Oral Statement by the Leader of the House of Commons
Mr Speaker, I should like, with permission, to make a statement about the Government's proposals for further reform of the House of Lords.
In the past Parliament we began to reform the House of Lords with an historic first step that ended the dominant vote of the Hereditary Peers. I freely acknowledge the generous help of the noble Viscount Cranborne, in making that step easier. But we were always clear that step was only the first phase of reform. There remains much more that requires reform.
There remain 92 Hereditary Peers. There is no place in Parliament for those who owe their preence solely to privilege of birth.
The largest single party in the House of Lords has twice been voted into opposition in the House of Commons. The second chamber should more fairly represent how Britain votes.
And no member of the House of Lords has been elected by the public to represent them there.
Today the Government launches the second phase of reform of the House of Lords with the publication by my Rt. Hon Friend the Prime Minister of a White Paper, 'Completing the Reform', copies of which are available in the Vote Office. We ask for comments, on all or any of the proposals and especially on the overall composition of the new House of Lords, by the end of January.
At the outset, I want to recognise the major contribution of my noble Friend, the Lord Chancellor, in overseeing today's White Paper.
The White Paper builds on the Report of the Wakeham Commission. Its central principle is that reform of the House of Lords should preserve the present balance of power between the two chambers. We do not need a second chamber that merely mirrors the House of Commons. Nor do we want a House of Lords that could challenge the right of this House to be the representative body of the British people.
The House of Commons will remain the pre-eminent Chamber with the sole right to pass legislation on taxation and the final right to decide on all other legislation. The right to form a Government of the United Kingdom will continue to depend on whether the Government can command a majority in the House of Commons.
The House of Lords will remain a Chamber of revision, of scrutiny and of deliberation. It will retain the power to delay but not to block Government legislation. It should continue to be bound by the convention that it does not oppose the Government on a manifesto commitment on which the party in office has an election mandate. Its powers over secondary legislation will be changed from one of veto to one of delay to put them on the same footing as primary legislation.
The Government accepts the conclusion of the Wakeham Commission that our two objectives of promoting reform of the House of Lords while preserving the pre-eminence of the House of Commons are best achieved by a mixed membership of elected and appointed members in the second chamber. The White Paper invites comments on the overall balance between independent members, elected members and appointed party members.
The retention of independent members who can speak from a range of expertise and authority is important if the House of Lords is to continue its distinctive contribution to national debate. We propose therefore to put on a statutory basis an Appointments Commission to nominate independent members who will constitute a fifth of the reformed chamber.
The Appointments Commission will be independent of Government and accountable to Parliament not to Ministers. It will be under a statutory duty to ensure that all new appointments contain a minimum of 30% of both women and men and a fair representation of the nations and regions of the United Kingdom and its ethnic communities. These requirements will also apply to all future party nominations. This will ensure a second chamber representative of the United Kingdom as it is today, not as it was yesterday.
The Wakeham Commission recommended that there should be elected members to provide a direct voice for the nations and regions of the United Kingdom in the House of Lords. A majority of the Royal Commission was willing to support Option B. This provided for 87 elected members.
Today's White Paper proposes that the number of elected members is increased to 120. This is the first time any Government has brought forward proposals for the introduction of elected members to the second chamber.
The White Paper invites views on whether the elected members should be returned on polling day for the European Parliament, General Election Day, or polling day for the devolved and regional bodies in those part of the UK where they are established.
The Government believes the proportion of appointed party members should broadly match the distribution of votes between the parties at the most recent General Election. We will empower the Appointments Commission to validate those proportions independently. This will remove from the Government of the day the right to determine for itself the political balance of new appointments. Never again will it be possible for a Government to make political appointments predominantly from their own party supporters as the party opposite did throughout the eighties and nineties.
Nor will Government ever again be able to dominate voting in the second chamber. Our proposals for independent members chosen by an Appointments Commission, and for elected members returned by proportional representation, will guarantee that no party, including a sitting Government, will ever have a majority of the votes in the new second chamber. This will ensure that the reformed chamber will be a more effective check and balance on Government that was possible during the years in Government of the party opposite who enjoyed a guaranteed majority in the old House of Lords.
All new appointed members will be appointed for a fixed term. This will end the practice of anyone being appointed to Parliament for life.
The Royal Commission recommended that the term of appointment should be 15 years. This would be a long period - longer than any other public appointment in the UK. The White Paper therefore invites comments on whether the term of an appointment to the reformed chamber should be 15 years, or 5 years or 10 years. Nor will any new member of the reformed second chamber become a member of the Peerage by virtue of their membership. The link between a title and a seat in Parliament will finally be severed.
We propose that the reformed chamber should be capped at 600 members after a transitional period of 10 years. In line with the conclusion of the Wakeham Commission we propose to reduce the number of Bishops sitting in the House of Lords from 26 to 16. The Law Lords will continue to be members of the Chamber.
The White Paper invites comments on two other specific issues.
First we invite views on whether to retain the present system of daily expenses to members of the House of Lords or to move to a more formal system of payment in view of the new requirement for elected members from all parts of the UK.
Second we invite views on the circumstances in which a member should be removed from the second chamber, such as the expulsion of any member sentenced to imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.
'Completing the Reform' contains the Government's proposals for a House of Lords for the future. But Parliament belongs to the British people. It is right that we should now consult the British people on the design of the second chamber of their Parliament.
Mr Speaker, these proposals will produce far-reaching reform of the House of Lords.
They will remove the last of the hereditary peers from Parliament.
They will introduce the first ever elected members to the House of Lords.
They will put the appointment of independent members outside political patronage.
They will ensure that it is the British electorate, voting in a General Election, who decide the proportions in which party appointments are made and not the Government of the day in office.
They will give Britain a modern second chamber. One which will be able to complement the Commons, but will be unable to compete for power with it.
I commend them to the House.