perhaps I may read briefly from a letter I received only today from a practitioner in Gravesend, Richard Miller, chairman of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, which comprises 600 firms, and who therefore knows what he is talking about:
"This firm is a typical High Street practice. We have one office, four partners, 10 other fee earning staff and around 20 support staff. We are the only firm in this town which holds a welfare benefits franchise which means that we have demonstrated quality standards in the advice we give in this complex area. At any one time, we are handling between 60 and 80 welfare benefits matters of varying degrees of complexity. We probably handle at least 200–300 cases in the course of a year. Under the new scheme being proposed for next year, there is a requirement that the person in charge of the welfare benefits department should personally carry out at least 350 hours of work on welfare benefits matters. Because the rates of pay for this work are so low, the only economic way to do it is to delegate the more mundane aspects of the work to more junior staff. The new scheme prevents this from being done. The result of this is that when exclusive contracting is brought in, my firm will probably not be able to apply for a contract and this firm's years of experience in dealing with welfare benefits matters will be lost to the local community."
That is a pretty sobering and depressing letter. What one is seeing, I believe, is that the firms currently doing legal aid, which are supported by more profitable work, will no longer be able to rely on that as the scheme develops and the effects of it have their impact. They will fall further and further behind the profitability of private client practitioners, and the chances of this or any other government devoting significantly more funds to the legal aid scheme, particularly to improve the remuneration rates for the lawyers involved, can be more or less written off. This is all too likely to lead to demoralisation and a decline in standards, quite apart from reduced geographical access. No amount of externally applied quality assurance standards will be able to remedy that.
The belief of those on these Benches and my own conclusion, based on a great deal of knowledge and discussion I have had with other members of my profession in legal aid practices, is that the total impact of exclusive franchising will be to produce a dramatic reduction in access. I put it to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that to reduce the number of solicitors' firms available for legal aid from the current
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11,000 to a mere 3,000 has obvious consequences. I very sincerely hope that even at this stage there will be a serious review of that central proposal and its effects.
I, and I am sure many in the House, will be wholly behind the Government's aspirations vis-à-vis a community legal service. It has been argued for by Liberal Democrats and lawyers for a very long time. We shall do everything possible to make it an effective reality. But on the issue of access there seems to be absolutely no doubt but that the consequences will be a disaster for the most vulnerable sections of our community and in time will lead to a two-class solicitors' practice and profession with predictable consequences for those who most need those services. It is a dry subject. I remind the House that behind legal aid stands a concept built into the very bones of this place; namely, the notion that, as Magna Carta decreed,
"to no one will we sell, deny, or delay right or justice".
8.32 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, in his opening speech my noble friend Lord Cranborne drew attention to the number of times that the word "modernise" was used in the gracious Speech. There is a danger that if the Government go on using that word as a cloak for unsound policies it will become like the word "peace" in the early days of the Cold War. They will discredit the word and discredit an admirable purpose.
It seems that the Government are seeking to race forward at such a pace and on such a wide spectrum in changing our constitution that there is a real danger that our very fragile and complicated constitution could be reduced to a shambles. That would destroy one of our historic strengths. For centuries the British constitution, from Westminster to judicial review, has been most effective in protecting us from tyranny and in protecting the individual from ill-treatment by the Executive. If it were harmed that would diminish our influence abroad. I remind the Government—although I am sure they are fully aware of it—that British influence on the world scene is now far greater than our economic weight alone would justify, and long may it be so.
As regards House of Lords reform, I myself start from five propositions. First, a second chamber is essential. Secondly, the present House of Lords does a pretty good job in practice. Thirdly, we should not expect an elected chamber to do a better job. Indeed, I contend that it is likely to do a less good job. That would apply even more to a partly elected House. Fourthly, to distinguish between the legitimacy of hereditary and life Peers is wholly spurious. Fifthly, we should recognise that the Government are quite determined to seek to end the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.
In the short time I have at this late hour, I shall focus on the third, fourth and fifth of those propositions. With regard to an elected second chamber, I have a real worry about the legislative quality of the House of Commons. In the time I have observed it, it has deteriorated and it is continuing to deteriorate. That deterioration can be measured in two ways. First, there is the decreasing independence of view and action; and, secondly, the

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falling level of expertise and experience from outside. Partly that is the unavoidable consequence of large majorities, which applies to any government. More seriously, it is the product of the overkill of the early Nolan philosophy, the apparent assumption, certainly by the media and to a most regrettable extent by the Nolan Committee, of the infinite corruptibility of MPs. That has already introduced conditions of membership which are making many who would previously have contemplated a parliamentary career unwilling to do so. A distinguished Member of this House, a Cross-Bencher, said to me yesterday, "Treat MPs like pygmies and you get pygmies". I hope that the new Neill Committee will be less reactive to tabloid pressure.
The concept of legitimacy put forward so frequently by government Ministers is clearly flawed. Hereditary Peers are constitutionally every bit as legitimate as life Peers. Frankly, in terms of democracy, it is hard to see more than a shade of difference. Certainly, I have never seen myself as a jot more legitimate in purely democratic terms than my hereditary colleagues. Until there is a legislative change, hereditary Peers are legitimate and should be treated as such. I echo the argument used by the noble Lord, Lord Shore, last week and so powerfully reinforced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, this afternoon. Therefore, I ask that from now on we hear from Ministers no more of the legitimacy argument about hereditary and life Peers.
However, I am prepared to accept that the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords should be removed. Therefore, I support those words in both the Labour manifesto and the gracious Speech. The reasons I am prepared to go that far are: first, the theoretical membership of the House of Lords, at 1,300, is far too large, and, at 750, there are too many hereditary Peers. Many do not attend at all. In the 1995–96 Session, which lasted 136 days, 165 Peers never came to the House. In the 1996–97 Session, which was a short Session of 79 days, 181 Peers never attended. Therefore, in practice those particular hereditary Peers are not legislators.
Some attend infrequently. We must admit that in the past they have come to muster support for the Tory Party. If we consider those who attend, but for less than one day in four, in the 1995 Session there were a further 240 Peers. In 1996–97, 209 Peers attended for less than one day in four. I can understand why the Labour Party sees the arrival of backwoodsmen as an objectionable practice. Thus one can probably say that of the 750 hereditary Peers some 400 are in a sense "out of the frame". Some of those who attend regularly appear to make little contribution. I emphasise that that applies just as much to life Peers who attend quite frequently. There are a very few—they get plenty of media coverage—who, it is generally accepted, are not appropriate candidates as legislators.
I understand that regular attenders are classified as those who attend more than one day in three. Over the two most recent Sessions that covers about 210 hereditary Peers and 230 life Peers. If we are a little more rigorous and suggest that attendance on half the
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days that Parliament sits makes for regular attendance, then for those two Sessions the figure is 160 hereditaries and about 180 life Peers.
