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TERRY DIGNAN: Finding a way through London's
Hampton Court Maze can be bewildering. This week politicians hope to find
their way out of a puzzle - what to do about the House of Lords. Whichever
way they turn, they find it hard to escape from one of the biggest quandaries
in British politics. How to make the Lords more effective without making
it too powerful.
In Opposition Mr Blair
said Labour had always favoured an elected House of Lords. But in Government
he has shown little enthusiasm for elections to the Second Chamber. His
critics say it's because an elected Lords would be more willing to stand
up to the Government. That's left the Wakeham Commission with a dilemma.
A proposal for electing the Lords could face opposition from Mr Blair.
But an appointed chamber could be too weak to do its job properly.
LORD RICHARD: I don't think it's legitimate
enough to be able to, to do it's - one of the prime jobs that it's got,
which is checking the power of the Executive. I mean, when a government
has a majority of nearly two hundred in the House of Commons, then it is
pretty powerful. And if the Opposition is as supine as the present one
is, well then, some, somewhere there's got to be a check and there's got
to be accountability, and I think that, that the only place you will find
that now is potentially in the second Chamber.
MEG RUSSELL: It's very important that the
second Chamber however it is devised has the support of the public in order
to be able to do its job properly and isn't ridiculed when it tries to
raise issues with the Government on the basis that it's not representative,
it's not elected, and its views should just be simply ignored. That's what
we've seen with the House of Lords in recent years. We want to move away
from that towards something which can intervene in a meaningful way in
the policy process.
DIGNAN: The Lords in all its pageantry
represents more than tradition. Nearly all government legislation must
be approved here. Having removed peers with inherited titles, stage one
of reform, the Government won't explain how to make the chamber more democratic,
stage two. The Lords' composition is important because of its powers.
In using these powers
their Lordships plot their moves carefully. They can scrutinise and revise
Government legislation - their main job. The Government can be forced to
retreat and rethink if the Lords believes legislation is flawed. If ministers
resist changes to Bills, the Lords can delay legislation for a year before
it becomes law.
The long period of Conservative
rule when for the most part Conservative Governments had big majorities
in the House of Commons, persuaded many in the Labour Party that the country
needed a strong Second Chamber. That meant electing the Lords because only
through elections would the Second Chamber gain the kind of democratic
legitimacy it needed to act as an effective check on Government. Mr Blair
fears that electing the Lords could make it too powerful and may undermine
the principle that in our political system the House of Commons is supreme.
PROFESSOR KEITH EWING: The reform process should come up
with a method of composition which does not undermine the primacy, or the
pre-eminence of the House of Commons in our Constitutional system. That
is a matter of great importance which we hope the Royal Commission will
fully reflect in its recommendations.
LORD RICHARD: That's not the issue, as
to which is the dominant Chamber, and all too often, you see, the argument
that there well, you'll upset the Commons. What it really means is you'll
upset the Executive because the Executive of course has the majority in
the Commons. I mean there is very little check now on the power of the
Executive and that can't be healthy for democracy.
DIGNAN: These Labour peers have
been appointed by successive Prime Ministers. The party's official view
is that a wholly-appointed House might be as good at curbing Government
excesses as one which contained elected members, especially if so-called
Crossbench or non-party peers were included. But the Opposition argues
only elections to the Second Chamber will guarantee its independence.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: The proposal for a wholly-appointed
House is really saying we must not trust the people to make the right kind
of judgement, they cannot do it. We - the Party - will be able to decide
who should sit in the second Chamber. Now I think that that is absurd and
I think it is wrong. We are the only parliament in the civilised world
where the only way into the House of Lords today is because the Prime Minister
says you can. That must be wrong. It is ridiculous and the sooner it is
done away with the better.
PROFESSOR EWING: Because a chamber is not elected
it doesn't follow that it must therefore be, that it must therefore lack
independence. There are different ways by which independence can be secured
by a chamber which is not elected. You can have composition which includes
members who are independent in the sense that they don't take a party whip
in the second chamber. So you have independent members which is one of
the great virtues of the system which we currently have, the presence of
so many crossbenchers.
DIGNAN: So, says Labour, an appointed
House - which is really what we have now - will be able to do its job properly.
The Opposition warns it'll put this to the test, predicting Ministers will
have to use the Parliament Acts more often to override defeats in the Lords.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: We respect the Supremacy of the
House of Commons, that's important, and of course that is enshrined in
legislation through the Parliament Acts, which haven't been used a great
deal over the last twenty years. They have used - been used - a little
bit, but not a great deal. In the future, I would imagine Parliament Acts
being used rather more.
ACTUALITY: My Lords, Amendment
Number 42c, the Lord Ashley of Stoke.
