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ON THE RECORD
JACK STRAW SECOND INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE: 17.01.99
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Jack Straw, the interim arrangement is
obviously far from ideal isn't it because you want a more democratic set up.
JACK STRAW: Well, it's a transitional arrangement,
it is better than and will be far better than the existing House dominated by
hereditary peers and just bringing up what Jane Dodge said, what we're doing
it actually what we set out in our manifesto. We said we would have a
transitional stage, a self-contained reform, removing the right of
hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords....
HUMPHRYS: Somewhat unnovel..
STRAW: Well, I'll come back to that in a
second if you like and then we say that there will be a second stage to make
the...the chamber more representative and democratic and what we're doing
actually was to strengthen the process by which we achieve that second stage by
establishing a Royal Commission - the details of which should be announced
later this week.
HUMPHRYS: But that interim chamber, the
transitional phase, I mean, that..it is going to be full of cronies one way or
the other, I mean, all right, not just Tony cronies, William's cronies and
Paddy's cronies and...
STRAW: Let's be clear about this. There is
always stuff about Tony's cronies, it would be nice if occasionally what was
reported is that Tony is the first Prime Minister in history to deny himself
the power of patronage, which previous Prime Ministers have always enjoyed
over appointments to the House of Lords because what is going to be established
is an Appointments Commission which will be an independent non-departmental
public body which will oversee all the appointments .....
HUMPHRYS: Well they'll really only decide on the
cross benchers won't they?
STRAW: Well hang on a second, the only ones
over which the Prime Minister will have any control will be his nominees. Now
in the past, previous Prime Ministers have sometimes blocked suggestions and
numbers proposed by leaders of the opposition. Indeed that was what
scandalously happened under the previous Conservative administration.
HUMPHRYS: But it will still remain the case that
most will be political appointees.
STRAW: Well some will be political appointees,
what is the case..
HUMPHRYS: Most.
STRAW: Just a second. But what is very very
important to get across, is that we are not using the potential power we have
to in any way to pack the entirely nominated House of Lords which will be
there, to secure a majority for the Labour Party.
HUMPHRYS: But he'll decide how many parties and
the proportion and all that.
STRAW: There will be arrangements made in terms
of the proportion but the large size of the cross bench peers means unless you
disturb that, and we're not going to do that in any significant degree, means
that no one party will have a majority in that nominated chamber and that is
very very important indeed.
HUMPHRYS: But you do want to move on quickly to a
properly democratic chamber.
STRAW: Yes, and the argument was that oh well,
we were just trying to kick all this into touch. We were never trying to kick
it all into touch, but what we recognised when we discussed this in detail in
opposition, was that given all the abortive attempts to reform the House of
Lords over this last century, each of which has effectively been sabotaged by
the Conservatives because they've got this built in three to one majority in
the House of Lords, so it's not been in their interests, that you can't go
for a single stage reform, and it was always my judgement that the only way
you'd actually force the Conservative Party to address the reality of a
wholly reformed chamber was to take it stage by stage and remove the right of
hereditary vote to begin with.
HUMPHRYS: And you're going to make sure are you
that you get to the stage you want, the final stage, before the end of this
parliament.
STRAW: Well what we are doing is we are
establishing a Royal Commission..
HUMPHRYS: Which you want to report this year?
STRAW: We want that to report as quickly as
possible..
HUMPHRYS: This year?
STRAW: We hope so, but there'll be - obviously
in the end it's up to them, but you know the previous experience of enquiries
of this kind that once established they have got on with the job pretty quickly
and although it's a very important task, it's not for example as complex and
wide-ranging as say a Royal Commission for the future of care for the elderly.
HUMPHRYS: So the whole thing can be done within
this parliamentary session.
STRAW: We hope this year, I mean within this
parliament.
HUMPHRYS: Yes, indeed, I'm sorry within the
parliament..
STRAW: So the idea is that you have this Royal
Commission reporting as quickly as it can, and certainly we'd all be very
pleased if it did report within this year, then obviously judgements will be
made in the light of its recommendations. I mean partly it will depend for
example on whether it's a unanimous recommendation, how clear cut it is, how
great a consensus it is. But we have every interest in securing a second stage
as quickly as we can.
HUMPHRYS: Will you accept, are you committed to
accepting the...given that it's..
STRAW: Well, John, come on...
HUMPHRYS: It's an important point isn't it. Yes I
know you say it depends on what they report. But if for instance, they know no
we're not going to accept this bit, that bit, the other bit. Huge delays, it
can't begin..
STRAW: You can never in advance of setting up
an independent committee of enquiry, say whatever you decide in this kind of
area, we're not talking about a..you know more judicial enquiry, whatever you
decide we'll accept it. The whole point however is to have an independent
enquiry, they are able to take stock of the issues in a far less partisan way
than say a group of ministers could ever do so.
HUMPHRYS: That's why you ought to be committed to
accepting the recommendations.