So I start from full agreement with the Government's fundamental position. But then we come to the crucial question of how to achieve that, and of course then we are back to the old argument about babies and bath water. I have been a Member of this House for seven years and I have been immensely struck by the hard, effective, unpaid work which our hereditary colleagues perform. We have in this country a tremendous tradition of voluntary service, at every level of government, from the grass roots of the parish council to the House of Lords—and, indeed, at every level of charitable body. It would appear that the Government are proposing, at one legislative stroke, to eliminate this in one of its most distinguished forms. This I totally reject.
The figures I quoted earlier suggest that, very roughly, the work of the House of Lords is divided fairly evenly between hereditary and life Peers. Just to illustrate that—admittedly, arbitrarily and subjectively—some of the hereditaries we would lose from the clean sweep approach would include: on the Labour Benches, the noble Lords, Lord Strabolgi, Lord Genfell and Lord Berkeley; on the Liberal Benches, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury; on my own Benches, the distinguished scientific experience of the noble Earls, Lord Selborne and Lord Cranbrook; and on the Cross-Benches, the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, the noble Countess, Lady Mar, and my noble kinswoman, the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth.
How, therefore, can the Labour manifesto commitment be implemented while, at the same time, ensuring that hereditary Peers continue to make their contribution within the parliamentary framework?
I, for one, would find it quite unacceptable if behind closed doors deals were made between the two opposition parties and the Cross-Benches for a certain limited number of their flocks to be made life Peers. That would be a malignant combination of patronage and cronyism. It would be as bad as the closed list for the European Parliament, eliminating the awkward squad, leaving only the safe supporters—the poodles, not the rottweilers. I do not believe that individual hereditaries should depend on the usual channels for their lifeboat. What a lesson we have to learn from the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, who, in his maiden speech, made a fascinating reference to what Edward Gibbon said on this subject.
How, therefore, do we achieve the result that we all want and accommodate the Labour manifesto? First, let us consider Privy Counsellors. Membership of the Privy Council reflects one of the highest tributes to eminence in public life. Being a Privy Counsellor is probably much better than being a Knight and so on. There are 192 Privy Counsellors in your Lordships' House. Of those, 30 are hereditary Peers. I would hope that all of those would be allowed to stay.
In addition, I believe that there should be an electoral college formed from the 500 hereditary Peers who have been the most active attenders in the last two Sessions, and that they should be empowered to elect 100 of their

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number for a Parliament. Such a scheme would conveniently mean that the size of this House would be reduced to approximately the same size as the House of Commons. It could be seen as an interim stage, to continue until the Royal Commission had completed its work. I have some confidence that it would form a very satisfactory long-term framework for the House of Lords.
I have declared myself to be sympathetic to the stated objective of the Government. However, I would oppose with all my vigour a clean sweep of all the hereditaries. The status quo would be much better than that.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, could he clarify something? I think he said that about 250 hereditary Peers attended each day. The exact number does not matter, but was he implying that it was the same hereditary Peers who attended each day?
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, the figures I gave were the figures of those individuals who attend more than a certain number of days in each Session.
8.44 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I rise to speak to two aspects of the gracious Speech. The first is the access to justice Bill, which was effectively dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury. No doubt the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will comment on the noble Lord's remarks.
Anyone who has been a Member of Parliament for a constituency, as I had the privilege of being for a number of years, cannot but help reflect on those occasions when poor, well-driven people came to their Member of Parliament—not to solve their housing problems, educational problems or immigration problems, but because, by one means or another, they had strayed into a need for access to justice.
Although we are well aware in general of the good work done by the legal aid system, in my experience there has always been a great need to improve access to justice. As I see it, the access to justice Bill is part of a broader programme of modernising justice. It would aim to fulfil a manifesto pledge to create a community legal service. It would help to create a fair and efficient system of justice, operating in the interests of the people who use it and the wider public. It would encourage a greater range of high-quality, value-for-money legal services for those who need them most. It would make the best possible use of the public money which supports legal services, reduce restrictive practices in the legal profession, simplify and speed up civil court procedures and help government initiatives to tackle crime by reforms in the courts.
I have listened to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, and I respect his vast experience. He has laid a number of challenges before the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to be dealt with in his wind-up speech, which I have every confidence he will rise to. Apart from that, I am not competent to make any further comment. I
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speak from the heart on the need for what is set out. Whether it will achieve the objective or not, I do not know.
Secondly, I applaud the Bill to deprive hereditary Peers of the right to sit and vote in this Chamber. I have listened, sometimes with sadness, to the way in which Members on both sides of the argument feel it necessary to sneer at and attack the motives, the background and the historical interest which Members of the hereditary peerage bring. That is not the way to win arguments. Over the next period I look forward to taking part in debates which are well fought, hard fought and in which those on both sides of the argument will speak with passion.
I can fully understand the feelings of an hereditary Peer whose family has enjoyed the privilege of that position for 100, 200, 400 years and the sadness with which he and his family may view the loss of his ability to sit and vote as being the end of the world. It is not. All that it says is that it deprives the person of the right to sit and vote in this place. I listened very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, when he objected to the spurious difference that had been cleaved between hereditary and life Peers. I make no distinction. We are all politicians. We are all members of a political House. The basis and the raison d'être for the Opposition fighting so strongly is that it is selectively to be deprived of one of its most powerful political weapons: that before a vote is taken, because of an accident of birth, they can rely on a whole swath of people. When people say "Well, Ted, if it was reversed what would you say?", I think I would fight just as hard not to lose the privilege, not to lose the majority. They have got it. We ought not to be mealy mouthed. The Opposition is fighting to retain something which has been in their party interests for hundreds of years. We are entitled to try to deprive them of it.
In the past few weeks I have been interested to see how the Opposition have tried to turn the issue into one of "Tony's cronies" and have suggested that the House will be filled with Labour nominees. Not for the first time the Library has produced some interesting statistics. I have before me a document setting out Peerage creations between 1958 and 1998. According to the record, over the whole of that period 945 life Peers were created. Of those 945 life Peers, the present Prime Minister has to his credit 105, which is 9 per cent, of the total. Under the column headed Thatcher, we see that 216 life Peers were created, which is 23 per cent. of the total. Under the column headed Major, we see that 171 life Peers were created, which is 18 per cent. of the total. The administrations of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, and John Major created four times as many life Peers as Tony Blair has created. Therefore, the party opposite ought to reflect seriously on whether they are misusing the argument.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, should not the noble Lord allow for the fact that we have had to put up with Mr. Blair for only 18 months whereas the Tory administrations lasted for that number of years?
