Mr Speaker
Why now?
If, as the deputy Prime Minister asserts, reform of the House of Lords has been discussed for over a century, where is the urgency?
What can possibly be more important than the situation we are faced with daily… now… here in the House?
We are managing the gravest fiscal crisis in memory; we are fighting wars on two fronts; we are struggling to drag our schoolchildren back up to an adequate level of education; we are battling with the terrible burden of welfare …
Our hospitals need rethinking, our armed forces need shoring up, our borders need strengthening….
We are under siege from the Eurocrats, our laws are no longer our own, our austerity savings are dwarfed by our subscriptions to the EU…..
Yet, for our coalition partners, tinkering with the House of Lords is a priority.
Indeed, it is a priority to such an extent that the Deputy Prime Minister has promised – and I quote – to use ‘all legislative tools at our disposal’ and ‘all legitimate instruments’ in order to get it through this Parliament.
I understand that reform of the House of Lords has a common, cross party consensus and was mentioned in all three manifestos.
But so – to varying degrees - were all the problems I have listed above -and surely, our task is to deal with what directly threatens our country in the very limited and packed legislative sessions we have available.
I regret that in our desire to placate our Coalition partners, we seem to have forgotten this.
I also regret that, despite the recent, resounding ‘no’ to AV from the electorate, the Lib Dems are once again trying to impose their holy grail of proportional representation – this time upon ‘the other place.’
Most of all, I regret that we seem to have forgotten how well the old, hereditary principle served this country for a thousand years.
The second house is there to act as a revising chamber, to hold the Government of the day to account and to conduct enquiries.
By an accident of birth, as random as any lottery, hereditary peers were able to bring a certain disinterested common sense to our legislative process.
In contrast, I do believe that directly elected members will bring a certain amount of self interest to the proceedings.
Being electable will matter more than being wise and thoughtful.
They will also, whatever statutes are put in place, have an undeniable legitimacy.
Others, far more expert than me in constitutional matters, have said that elected members of the Lords might threaten the primacy of the Commons.
Certainly, being directly elected will give them the power of veto.
Currently, the Parliament Act allows to Commons to override the Lords, if required.
We are told it will continue to do so.
However, the authority of directly elected members of the House of Lords will be difficult to contest.
Once again, I would counsel caution - and attention to possible and permanent, unintended consequences.
For these reasons too, I applaud the Government’s suggestion that we dilute the effects of electing an upper house by appointing 20% of any new Lords.
Their numbers should mirror the makeup of the political parties at the general election.
The Government of the day should always be able to call upon loyal members of the upper house.
Currently, as we all know, both parts of the Coalition are underrepresented in ‘the other place’, with our numbers far outweighed by Labour peers.
This stuffing of the upper house benches by discredited outgoing governments should, and will end.
And on that note, I also support the proposals to reduce the current numbers in the Lords from the 800 or so we have now, to a much more manageable 300……
with each being a full time Parliamentarian with a finite tenure of 15 years.
I do not wish to seem entirely opposed to any reform, but I strongly believe that we should save such constitutional meddling for a later date.
Can I instead request that we return our attention to those issues which threaten our country more immediately.
ENDS
.