Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 5:17 pm on 2 December 2003.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Lord Gordon of Strathblane Lord Gordon of Strathblane Labour 5:17, 2 December 2003

My Lords, I shall confine my remarks to the single issue of an appeal to both Front Benches and the usual channels to make further efforts to reach consensus on the matter of House of Lords reform. If, after all, we could, and did, achieve consensus on the far more difficult issue of the first stage of reform, it should not be beyond the wit of the Members of this House to find a solution that is fair and equitable to the problems of the 92 existing hereditary Peers as part of the second stage of reform.

For that reason, with the greatest respect, I deplore the apparent intention of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, to divide the House tonight, somewhat unusually, half way through a debate. After all, as I understand it, this is only the third day of our debate on the gracious Speech. I believe that it would be unnecessarily confrontational and could well be counter-productive.

I believe that a pragmatic solution needs to be found. This is not a matter of principle. There is consensus that the hereditary principle is no longer valid as the basis for membership of the legislature. That is common ground. No political party wishes to introduce it, so let us not pretend that it will survive for very long.

We also agree—in this House, at least—that we want an all-appointed House. I fully respect the opinions of the Liberal Democrats and, in particular, those expressed in the opening speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby. However, it is also a fundamental principle of democracy that one accepts the will of the majority. The overwhelming majority in this House, by more than three to one, are in favour of an appointed House. That may be a matter of regret to some people. I know that it is a matter of regret to some on these Benches and certainly to the Liberal Democrats, but let us recognise that that is the will of this House.

This House, at least, should be rejoicing in what the Government have put forward because they have favoured our option. They will have far more difficulty at the other end of the building because the House of Commons took a different view. I freely concede that the House of Commons rejected the idea of an all-appointed House. But the Government should be commended rather than ridiculed in this House for their bravery in putting forward that proposal. It may be quite difficult for the proposal to be approved by the House of Commons, but it should not be difficult for it to be approved by this House.

We should also recognise that we have an appointments commission. People are beginning to take that in their stride, forgetting that it is the biggest single act of abdication of patronage by any Prime Minister in history. The Prime Minister is willingly forgoing his right to appoint Peers and to decide the number of Peers. That has been handed over to the appointments commission. He deserves at least some credit for that, but so far in the debate I do not believe that that has been adequately recognised.

I shall now make some points that are mildly critical of the Government. I believe that the Government have been over-apologetic in their approach. They have stressed the obvious difficulties of finding an agreed way forward. I regard this as a genuine second-stage reform, as do the majority of Peers in this House. We voted overwhelmingly, by three to one, for an appointed House and the Government are giving us that, saying that that is the second stage of reform, and yet we are saying, "Oh, no, we don't like it".

Let us be quite clear. I am very nervous that somehow the status quo will survive; a combination of Back-Bench disquiet in the Labour Party and doing something dramatic with the House of Lords as a lightning conductor. There are the principled, but I believe misguided, objections of the Liberal Democrats in both Houses to any form of appointed House and the unprincipled, opportunistic moves by the Conservative Party, which is in favour of elections but only as a means of retaining hereditary Peers—that is somewhat illogical.