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, if we are going to debate this matter, it should be recognised that

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two points are already on the record. First, unlike the Conservative Party, the Labour Party has declared that it does not wish to see any party with a majority in this House, as the party opposite has enjoyed for many years. Secondly, the Prime Minister has said that he is not only willing but he will give up his ultimate right of patronage. Those are two enormous gifts and that ought to be part of the record.
Earlier this afternoon the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, wondered where the Government's right to act in this matter as they are acting has come from. The answer is simple. It comes from the other House. The other House is largely peopled by Labour Members of Parliament who were put there by the electorate. The doctrine of the mandate is clear and the mandate indicated that, as a first self-contained step, the Government would proceed with these matters. I am well aware that, although a party may win one general election, there is no guarantee that it will win the next election. It ought not to take the electorate for granted. I do not believe that my right honourable friend is doing that.
The noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, and others have argued that we are acting too hastily. They say that they share our view that reform is needed and change is required. For 18 years, with absolute power, the party opposite did not lift a finger. However, as soon as this Government bring forward their plans, there is a cry of "haste". I make a genuine offer to all the hereditary Peers to whom I want to give their cards. I have in my hand a postcard. It states, "Labour clears the way", and on it there is the House of Lords being battered by the workers. What I have in my hand is a facsimile of a poster by the Labour Party in 1910. We have been attempting to make a change of some kind—noble Lords will be aware that the policy has changed over the years—so I do not think it is fair to argue that we are acting with undue haste.
What propositions have been advanced by the other side? I do not think that we have heard anything sensible. The noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, alleges that the House is being sold snake oil by snake oil salesmen. I can advise him that the best way to apply snake oil is to rub it in, and I enjoy doing a bit of that using snake oil at the moment. For too long Members on this side of the House have won the argument on many an issue but have lost the vote by virtue of the votes of hereditary Peers.
Perhaps I may remind the House that when last week noble Lords on the Benches opposite argued against the Government they constantly used the term, "We are doing it on principle". I remind the House—
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble Lord to address a problem which has perplexed English government for a long time. I refer to the enormous executive control of the House of Commons. A former leader of the Labour Party reminded his Members of Parliament that unless they wore his dog collar they could not get elected. Does the
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noble Lord, as a former Member of the House of Commons who cracked legs, not feel that he should give some consideration to this point?
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I find it rich to hear that coming from the party opposite, which has enjoyed an in-built majority of 300 or 400 over Labour's hereditary Peers. I find it rich that those who have enjoyed and misused their power here are now, when the boot is on the other foot in the other place, arguing for the Government to call off the dogs and to give them a chance. The people of this country were invited by the noble Lord's party and by mine to express their views in a democratic election. The party opposite was whipped; it was rejected; it was run out of office. I am not going to wave goodbye. What has happened is the result of democracy. We know what happens to people who argue that it is better to run the ship with a smaller number. All I say is that the House of Commons reflects the will of the people in a free election.
We hear the constant cry, "Why change the House of Lords? It works". Of course it has worked: it has worked for the party opposite. That is why it does not want to change the House of Lords. It wants to keep the House as it is. Let me remind the House of some of the issues on which the party opposite felt on principle it ought to use its hereditary majority and get its way. On 12th February 1996 an amendment to the Community Care (Direct Payments) Bill, extending grants to people with learning difficulties, was rejected on a majority of the hereditary Peers' vote. On 24th June an amendment to the Asylum and Immigration Bill, to exclude unaccompanied children from fast-track asylum procedures, was rejected by the party opposite on the weight of the votes of the hereditary Peers. On 25th June an amendment to the Housing Bill, giving greater security to temporarily housed homeless families, was rejected. Where were their principles on all of those issues? The principles they operated on were, "We have power and we are going to use it and abuse it".
Many of us will remember that during the war Churchill said to Roosevelt, "Give us the tools and we will finish the job". On 1st May the British people gave us the tools, and this time we intend to finish the job.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may quite calmly ask him a question. I have a great respect for the noble Lord, as the House knows. He said that the Government have a mandate. Of course, they have a vast mandate. Let us assume that some people read the manifesto and let us assume that at that time they all thought it was a good idea to do away with hereditary Peers, without, so to speak, putting anything else in their place and to set up a wholly nominated Chamber. The noble Lord talks about a mandate. Surely the noble Lord will accept that that mandate no longer subsists; it is long past its sell-by date.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, whose views I respect. I refer to a mandate which is clear and unambiguous. However, I take his point as

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regards whether many people or any people read it in detail. The first part of the mandate is clear; namely, that a self-contained piece of legislation will remove the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote. Like many others I am agog to know the precise details of what will follow in the second stage. Of course it would have been easy for the Government or their policy makers to produce a detailed second stage, in which case noble Lords opposite would have latched their teeth onto it straight away. The Government are undertaking the widest possible consultation to which everyone can contribute and out of which I hope will arise a better second Chamber.
9p.m.
Lord Sudeley: My Lords, in contrast to the speech we have just heard, I believe that the Bill to eliminate the hereditary peerage is a tragedy owing to the understanding which the aristocracy has of inheritance and tradition. As regards the power of inheritance and tradition, one has to consider only the existence of the present state of Israel.
During the summer Recess the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, who is a hard rationalist on matters of House of Lords reform, wrote to me to say that during the debate on the future of the House which took place last month the Government would answer the question which I put to her in my correspondence as regards whether any Bill to abolish the hereditary peerage would be illegal under the Parliament Acts. As no answer was given by the Government during that debate—rather on the level that not answering letters is the way the world works—I had to table a Question for Written Answer on this subject so that the question cannot be evaded.
Under the Parliament Acts we are used to the inability of the House to delay legislation from the other place for more than a year. However, with the abolition of the hereditary peerage we may be entering a different area. Is it legal under the Parliament Acts for one House to dismantle the other House without its consent; in other words, can Parliament commit hara-kiri with itself?
During a speech which he made before the election, the Prime Minister said that his fundamental objection to hereditary Peers—whose titles, he said, emanate from illegitimacy in the Royal bedchamber, though, in point of fact, it is more often the case that they were awarded for honourable service to the government (if we cannot libel the dead at least we should honour them)—is that they have voting rights and thereby provide an in-built Tory majority in this House. However, speaking rights are much more important than voting rights. In consequence of speaking rights things happen. We have to consider only the number of amendments won in this House simply by argument on the Floor of the Chamber in Committee. In consequence of the debate which I introduced in the House in 1973 on the export of manuscripts—one of the quiet glories of England which represent the continuity of our institutions since the Middle Ages—the provision of copies of manuscripts going overseas has much improved. Our present Government seek to disrupt that continuity.
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Without the success of my Prayer Book protection Bill in 1981, it is thought that the Prayer Book would have disappeared. That was an important victory as the new services secularise Christianity when that is not what Christianity is about. I can claim only less than half the credit for that victory, as much was due to the skill with which Professor David Martin of the London School of Economics handled a press conference so that not a single national newspaper did not favour the traditionalist case.