STRAW: Well, we're not going to be bound to
accept the recommendations but of course they will have huge persuasive weight
unless for example the recommendations were split or there were some obvious
defects in them, then there would a very strong premium on them being accepted
and I think everybody understands that.
HUMPHRYS: And you want, I take the point that you
want to see what they recommend before you would decide what's going to be
done, but the broad principle is that you want a significant number of elected
members of a new second chamber.
STRAW: No, we're not going to pre-empt what the
Royal Commission says. We want..
HUMPHRYS: But it can't be more democratic
otherwise can it.
STRAW: We have said that we want a more
representative and more democratic chamber. Now obviously..
HUMPHRYS: How else could it be more democratic if
you haven't got elected members.
STRAW: That then raises the issue of the
elected principle. David Winnick in the film that Jane Dodge just ran a moment
ago, raised one of the ideas that has been around, which is how far there a
role here for indirectly elected representatives. There are still elected
representatives and there are many obvious problems with a wholly nominated
chamber, that I think is a very interesting idea about how you use a second
chamber to bind the union because we now, by the time the recommendations come
out there will be a greater degree of devolution, much greater degree of
devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and over time the English
regions. That's the kind of idea that I'm sure the Royal Commission will want
to look at.
HUMPHRYS: So it's possible is it then and I take
your point that you don't want to bind yourself to anything here, but it is
possible that you might have a new chamber, a new second chamber without
directly elected members.
STRAW: Well that is to pre-empt what the Royal
Commission has said...
HUMPHRYS: No, but you've just said you found this
other idea of indirectly...
STRAW: But if you look as we have done in the
Cabinet Committee on the House of Lords reform, at all the examples of foreign
bi-cameral systems where they've got..they're running a parliamentary system as
opposed to presidential system, then you have a very wide range of models and
some are wholly nominated as we saw from the Canadian example, some are
entirely directly elected, but often by different systems, and some are a
mixture. Now we are laying out in the White Paper giving some details, some
small synopsis of these different arrangements...
HUMPHRYS: And you'll eventually be making your own
recommendations, will be giving your own evidence to the commission, telling
them what you think should be done.
STRAW: Well we'll be giving our own evidence to
the Commission, they'll query whether we tell them - I mean some of it will be
of a factual kind whether...
HUMPHRYS: Oh, quite so, but you'll be giving it
your views.
STRAW: We'll obviously be asked for our
observations about the relative balance of power between the new House of
Lords...
HUMPHRYS: ..well I'll come to that in just one
second.
STRAW: ..a second chamber and the House of
Commons, that's a very important area. But are we going to go before the Royal
Commission and say, 'Listen folks, this is what we want you to do'? Well of
course we're not going to do that because that would be to negate the
purpose of a Royal Commission and we're going to wait...we will put before them
a range of considerations but obviously..
HUMPHRYS: And be entirely neutral?
STRAW: Well, no. But I mean the manifesto
commitment was clear. It talked about a democratically representitive second
chamber but one which has to acknowledge, very important, the supremacy of the
House of Commons, whilst at the same time of course ensuring that the people
who are, who do find themselves as members of this second chamber are able to
do a proper and constructive job.
HUMPHRYS: Given that it's going to be more
democratic one way or the other, some people say perhaps it won't be if it's
not - but given that it's meant to be more - will it have more power than the
present one?
STRAW: Well, that's a very important question.
We are clear and we shall be saying so in the White Paper, that any
recommendations for a change that they will come forward with in the
composition of the House of Lords, cannot and must not challenge the supremacy
of the House of Commons and that's for a very, very good reason that it is the
elections, direct elections through constituencies to the House of Commons
which determines who forms a government.
HUMPHRYS: Could it not still have more power
without doing that though?
STRAW: It might have is the answer. I mean I
would not anticipate it having more power for example over money which has
always been very very clearly a matter entirely for the House of Commons for
all sorts of very substantial reasons, about no taxation without direct
representation. The Royal Commission is going to have to look at the issue of
powers for this reason; that the only powers laid down for the House of Lords
and restrictions of their powers in statute relate to their delaying powers
which they very rarely use. Everything else is actually determined by
convention and on the whole, although until recently, that's worked. So that's
got to be an area that....
HUMPHRYS: There's no question of taking away some
of those delaying powers?
STRAW: Well, there's an issue - obviously if
you.. what has held, until very recently, has held back the Lords from using
its formal powers has been a recognition that it is wholly unelected and many
of them have no legitimacy at all there as hereditaries. If you make the
second chamber as you will do, a more legitimate more modern body, then of
course those people are going to say 'well we might want to make more use of
the powers that we really have which were in the locker', and that, therefore,
leads to a question of whether the Royal Commission should look at those powers
so that there is a proper balance in the new chamber between the supremacy of
the House of Commons and the clear need for a revising chamber and for those
people to do a proper job in the new House of Lords.
HUMPHRYS: Jack Straw, many thanks for joining us.
And that's it for this week. Until the
same time next week - good afternoon.
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