House of Lords Bill (Hansard, 20 April 1999)

§ Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

§ Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, having given notice, I wish to delay the proceedings for just a few minutes.
As we are invited to begin the Committee stage on this momentous Bill, this may be a good time—perhaps the last time—to pause and ask ourselves on what course the Government have set us and where ultimately this House is headed. I have no intention of opposing this Motion and I hope that no one else will, but I believe that it is worth reflecting for a moment before the House resolves itself into Committee.
As I said at Second Reading, things can never be the same again. I do not say that out of anger, envy or regret; it is a simple fact. The Government have tugged at the strings that bind together our constitutional arrangements, and perhaps even our kingdom. The strings have been loosened, the boxes opened and the pieces are falling from their places and we cannot know what will happen at the end of the process.
I do not wish to take the time of the House on other aspects of the constitutional settlement. The fears of many noble Lords on those scores are well known. I refer only to the future of this House and of our Parliament.
I ask your Lordships: is it really too late to stay our hands at a time of such constitutional uncertainty? Is it too late to seek on the way forward some better consensus, for I believe consensus is possible? Is it too late to identify some shared vision, for surely a vision of a stronger, independent House is achievable, unless the executive is wholly determined to stamp its will on Parliament?
Total war on hereditary Peers is not the answer to an old constitutional problem; it is the creation of a new constitutional problem. As I said at Second Reading, you cannot destroy the hereditary peerage without exposing the life peerage and other elements of the House. No one in this House, as the report from my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern reminded us, should proceed without that reality firmly in mind.
My noble and learned friend's report changes the whole background against which this debate takes place. I do not say that to detain the House; I say it to remind us that the Bill is not the final answer, but the beginning of many a question. The Government have consistently evaded the answer to the straight question their actions posed. No one wants this Bill or pretends it is the answer. We do not. The public do not. The outside world does not. Even the Government do not believe that this is the answer; after all, they consistently and glibly remind us that this is a two-stage process.
I return to where I began. The world has changed. The House is changing and it can never be the same again. We accept that. The Government accept that. My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern has demonstrated it to be true. Is not there a better way forward? I ask the Leader of the House to step out of the backroom of party politics and on to the broad ground of constitutional reform. Reform in our Parliament should be cross-party reform; strategic reform; visionary reform. It should not be inspired by the negative motive 1024 of settling an old party score. Reform should be inspired by a clear vision to build a stronger, more independent House with no less power and much more authority.
So I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her Motion and to suspend the consideration of this measure which is partial in every sense of the word. Let us wait for the debate on the Mackay commission to unfold. Let us wait for the findings of the Royal Commission. Then let us come together, as I believe we surely can, with a set of proposals built not on one party's manifesto but on genuine cross-party consensus; built not as a temporary provision, which this is, but for a Chamber that will last.
I give the noble Baroness this solemn assurance on behalf of my party. If she makes that effort she will have from us even now a constructive response and this House can be set on a secure basis for a lasting future. My door and my mind are open. Will the Leader of the House now say the same to this House?

§ Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on another attempt to delay progress on this Bill, although in this instance I do not believe that his heart is in it. Equally, I could challenge him—although I shall not as he was gracious enough to say that he did not intend to press his concerns about this Motion—that much of what he had to say was, as he rightly pointed out, repetition of the points that he made (very effectively if I may say so) at Second Reading.
Perhaps it would be sensible for me simply to confirm, as I have done both at Second Reading and at every other stage when we have debated the subject matter that we are again considering in detail this afternoon, that the commitment the Government have made to this Bill is a manifesto commitment. Because the reform has always been said to be in two stages does not mean that one stage is insubstantial or in any way not to be supported and taken through as we intend.
The noble Lord will recall that this means that the normal conventions of this House, including the Salisbury convention, which his noble friend Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish confirmed yet again in his wind-up speech at Second Reading, would be adhered to during the debates on this Bill, stand firm.
Perhaps I may say a word about the way in which we hope to proceed. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, for emphasising "consensus". That is precisely the way in which we hope the business on this important Bill will be conducted. I believe that the usual channels have now agreed the first three days in Committee on this Bill. It would be the wish of the Government that this Bill could be considered in the appropriate detail and in the appropriate way, but not necessarily delaying your Lordships until an unreasonable hour. On those nights we would hope to finish at a reasonable time.
However, I point out to the whole House that it has not yet been made clear by the Official Opposition whether they have any indication of how many further days they want to take. We shall therefore have to wait and see how we progress. I must also point out that we attempted to achieve agreement through the usual channels for the amendment colloquially known as the 1025 "Weatherill amendment" to be taken as first business in Committee. Such an agreement would have benefited our discussions. It would have meant that we could have had the substantive discussion on the amendment. But that could not be agreed and therefore I hope that we shall proceed in the normal way with the normal understandings.
The noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition referred to the Mackay commission's report. It is of some interest to us all. It makes clear that there are a number of concepts and issues to be raised in considering the long-term reform of your Lordships' House and does not come out with any one firm proposition. There is therefore no other firm proposition on the table for us to discuss at this time. Let us hope that we can proceed by consensus to long-term discussion at the appropriate moment.
The noble Lord raised the question of the Mackay commission. I should perhaps say that I was immediately struck when I first read it that nowhere in that report is there any hint whatsoever that there should be any special role in the long-term reformed second Chamber for the hereditary peerage. Indeed, the commission's report—I am sure noble Lords have studied it—goes out of its way to say that the link between the peerage and membership of the second Chamber should be severed. I stress for the benefit of the whole House that if the Conservative commission accepted that the rights of the hereditary peerage are to be ended in your Lordships' House, that is important and should be considered when we look at amendments.
I draw your Lordships' attention also to what the right honourable gentleman Mr. Hague said on the publication of that report: The hereditary peerage and the right to sit in Parliament is going anyway under the Government's proposals and so we must deal with that situation". It would be helpful if, in that spirit, the noble Lord would advise those members of his party who have tabled amendments which do not accept that understanding, which seems now to be the official position of the leader of his party and of the commission set up by the leader of his party, to withdraw them so that we can move quickly through the Marshalled List to the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill That, I suggest, is the nub of the amendments that we shall consider.
As we have not yet been able to reach agreement on the timetabling and as I do not yet know whether the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will be able or will wish to indicate to Members of his Back Benches that they might withdraw what I describe in the light of the Mackay commission as irrelevant amendments, I suggest that we now move to the substantive debate on the Government's proposals. We have every intention of pressing this Bill on to the statute book but, of course, wish to hear your Lordships' views on the details of the amendments proposed and suggest that we begin to do so.

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, will she say why she should regard all amendments that do not refer to the Weatherill 1026 amendment as "irrelevant"? They are not irrelevant; they are extremely important.

§ Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, the noble Earl misunderstood me. What I said was in the context of what was reported as being of great significance in changing the context of this Bill; that is, the report of the commission chaired by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. I suggested that those amendments which referred to the continuation of the hereditary peerage, which seems now not to be accepted by some official spokespersons for the Conservative Party and indeed by Mr. Hague, should perhaps be considered as irrelevant.