I may be an hereditary Peer and a Tory Back-Bencher, further to the right than my own side, but I believe the situation is difficult when so many hereditary Peers do not believe in their own case. We need to rely on a life Peer to advocate our cause. The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, is the best advocate of our cause. On individual issues I have received much support from Labour parliamentarians. My debate on the export of historic manuscripts was suggested to me by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, who was then on the Labour Front Bench. As regards my Prayer Book protection Bill, my principal supporter was the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara. My forthcoming initiative on bankruptcy has been much welcomed by a Labour Member of the other place, the Member for Great Grimsby, with whom I am working over opposition to usury in its old sense of lending money without taking a share of the risk. I hope that more parliamentarians will join our isolated cause. Usury was appropriately condemned in the Middle Ages. When Henry I was absent, this House emasculated all moneylenders and the present damage caused by usury is evident when banks need the support of public opinion for the sake of their own custom. With the present Government's conviction as regards political democracy, why do they not give us economic democracy, with the abolition of usury and the reassumption by elected governments of the supply of our money on a debt-free basis?
During the debate last month on the future of the House of Lords much was said about the danger—by the removal of the independent hereditary element of the House of Lords—of not curbing the power of the Executive. This quarrel has existed ever since the struggle in the Middle Ages between the Crown and the baronage, to whom I was then related. In the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester there is a vivid account of how during the conflict between Henry III and the baronage the barons' sheriff of Gloucestershire was ridden over by horses on the royal side. The Quinquennial Act is important. Whatever mask may be assumed by the Government as regards greater democracy, we are moving in the direction of a dictatorship, not only in this area but in other areas too.
The Home Secretary has advocated the abolition of the Royal Prerogative. The arrest of General Pinochet took place without consideration of whether we have an independent judiciary. Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw would have dealt with all this very well but they are now both dead. We need another gifted playwright to take over and to lay on an entertainment for us in the West End. The Prime Minister's smile may destroy him in the end.
9.6 p.m.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, today has been a truly historic day because I believe it is the first day in living memory, perhaps in all history, when a Lord Chancellor has sat in your Lordships' House elsewhere than on the Woolsack. I look forward to the even more historic day when for the first time he will wear his trousers in this House!
But, more seriously, we are now at the start of an historic Session. Today's debate has not matched the seriousness of the occasion, which is perhaps inevitable. That is because what we have had is largely a re-run of the debate we had some six weeks ago. When expressing reservations about the quality of the debate today, I wish to make an exception for the three maiden speakers. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, made a thoughtful and constructive speech. The brevity and charm of the noble Earl, Lord Dunmore, set an example which some other noble Lords would have been wise to copy. I hope that they will both forgive me if I give a particular welcome to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell. I do so because he now holds an office, that of the Master of University College, Oxford, which my father held some 40 years ago. The noble Lord spoke today with the experience and wisdom derived from a long and brilliant career in the Civil Service.
The debate today has been on legal as well as constitutional affairs. Not surprisingly, constitutional affairs have dominated. Legal affairs have been touched on only to a limited extent, notably in the most distinguished speech by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, and in the powerful speech by my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury.
It is difficult to make comments on legal matters now because the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor is to wind up the debate. Until he does so, we have little information to go on and, of course, when he sits down, that will be the end of the debate, so this is the time for questions rather than comments about the proposed access to justice Bill.
I come to my first question. We had a lot of discussion in the last Session about legal aid. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor accepted that the rules on legal aid could not be changed as quickly or perhaps as fundamentally as was originally proposed. Does the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor now accept that legal aid will remain essential for many types of case; for example, in medical negligence cases where there is a need to commit oneself to substantial expenditure before it is possible to find out even whether there is a viable case?
My second question is: Will the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor give a proper trial to the contingency legal aid fund system advocated for many years by Justice—perhaps I should say that I chaired a committee which prepared the original pamphlet on the subject—and more recently by the Bar Council and the Law Society?
Thirdly, a discussion paper was published earlier this year about rights of audience. I support most of the proposals in that paper. However, the proposal that the
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Lord Chancellor could impose rules on professional bodies without the concurrence of either Parliament or the judiciary is open to the most serious objection on constitutional grounds. Those objections were made strongly by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Steyn, in another location, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, pointed out in today's debate. I have seen a suggestion in the press that the Lord Chancellor now accepts that there should be a need to obtain parliamentary approval for enforced rule changes. Is that correct?
Fourthly, there have been suggestions in the press that an exclusive franchising system is intended to be extended to criminal legal aid. If implemented, that would mean that legally aided defendants in criminal trials could use only firms or chambers approved by the Legal Aid Board or some other official body. That would be the end of the defendant's right to be defended in a criminal trial by counsel of his choice. Are those suggestions true? If so, they are likely to meet with strong opposition from these Benches.
Before leaving legal matters, I should like to endorse very strongly the speech by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce. No Law Commission Bill has been enacted since the general election and if none is enacted in the coming Session, there will be a gap of at least three years in enacting any Law Commission proposals. I would remind the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that the Law Commission was created by one of his predecessors, the Labour Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner. A great deal of valuable work has been done by the Law Commission. I hope that the Government will now ensure that it comes to fruition.
I turn to constitutional issues. Perhaps I may start with the two Bills where drafts have been promised for this Session and legislation deferred until the next. I welcome the practice of publication of draft Bills and hope that that will be extended as far as possible.
First, I turn to the Bill to implement the report of the Neill Committee on party funding. As a member of that committee, I welcome the confirmation that the Government will legislate on that report and I entirely accept the decision not to include that in legislation for this year. The report was not delivered until mid-October. It was more extensive and perhaps more radical than was generally expected. It will require extensive consultation with parties in all parts of the United Kingdom and cannot in practical terms be ready for legislation this Session.
I am, however, much less happy about the delay in introducing legislation on freedom of information. That was a manifesto commitment. An excellent Green Paper on the subject was published in December 1997. It asked for comments by the end of February this year. Nine months on, all we are promised is a draft Bill.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, that freedom of information legislation should not inhibit frank discussion on policy issues. There has been plenty of time to take that kind of issue into account. I fear that the delay means that the departmental rats have been gnawing at the Bill. The Home Office has taken over control from the Cabinet

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Office. Frankly, that is like transferring responsibility for guarding a flock of sheep from a sheepdog to a wolf. I hope I am wrong in this, but when the draft Bill is published we shall scrutinise it very carefully.
I turn finally to the two issues that have become interlinked over the past weeks: the future of the European parliamentary elections Bill and the future of the hereditary peerage. What happened last week was, I firmly believe, unconstitutional. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, that this House has a duty to scrutinise carefully the provisions of a Bill and, if it thinks it proper, to amend it. But that is not to say that this House should insist on the amendment to the end, against the opposition of another place.
