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ON THE RECORD
LORD CRANBORNE INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 7.6.98
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: The government is going to tell us
tomorrow how it intends to begin reforming the House of Lords. The hereditary
peers will lose the right to sit and vote and a number of new peers will be
created so no single party will have an overall majority. That arrangement
will last until the end of this parliament and after that - well, we don't
know. What we do know is that the proposals could lead to an almightly
constitutional clash that could jeoparidse the government's entire legislative
programme. The Conservative Leader in the House of Lords is Viscount
Cranborne, himself, of course, an hereditary peer. He is in our Southampton
studio.
Good afternoon to you.
LORD CRANBORNE: Good afternoon Mr Humphrys:
HUMPHRYS: So, now you have some idea, at any rate,
what the government is going to do. The reality is because of the Convention,
brought in by your own grandfather I think it was, Lord Salisbury, you are
going to have to go along with that aren't you.
CRANBORNE: Well of course what we don't know is
what's going to be in the Bill. But, equally, what I do think is very
important to remember is that Mr Blair badly needs a row, for two reasons. One,
it's about the only thing now which unites him with his own backbenchers in the
House of Commons, and the second one, is he wants to establish control over a
second House of Parliament and in order to do that he wants to make people like
me seem obstructive about abolition of the hereditary peerage when he knows
perfectly well we've been exactly the opposite.
HUMPHRYS: But the fact is that this principle of
getting rid of the hereditary peers, and this stopping them voting and sitting
in the Lords and all that, that was quite clearly spelled out in the manifesto.
CRANBORNE: Oh yes.
HUMPHRYS: So therefore, that is a principle and
because of the Convention, brought in by your grandfather Lord Salisbury, you
can't oppose it can you. I mean you've got to say, well you have to go along
with the principle of it.
CRANBORNE: Well of course and as the government
perfectly well knows, I've never questioned that for a moment. What I do
question, of course, is what they want to do, which is to establish complete
control over the second house, as they have established it over the first.
And, therefore, we have made it clear, from the very beginning, that we would
be absolutely delighted to engage in constructive discussions with the
government about how the House of Lords could be reformed, but what we are
against, of course, is establishing this quango as stage one, without
simultaneously going for stage two. And we wouldn't, in any way, object to a
forum which discussed how that stage two might be implemented, simultaneously
with the abolition of the hereditary peers and Mr Blair knows that.
The difficulty as I say is, that he
badly needs a row for his own internal party management purposes and in order
to rig the rest of the British constitution.
HUMPHRYS: Well two things about that. One, they
wouldn't have control because no party would have overall control under these
proposals and two, you have, as it stands, an almightly majority in the House
of Lords.
CRANBORNE: Well we are the biggest group but we
don't have an overall majority and when you look at the number of Tory peers
who actually turn up, that becomes very much a chimera of the Prime
Minister's....
HUMPHRYS: Yes but they could turn up if they
wanted to, they have in the past, we've seen them dragged from their deathbeds
in the past haven't we.
CRANBORNE: Well during the time I was Leader of the
House of Lords, we only imposed one three line whip and we found it very
difficult to get the backwoodsman in at all. Not that we wanted to. In fact
what I think you could do, under the present system, and should do, is to
increase the leave of absence scheme so that the reality of those who actually
attend and those you theoretically could attend, is closer together. But, that
is a very different matter from a constructive reform of the second House of
Parliament which I would very much like to discuss and my own colleagues would
like to discuss, not only with the government but to open it up to a forum so
that we can and build a consensus.
HUMPHRYS: Right, but we had this proposal now on
the table. We don't know, as you say, we don't know what the second stage is,
we had this proposal on table. How, since you can't oppose it as a matter of
principle, how are you going to make life difficult for Mr Blair, are we going
to see hundreds and hundreds of amendments, are you going to try and block it
in that way, or what?
CRANBORNE: Well, we'll have to see what's in the
Bill. I think it's a great mistake just to rely on press reports, with the
greatest of respect to your profession of course.
HUMPHRYS: Well I did speak to Lord Richard
himself yesterday morning and he was quite clear that there is absolutely no
question, you lot, because of course you are one of them, aren't you, you lose
your vote, you lose your seat in the House of Lords. That's quite clear, we
know that much.
CRANBORNE: There's nothing new about that is there
Mr Humphrys:
HUMPHRYS: No, indeed. Absolutely.
CRANBORNE: He's been saying it for some years and
as you say it was embodied in his manifesto. What we want to make sure is that
a reformed second chamber, does at least as well in acting as a break on the
elected dictatorship of the first after it's been reformed. Rather than
becoming Mr Blair's second poodle.
HUMPHRYS: But that isn't going to happen before
the end of this parliament and we know what is proposed before the end of the
parliament. My question to you, is what are you going to do to try and block
the present proposal. The proposal that you don't like-
CRANBORNE: I know that's your question to me but I
also think your first assumption is not necessarily true. One of the things
about stage one, without stage two, is of course that you never get to stage
two and Mr Blair's knows that very well. Which is why I'm so keen that the
second part of the reform should come simultaneously. Now what are we going to
do? - as I say, we'll wait to see what's in the Bill. And of course what we
are..in trying to do, under the Salisbury Convention you have rightly quoted,
is not to oppose it at second reading, but we do have a constitutional
obligation, which we try and fulfil to the best of our ability, whatever our
failings might be as to composition. To improve and amend up to the point when
amendments become wrecking amendments and I don't think we need to break that
convention in any way.