DIGNAN: When the Lords does take
on the Government, over disability benefits last year and, now, trial by
jury, Ministers complain. 'We're the elected Government and you're not
entitled to obstruct our legislation' they say. That's precisely why many
peers want elections to the Lords.
LORD RODGERS: If it is a choice do we prefer
the risk of a democratically elected Second Chamber challenging the Commons,
or do we prefer the certainty that a nominated Second Chamber will not
be democratic, will not be representative, and indeed could be a creature
of the Prime Minister.
LORD RICHARD: I do think that, that you
do lack credibility and you do lack democratic legitimacy. After all nobody
elected me. I mean I was appointed by, by Mrs. Thatcher on the recommendation
of Neil Kinnock. It was very kind of Kinnock and Mrs. Thatcher to put me
in the House of Lords, but for me to claim democratic legitimacy, really
isn't on and therefore in a sense if you are engaged in a dispute with
the Executive you start off with really your best arm tied firmly behind
your back.
RUSSELL: An appointed chamber dares
not challenge an elected government which has a majority in the elected
Lower House and the Canadian government...the Canadian second Chamber doesn't
do so and is also very much discredited with the public and rather unpopular.
DIGNAN: A year of wandering through
a maze of blueprints for reforming the Lords has ended. The Wakeham Commission's
chair, Lord Wakeham and his deputy, Labour MP Gerald Kaufman, have been
reported as favouring an appointed House. That's the wrong path to reform,
say those commission members who want elections. So they've turned towards
a compromise - a mixed chamber with a majority of peers appointed - four
to five hundred - and a minority elected - one to two hundred. But Labour's
evidence to the commission expressed concerns about moving towards a chamber
containing two kinds of peer.
EWING: We need to be careful about
this, in the sense that we've just come out of a regime, in which we've
had two classes of members in the House of Lords. We've had hereditary
peers since 1958, we've had Life peers, and so far as I understand, I mean
that relationship has not always been an easy one, and I think we need
to be careful that in the future we don't reproduce the difficulties which
may have existed in the past.
DIGNAN: That's why doubts persist
that Blair can live with the commission's proposals. They'll go to a committee
of MPs and peers. Will the Government let the debate drag on while the
report gathers dust?
STRATHCLYDE: We know what the Government
wanted, which was a wholly-appointed House. We know that they didn't want
to set up the Royal Commission but they were obliged to do so. We know
that they have set in means the process by which they can ignore the Wakeham
Commission and make sure that we never get to a second stage.
ROGERS: I don't think the government
wanted any more reform - I mean I've said that, I think that the present
transitional House may very well last for an extra ten years, or longer.
We shall certainly be pressing for a very early appointment of the all
party committee representative of both houses of parliament to take the
argument further but I think the forces of conservatism exist in the government
as well as on the Conservative benches when the crunch comes.
MACTAGGART: I think it could happen because
as I have said in many countries when they come to a half way stage where
they have resolved the biggest problems they get stuck. And there is a
danger that we will get stuck here because we haven't necessarily, we don't
let, can't necessarily create a consensus around Wakeham.
DIGNAN: Many Labour MPs are against
leaving the Second Chamber as it is, according to an On The Record survey
on the membership of the House of Lords. Of the hundred and twenty one
Labour backbenchers who answered, two-thirds wanted at least some members
elected. Of these twenty wanted only a minority elected with the rest
appointed, which is said to be Wakeham's preferred option. Sixty-five
wanted to go further and elect at least half the members. Only eleven
supported a wholly appointed Lords. Sixteen supported some other option.
Nine said they hadn't decided.
MACTAGGART: The point of government is
that government should belong to the people and the way in which we enable
people to own the government, to make sure that it is an expression of
their view is through democracy and it is the best way to do that.
DIGNAN: Even if Mr Blair finds
a way out of his Lords problem by agreeing to elect a minority of peers,
there'd be criticism from those who believe that a mainly appointed Chamber
would lack the necessary clout to act as an effective check on the actions
of Government.
ROGERS: We're a Parliamentary democracy,
and democracy involves electing your own Parliament, and as a second chamber
of Parliament we ought to be elected. So ideally we should have a elected,
or predominantly elected because there, there ought to be room for the
cross-benches, the so called Independents - independent of a political
party - but I think that the proper course would be to head towards a predominantly
elected second chamber.
RUSSELL: I think that the idea
of having a largely appointed Chamber with a small number of elected members
is really quite a strange one, and I tend to think, time would tell but
I think that would suffer from the same kind of legitimacy problems as
an all-appointed Chamber.
DIGNAN: This week politicians will
get the chance to escape the perplexity of Lords reform. But even if Tony
Blair accepts the Wakeham compromise, many believe it's unlikely to give
the Second Chamber enough democratic legitimacy.
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