Speaking from these Benches three weeks ago, in what was, I believe, round two of the battle, I said that if Conservative Members were serious in trying to insist on their amendment, they would push us into the most serious constitutional crisis for decades. That is exactly what has happened. For the first time for nearly 50 years—with the sole exception of the War Crimes Bill in 1991, which was a minor Bill and a special case because of the circumstances of its passage in the other place—this House has triggered the Parliament Acts procedure, and it has done so on a manifesto issue.
The Government are not faultless. There was scope for compromise which would have given the Conservatives slightly more than a review while preserving the essence of what the Government were seeking. But for the Conservatives in this House to pose as defenders of democracy is humbug. Their real motive—as, to be fair, they have made perfectly plain— is to block the Bill and force us back to first-past-the-post for the elections next June.
I do not want to go at great length into the respective merits of closed and open lists. We have spent too much time on that topic already. But I must say one thing. The open list system chosen by the Conservatives is perhaps the one system that is arguably worse than that of closed lists. It means that the 80 or 90 per cent, of voters who will probably want to vote for a party list will not be able to do so. To say that you cannot vote for a party list seems no more democratic than to say that you must vote only for a party list.
The Conservative amendment has had a better press than it deserves. The Conservatives succeeded last time round in hoodwinking no less than five Bishops into voting with them. But we are reaching a point where they are in danger of believing their own propaganda. Some speakers seem to believe that the leaders in the Daily Telegraph are the voice of the people. They really believe that across the country in pubs and clubs, on buses and in the tube, people are saying, "God bless Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, the champion of open lists and democracy, the scourge of closed lists and dictatorship!" That is not in reality what is happening. What is happening is that your Lordships' House is seen to be flexing arthritic muscles to block the will of an elected House of Commons.
That brings me to the reform of this House. I acknowledge that the hereditary peerage has made a valuable contribution to the political life of this country
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over the past 87 years. But for all that time it has been living on borrowed time. The hereditary membership of this House was an anachronism in 1911. How much more so is it an anachronism now? I do not believe that the hereditary Peers, or their allies among the life Peers on the Conservative Benches, are entitled to dictate the terms on which the hereditary Peers will leave this House. I say that fully recognising the personal sadness that this will involve for hereditary Peers of all parties. I have not long been a Member of this House; however, I have been here long enough to develop a great affection for it and a great sense of the very real privilege of being allowed to take part in its affairs. It will be a sad day for me when we life Peers are called upon to vote for our own removal from this House, as we surely shall be, to make way for our democratically chosen successors.
I know that the removal of the rights of hereditary Peers is in a sense the end of seven centuries of history. I can understand why the descendants of great historic families like the Cecils or of those who have more recently rendered outstanding service to this country do not wish to leave this House. But they will have to do so. Before the end comes, I believe there is one last service they can give to their country; that is, as the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, said, to leave this House with dignity and self-restraint.
I fear they may not do so. I fear that because in the past few weeks I have felt a presence in your Lordships' House of a ghost. It is the ghost of the first Earl of Halsbury, the ancestor of the noble Earl who spoke earlier this evening. The first Earl of Halsbury was a former Lord Chancellor who, at the age of 87, led those Conservative Peers who wished to die in the last ditch in defence of the rights of the peerage against the Parliament Act of 1911. He must be looking down with pleasure at the recent behaviour of the Conservative Party in your Lordships' House and hoping that this time there will be a fight to the finish.
Wiser heads prevailed in 1911. Will they do so again or will the Conservatives die in the last ditch in defence of the indefensible, as Lord Halsbury wanted them to do in 1911? Will the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, be the Halsbury of 1999? We shall see.
9.20 p.m.
Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I cannot help beginning by saying that I found the final remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, to your Lordships' House to be a bit rich. Many noble Lords will recall that 30 years ago your Lordships' House voted by a vast majority to reform yourselves. The fact that that did not happen was due to a decision by the government, in a democratically elected place, another place, the following year.
There is no complaint, and I do not speak as a hereditary Peer but I hope I speak for the hereditary peerage, about the fact of the departure of the hereditary Peers. But there is a complaint about the proposed manner of their departure. No better evidence of that exists than the vote of your Lordships' House 30 years ago.

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My noble friend Lord Cranborne allotted to me the task of dealing with those matters that arise out of the impending access to justice Bill. Like others of your Lordships, I have not yet seen that Bill. I do not know what its contents are. Therefore, I thank my noble friend Lord Cranborne for allotting to me this part of the day's business. However, coming at the end, I feel I have a duty to cast some glances at what has been said on constitutional matters.
I start by referring to the three excellent maiden speeches that we heard today. The noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, as befits an astute orator declaiming his maiden speech, tantalised us on controversial issues without positioning himself. I refer to the freedom of information Bill. I thought, in the last remarks that he made, that I detected some blades of long grass.
I turn to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. I must say how lucky your Lordships' House is to have such a distinguished constitutional expert joining your Lordships' ranks. He made an important point that one of the many items, but perhaps the most important one, missing from the Government's constitutional agenda is the strategy behind it. We do not know what that strategy is. We do not think the Government know what that strategy is. Of course, it has not been a question that any government needed to answer during the previous few centuries—because our approach to constitutional change has been gradualist. Since Oliver Cromwell no government have dared such an adventurous programme. Therefore, it is not surprising that the noble Lord should pose such a fundamental question.
As yet we have no answer to that question. But I hazard that the real threat is that the centre may not hold. We have devolution to the judges and to the component nations of the United Kingdom but nothing to hold the centre together, save perhaps the political parties. Should we be asking questions about how democratically run those parties are since they seem to be the only part of the constitution that will hold the periphery together?
Lastly, noble Lords heard the maiden speech of the noble Earl, Lord Dunmore. He reminded your Lordships' House of its trans-continental reach. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, that the noble Earl's speech was characterised by charm and brevity—characteristics that are, almost invariably, dominant in your Lordships' House. I understand that the noble Earl's eldest son is called Viscount Fincastle. I record our gratitude to that famous name who, a century ago, won the Victoria Cross on the North-West frontier in the most brave and distinguished circumstances. It reminds us of one of the reasons why we value the hereditary peerage in your Lordships' House.
I was struck by two remarks by members of the Government in the course of the controversy the previous week about the European Parliamentary Elections Bill: "affront to democracy" and "frustrating the will of the democratically elected House". I regard
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those remarks as nonsense for three reasons. First, the powers of your Lordships' House are given to it by another place. That other place is democratically elected. The constitutional rights possessed by your Lordships' House have a firm democratic foundation. Those rights were given to your Lordships' House for a purpose: from time to time, to ask the democratically elected House to think again. If necessary the democratically elected House has authorised your Lordships' House to go as far as to require the invocation by another place of the Parliament Act.