HUMPHRYS: Ah, well, up to the point that they
become wrecking amendments. Let me remind you what you said. You no doubt will
remember, on May 5th, just a month ago: 'the government might find its
legislative programme will be in even greater trouble next session, we have
nothing to lose.' We, meaning the hereditaries, I imagine like yourself.
CRANBORNE: Well, of course that's perfectly true,
but if you look at the pig's ear that the government has made of the present
legislative programme, they don't need much help from us in order to make sure
they get themselves overcrowded. I bet you anything that by the end of July
when they find themselves in trouble over the Welsh Bill, the Education Bill
and the Scotland Bill they will blame the House of Lords for it, and I would
refer them to the warnings that my Chief Whip and I issued last summer saying
that the shape of their legislative programme actually portrayed their
incompetence and lack of experience in this field, because they were going to
get themselves in trouble without any help from us.
HUMPHRYS: Well, then they're not going to get any
help from you are they, with this on the table?
CRANBORNE: That's not our job,is to help the
Government. Our job of course is that the Queen's Government must be carried
on. We're an unelected chamber, and the House of Commons must in end always
win, but what we equally must try and do is make sure if we can, that the
second chamber carries out its constitutional duty, which is certainly not to
transform the second chamber into a second poodle for Mr Blair.
HUMPHRYS: No, but what Lord Strathclyde said is
they won't get a normal programme through because there won't be time, so
either, he said, either there'll be a normal - it will be a normal legislative
year or reform, - they cannot have both....
CRANBORNE: Well, I think it's going to be extremely
difficult, because Mr Blair knows that an increasing number of his natural
supporters among academic journalists or journalistic academics, whichever way
you like it, and I cite merely two of them, Vernon Bogdanor and Hugo Young have
waxed extremely eloquent of late and accused Mr Blair of not realising what he
was doing when he was reforming the House of Lords, and they themselves are
insisting on no stage one without stage two. So this is not just a privileged
hereditary peerage plot to try and preserve their own cast, it's nothing like
that at all. It's a question is: is Mr Blair going to control the House of
Commons, or is - and the rest of parliament, or is parliament going to hold him
accountable to them, which is what the constitutional reality should be.
HUMPHRYS Right. So if no stage two - you're
quite clear that if what's announced tomorrow, what's going to be in the bill
is the first bit and not the second bit, you'll get your quango as you put it,
you will block it one way or the other, you will block it?
CRANBORNE: Well, all I can say is that we will
certainly give the Government a thorough examination of the Bill which is what
we always try and do anyway, and if you look at the lack of examination of a
lot of the serious constitutional legislation that is coming through in this
session, it's up to House of Lords really to examine the bits which the House
of Commons doesn't get a chance to look at.
HUMPHRYS: So the effect of that, the effect of
what you'll do will inevitably be to delay it, will it not?
CRANBORNE: Well, I don't know, we'll have to see
how reasonable the Government is, because it does seem to me that it's they who
have picked this fight. I've made it perfectly clear from the very beginning
if it does turn out to be a fight, that they could have had a perfectly
sensible attempt to build a compromise for a stage two which we could encourage
the public to participate in discussion of, but also so that we can get a
sensible passage through both Houses of Parliament for it. But they do't want
to do that, because as I say, it's not in their interest.
HUMPHRYS: So, given that you won't get that second
stage, then the rest of the legislative programme might well be in jeopardy?
CRANBORNE: Well, you're trying to make me answer
yes to that question, which is a purely hypothetical queston. We do't know
what the legilsative programme is going to look like next year. I've always
assumed it would include a phase one bill, because the political realities are
as I've described them.
HUMPHRYS: Well, you say I'm trying to get you to
answer yes to that question, let me remind you of another quote of yours: "Tory
peers would stop pulling their punches in the event that we see, what we have
in fact just seen. It's possible that we'd amend not just this bill, but
others". So I mean the implication of that's quite clear isn't it?
CRANBORNE: Well, it certainly could happen. But I
think what would be extremely sensible of the Government is, even if at this
late stage it managed to get it's act together and realise that what we want to
do is to play a constructive part in reform, but it refuses to admit that's
what we want to do, because as I say, it's not in their interest to do so. We
would very much like to try and see whether a forum could produce an agreed way
forward for reform of the House of Lords, which could perfectly well envisage
the abolition of the hereditary peerage. That's not what we're dying in ditch
over. What we do want to do is to prevent an accretion of power to an already
over-mighty Prime Minister.
HUMPHRYS: And given that that is what you believe
is going to happen as a result of what we're going to hear tomorrow, you might
well set about amending other bills in order to stop that happening, including
perhaps the bill on Ireland?
CRANBORNE: Well, of course what has happened in the
past is that the House of Lords, - this is the great argument for reform of the
House of Lords, - doesn't have enough self-confidence in its present
composition to do its full constitutional duty, and it has always pulled its
punches in the past. One of the reasons why I think there is a good case for
reform of the House of Lords, is that you will produce a more powerful House of
Lords which will then look more carefully at incompetently drafted legislation
coming up to us from the House of Commons. So that is something which I think
a reformed House of Lords could with advantage do.
HUMPHRYS: Lord Cranborne, many thanks.
CRANBORNE: It's a pleasure.
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