Since those powers have been given to your Lordships' House it must have been anticipated by another place that from time to time they would be used. They have been used very sparingly. I believe that this is only the fourth time that your Lordships have taken the matter this far. There are no grounds whatever for saying that your Lordships' House is frustrating the will of another place.
There are two other reasons for regarding the remarks as nonsense. The Bill is itself inherently undemocratic. The noble Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, admitted that when he said that one of the advantages of the closed list was that it allowed candidates to be elected to the European Parliament who would otherwise not be elected on open lists. What better refutation of democracy can one have than that?
Finally, I should have found the allegations about an affront to democracy more firmly based had they been made with the background of an intention by the Government to replace the present composition of your Lordships' House by a democratic Chamber. But that is not the case. As noble Lords know, the composition of the present House will be replaced by a purely nominated House. It is therefore simply not fair to accuse this House of not being democratic when it will not be given the opportunity of being democratic, at least in the foreseeable future.
I cannot predict what will happen to the Bill when it returns to your Lordships' House. But when it does, I hope that, whatever other allegations are made against Her Majesty's loyal Opposition, there will not be one of acting without full democratic authority.
My noble friend Lord Cranborne asked the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, a number of questions about the timing of stage two. I know that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will wind up for the Government. Therefore perhaps I may remind the noble and learned Lord what those questions were. First, will the Royal Commission deal with the issue of powers as well as the composition of your Lordships' House? Secondly, when does the noble and learned Lord anticipate that the Royal Commission will report? Thirdly, when does the noble and learned Lord anticipate that the Government will react to the Royal Commission's report? Fourthly, does the noble and learned Lord believe that the Government will adopt the Royal Commission's recommendation, whatever it is? Fifthly, do the Government feel bound to introduce stage two immediately after the Royal Commission has reported?

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I ask those questions because they are important to the Opposition. The Opposition have said that if there is a guaranteed stage two, our attitude to stage one will be different from the attitude that we adopt now. It must therefore be in the interest of the Government to give clear and unambiguous answers to these questions.
I turn to the few questions that I wish to ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor about legal matters. Since the noble and learned Lord has become Lord High Chancellor of England he has introduced a radical programme of legal change, both in the administration of justice and in the procedures of the courts. I refer to the noble and learned Lord's proposals for legal aid; his proposals to change the rules of the High Court and county court; his proposals for contractual arrangements between the Government and solicitors for the carrying out of government legal business; and issues connected with the qualifications for appearing in the High Court for solicitors, barristers and employed lawyers.
Has the noble and learned Lord given any thought to what effect those changes will have on the structure of the legal profession? At present the legal profession is constituted somewhat like the medical profession. There are the solicitors—the general medical practitioners; and the barristers—the specialists. The noble and learned Lord has often spoken with admiration about the way in which the medical profession arranges itself. Does he continue to think that this relationship between solicitors and barristers should dominate the structure of the legal profession; or has he something else in mind?
Were the noble and learned Lord to stand back and consider his changes as a whole, would he not be tempted to come to the conclusion that they will dramatically change the relationship between the Bar and the solicitors' profession, in such a way as to create de facto fusion? If he were to reach that conclusion, would it be one that he would regret or one that he would welcome?
As regards legal aid, he was quoted in the Sunday newspapers—I know how unreliable they can be so perhaps he was misquoted—as saying that 46 per cent, of the legal aid budget is spent on 1 per cent, of criminal cases. I do not know whether that is accurate, but his reaction indicates that it is roughly accurate. If so, it suggests to me that 99 per cent, of criminal cases which are financed by legal aid provide very good value to the state. Does not that suggest to the noble and learned Lord that far from a radical reform of criminal legal aid something ought to be done simply about that 1 per cent, of cases?
I am reminded of the story of the taxpayer who received a tax demand from the Inland Revenue with his name misspelt. He wrote back to complain. The Inland Revenue replied that it would be better for the taxpayer to change his name by deed poll. I believe that the radical change of legal aid proposed by the noble and learned Lord is out of all proportion to the problem he faces.
Finally, I turn to a matter which was dealt with most eloquently in a recent lecture by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Steyn, and upon which the noble and learned
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Lord, Lord Ackner, has also written and spoken. It relates to the powers which the noble and learned Lord is said to wish to adopt with respect to decisions about rights of audience in court and legal training. At present, his power is shared with the designated judges. It is reported that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor wishes to have the last word on all these matters. Does he not believe that that would breach the principle of the separation of powers?
He will be the first to recognise how dangerous that would be were it to be true. For two centuries before the advent of universal suffrage in this country, the fundamental guarantee of freedom was the separation of power. We were a free country for 200 years before we became a democracy because everyone was equal under the law, including and perhaps above all the Executive. So the separation of power, and the crucial role which his predecessors from their unique vantage point, played in protecting it, is very precious in our constitution.
If the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor is to have the last word on the education of lawyers and on which lawyers can appear in front of which courts— indeed, on the whole question of rights of audience— does he not honestly believe that that will be a fundamental breach of the principle in circumstances where judges and barristers today are often the only protection the citizen has against an overweening Executive?
9.38 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Irvine of Lairg): My Lords, in replying to tonight's debate, I shall focus first on legal issues and then on constitutional issues. Noble Lords will appreciate that the debate has ranged far and wide and I shall not be able to answer every detailed point. I shall try to deal with the most important points. Noble Lords may write to me on any subject and be assured of a detailed answer.
The Times this morning described the proposals for legal reform as the biggest shake-up in legal services for 50 years. I agree. A leader in the newspaper suggested that the Government were taking on the lawyers. I disagree. Few lawyers, in their hearts, could defend some aspects of the present legal system, even though some will try. We do not aim to take on the lawyers. We aim to work with them to create a better, faster and more cost-effective system.
However, our focus is not on the lawyers; it is on the clients, on the people who use the system. Their interests must come first before the interests of those who work within the legal world. An access to justice Bill will be introduced which will bring about much-needed reform in many areas.
First, it will give the Government power to control the spiralling legal aid budget and focus the money where it is most needed. There is vast unmet legal need in our country. Much of that occurs in our most disadvantaged communities but it falls outside traditional legal aid. We cannot offer hope and support to people in acute need unless the existing system is brought under effective control. Year on year, the taxpayer has been paying more and more for legal services while fewer people

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have been helped. For too long, lawyers working at taxpayers' expense have not needed to show expertise in the area of law in which they are operating with public subsidy; nor have they been required to satisfy anyone that they are providing best value and high quality. Those exemptions from the principles which govern all other public services cannot be allowed to continue.
The Bill will replace the Legal Aid Board with the legal services commission which will be responsible for the community legal service and the criminal defence service. The community legal service will have power to enter into contracts with lawyers who have proven expertise in their area to provide legal services at fixed prices. That will be an opportunity for the good lawyers to flourish and a challenge to others to develop relevant specialist skills.
There is little logic about what areas are and are not supported by legal aid at present. The community legal service will analyse the legal needs of our communities, prioritise those needs; and then develop plans to deliver the legal services needed. The community legal service will work in partnership with other funders and providers of legal services, building on local expertise and local services to supplement legal advice and assistance where it is needed most.
A court-based legal solution will sometimes be appropriate. There are many other cases where mediation or alternative dispute resolution in other forms will provide a quicker, cheaper and more appropriate answer to the client's needs. The powers in the Bill will allow those services to be supported as well as the traditional routes to the courts.
There are some areas where public subsidy is unnecessary to provide access to justice. Lawyers employed by trade unions and their members have been effectively operating conditional fees in personal injury cases for years, with a zero uplift, at no cost to the unions. They have been a great success, delivering access to justice for their members. This Government are prepared to learn from their successes. Unions have succeeded in making their lawyers more efficient and with examples of good practice like that, it is impossible to justify the demand for public subsidy from the less organised and less efficient.
The Bill will also address unjustifiable restrictive practices about which lawyers can appear in which court. There is no justification for preventing employed lawyers appearing in our courts. I cannot accept the notion that an employed lawyer faces unresolved conflicts of interest, has lower ethical standards or cannot be trusted. Any lawyer appearing in any court has a first and overriding duty to the court, not to his client or employer. As a practising barrister for 30 years, I can tell your Lordships that I never saw any evidence that there were any doubts about that. That duty to the court, confirming the present position, will appear on the face of the Bill. We wish to ensure that advocates are chosen because they have the skills to do the job, not because they belong to one part of the profession or another.
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The Bill will create a new criminal defence service to provide high quality legal defence services for those appearing before our courts. To ensure that anyone appearing before our courts gets the best possible representation, the Bill will take powers so that contracts for these services will only be placed with those lawyers in private practice who have proven ability in this complex area. Criminal law is too important to be left to anyone who does not have a specialist skill and cannot demonstrate sufficient competence. The contracts will, so far as possible, be at fixed prices so that the taxpayer gets value for money.
Contrary to the rumour mill, I am happy to confirm that the Government have no plans to move towards a wholesale public defender service. However, we have a duty to ensure that citizens charged with criminal offences get the best representation and the taxpayer gets the best value for money. That means we do not exclude the possibility of directly employed lawyers being a part of criminal defence services. It will be interesting to compare costs and quality with those of lawyers in private practice under contract. Meanwhile a public defender service is being piloted in Scotland.
The Bill will follow the recommendations of the Bowman Report on the organisation of the Court of Appeal and will establish the general principle of one level of appeal.
These reforms—taken together with the reforms of court procedures inspired by the Woolf Reports—will change the legal landscape in Britain. Judges, barristers, solicitors, para-legals and advice workers will all see the way they work change in the coming years. I am confident that the legal professions recognise that change is needed if we are to provide a better service to the people who really matter—those who need legal advice and help and come before our courts.
I can offer the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, who is no longer in his place—
Lord Wilberforce: My Lords, I am here!
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I apologise. I am delighted to see the noble and learned Lord in his place; he must never hide his light under a bushel. I want to give him some comfort on Law Commission Bills. I expect to bring forward two more reform Bills this Session: a privity of contract Bill and a trustee delegation Bill. But for a decision of your Lordships' House in its judicial capacity which put the law to rights, I would also have been bringing forward a Law Commission Bill in relation to mistake in contract. I can assure the noble and learned Lord of my strong support for the work of the Law Commission in getting its Bills onto the statute book.
The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, expressed concern that franchising in criminal cases will make inroads into the principle that a defendant can choose his own lawyer. I can offer him reassurance. In most cases suspects and defendants will be enabled to choose any lawyer who has a current contract with the criminal defence service. The contract will guarantee a quality assured lawyer and that is in the interests of defendants.

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In very high-cost specialist cases—for example, criminal fraud cases—choice will be limited to a specialist panel. But again, that is a guarantee of quality and it is still choice.
The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, should be the first to recognise—having cited the statistics, though not entirely accurately, that 46 per cent, of the criminal law budget goes on 1 per cent, of high-cost cases—that, in an area where there has been some notorious publicity about the high fees that those cases have attracted at the expense of the public purse, there is an overriding need to bring those fees under proper and reasonable control.
Another point I should like to make to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury—obviously I cannot reply to all his points of detail but if he desires to write to me I will write to him—is this: it is not the Government's role to guarantee a particular structure for the legal services industry. The Government's duty is to guarantee and to secure the best quality of advice and service for consumers at prices affordable by the taxpayer.
So far as rights of audience go, I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, that there will be no violation of the separation of powers because, in the unlikely event that I, as Lord Chancellor, having consulted with the judges and with the professions, have to exercise a fallback power to impose rules upon the profession—and I am as great an enemy of rules which are too lax as I am an enemy of rules which are too restrictive—I would not do so without the support of an affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament. When that is said, as I say quite unequivocally, I can see no ground for argument that there is any violation of the separation of the powers.
I turn to the Government's commitment to major constitutional change. Our objective is to put in place an integrated programme of measures to decentralise powers in the United Kingdom and to enhance the rights of individuals within a more open society. We are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, for his interim assessment of this part of our programme: nine out of 10 for trying, seven out of 10 for achievement. I say to the noble Lord that in my book those are pretty good marks. I hope that perhaps in the eyes of history we will score even better. Perhaps we will even persuade the noble Lord to score our card better as our programme beds down and is tested, as it will be by events.
It was essential to settle our priorities and to make early progress to establish momentum from the word go. Less than a week after the election the Cabinet had decided on the constitutional measures for inclusion in our first legislative programme. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, in his notable maiden speech, called attention to that speed of progress—a great co-operative effort, he said.
Those measures were devolution to Scotland and Wales through a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly; a referendum on a strategic authority and elected mayor for London; the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights; a Bill to provide for the establishment of regional development
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agencies in England; and provision to give the Bank of England operational responsibility for setting interest rates.
First, we brought forward proposals for the creation of a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly. These democratically elected bodies will take control of a wide range of public services, currently the responsibility of central government departments and unelected bodies. Devolution to Scotland confers, subject to areas expressly reserved, a general power of legislative competence on the new Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Parliament and the Scottish executive will have responsibility for most aspects of domestic, economic and social policy, while the United Kingdom Parliament will retain control of foreign affairs, defence and national security, social security and macro-economic and fiscal areas. Relations with the European Union and with other foreign governments will, however, remain the responsibility of the United Kingdom Government.
Devolution is not a form either of federalism or independence for Scotland and Wales. The Union will be strengthened, not weakened, by devolution and the Westminster Parliament will remain sovereign in the United Kingdom. I must say to the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, that I could give no real meaning to his musings about the state of the opinion polls in Scotland unless he was reverting to type and declaring that devolution should have been withheld since he claims it will lead to independence for Scotland. That argument is well in the past. I am sure that devolution will secure, not break, the Union. I say to the noble Viscount that a dog-in-the-manger attitude to Scottish devolution does not mark out a bright, optimistic route for the resurrection of Tory Party fortunes in Scotland, where it was wiped out at the election. It is not a promising platform for a party seeking to come back from the grave in Scotland to ask the electorate to vote for it and to return it to the new Scottish parliament when it is not reconciled to devolution.
The Belfast agreement also has constitutional implications. There will be an Assembly of 108 members, with legislative and executive powers on social and economic issues. In time it may also take responsibility for law and order. These are complex mechanisms, but they hold out the prospect of constructing stable and widely acceptable political institutions in Northern Ireland.
We have also put forward proposals for extending regional government in England, but not until popular demand is demonstrated. As a first step we are creating regional development agencies to co-ordinate transport, planning and economic development. We have also set out plans for revitalising government within London. For most people it is inconceivable to think of any major capital city of the great size and importance of London without its own city-wide government. Yet for over 10 years London has had to do without after our predecessors abolished the Greater London Council. Despite that, London has continued to thrive. It remains a world-class city. But like all major cities it faces problems such as traffic congestion, air pollution and areas of inner-city poverty. These are problems that must be tackled on a city-wide basis.

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Our proposals for a Scottish parliament, a Welsh assembly, a mayor and authority for London, and in the new political settlement in Northern Ireland in each case were put to the people in the regions affected in separate referendums. In each case the Government's proposals have been endorsed and any further proposals for regional government in England will be subject to approval in referendums. We are also committed to having a referendum before we join our European partners in economic and monetary union. We would only join a single currency if the Government, Parliament and the British people agree that we should do so. The wider use of referendums in the United Kingdom marks our insistence that people must have a determinative say in major constitutional change.
Openness is also fundamental to good government. Confidence in government has been undermined in the United Kingdom by a culture of secrecy.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble and learned Lord's flow. But before he leaves the subject of referendums, can he give me some kind of answer to the question I asked during my opening remarks as to what the Government's attitude will be about legislating for the fair holding of referendums before any more are held?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, that is something that the Government will address in the context of the Bill which will be published before the Summer Recess on the subject of the funding of political parties. I said that openness is fundamental to good government and that confidence in it has been undermined in the United Kingdom by a culture of secrecy. Therefore, our manifesto included a commitment to introduce a Freedom of Information Bill. Our first legislative programme did not include such a Bill. There were those who claimed that we had lost our appetite for openness at the first taste of office. But in fact we simply wanted sufficient time to devise from within government a regime across government which would be as liberal as possible consistent with the protection of the national interest. Complex problems do not benefit from hasty solutions. But I can give an absolute assurance that there will be a Freedom of Information Bill which will be published early in the New Year. I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, that she need have no doubt that such legislation will be brought forward and that it will constitute a strong freedom of information regime. The media, too, will gain largely from that regime if it operates the Act with vigour, as I am sure that it will and should.
Another key part of active citizenship is for citizens to know their rights and how to enforce them while at the same time knowing how to respect the rights of others. Hence the Human Rights Act giving greater effect to the European Convention on Human Rights. These human rights proposals will prove to be a
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landmark step in guaranteeing fundamental human rights in Britain. Meanwhile we are engaged on a major programme of training our judges to implement the Human Rights Act in all—I repeat, all—our courts, high or low.
I do not repeat what my noble friend said at the outset of this debate about the reform of your Lordships' House. But it is as well to remind the House that this Government won a majority of 179 at the last general election. We have an unambiguous mandate to remove the hereditary Peers. Let me read it:
"As an initial, self-contained reform, not dependent on further reform in the future, the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute. This will be the first stage in a process of reform".
Nothing could be clearer. Nothing I say would become the hereditary Peers less than if they fail to go quietly and respect the clear will of the people. I hope that they will accept the dignified judgment of the noble Lord, Lord Harding of Petherton, and reject the invitation to mark their departure by hooliganism.
The noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, asked various questions about the White Paper. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, had no need to repeat them, I was busy scribbling them down. I can give some assurance to the noble Viscount. The White Paper will cover how Peers will be appointed in the interim House; it will cover the timing of the Royal Commission. I can say, quite unequivocally, that there will be a stage two. The noble Viscount is afflicted by the most advanced state of suspicion that I think I have ever observed. I do hope that it is not terminal. It is very extreme.
The White Paper will cover the terms of reference of the Royal Commission, including its anticipated timetable. I hope that in the White Paper it will be possible to name the chairman of the Royal Commission, if he has not been named earlier. The White Paper will set out options for the Royal Commission to consider; it will address the role and functions of the House and it will consult widely. The White Paper will come in the context of the Bill. Noble Lords will have to wait only a little longer. Patience, therefore, should replace the noble Viscount's advanced state of suspicion. Quite apart from anything else, I rather think it will be good for his health.
The noble Lord, Lord Vivian, asks: why such a hurry? The answer is absolutely plain—because the presence of hereditary Peers is a centuries old state of affairs which this Government have a huge mandate to eradicate. I say this to him: the case for not combining stage one and stage two is that we won the general election on the opposite proposition.
With the strong public support for our agenda, we have seized an historic opportunity to modernise our constitutional system. Unless we modernise we will never secure the levels of commitment, interest and trust needed to develop and maintain real practising democracy in this country.
I shall close by repeating a familiar quotation: "There is no such thing as society. There are only individual men and women". So said Margaret Thatcher, as she then was, in 1987. We profoundly disagree. Society

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does exist. It is the weave of personal, political and contractual relationships in which we all participate every day of the week. It is the set of values—of decency, trust, tolerance and mutual respect for one another's rights and freedoms—that hold us together as one nation. It is the word describing the common interests we serve as civilised, responsible, active citizens. Yes, we are all individuals, but we are not isolated from each other. We owe obligations to each other and our total success in life depends, substantially, on each other. It is that recognition which informs our constitutional programme to put in place integrated
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measures to decentralise power in the United Kingdom and to enhance the rights and freedoms of individuals within a more open society.
Lord Carter: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Gilbert, I beg to move that this debate be adjourned until tomorrow.
Moved, That the debate be adjourned until tomorrow.—(Lord Carter.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly until tomorrow.
House adjourned at six minutes past ten o'clock.