Constitutional Reform
House of Lords Extract, 6 July 2009

Question for Short Debate
Tabled By Lord Pearson of Rannoch

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will take forward legislative proposals for constitutional reform presently before the House of Lords.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I am most grateful to noble Lords who are to speak in this short debate. It is a trial run at the Constitutional Reform Bill of my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke, which is to be found in the Printed Paper Office. That Bill is not having its Second Reading now because there is no time for it to complete all its stages in this Session of Parliament. However, I am sure that my noble friend will listen carefully to the views of noble Lords and bring the Bill back in the next Session, perhaps incorporating suggestions put forward today.

However, I should say at the outset that we do not think the Bill should be much less radical. I am aware that in the wake of the parliamentary expenses saga there have been several debates and suggestions about constitutional change, but these have only been tinkering at the edges of our system of representative parliamentary democracy, which is now, rightly and irretrievably, discredited with the people it was supposed to serve.

I hope your Lordships will not be too irritated if I quote what I said on 5 December 2007 when, not for the first time, I was trying to warn of the growing gulf between us, the political class, and the British people. I said:

"Over the past 50 years, we have brought this country pretty low: 40 per cent of our children leave primary school, and 15 per cent leave school, unable to read and write properly; our whole health service is in crisis; our police are overwhelmed; our prisons are bursting with the mentally ill and the illiterate; our transport system is inadequate; our Armed Forces are underfunded, overstretched and undervalued, and even their morale is beginning to crack; our border controls have been deliberately abandoned, so that our inner cities are increasingly uncomfortable and explosive places; and, most worrying of all, Islamist terrorists are on the march, many of whom are home grown".

That was before the credit crunch and parliamentary expenses hit the headlines, which have done nothing to endear the people to their political class.

Several times, before that and since, I have also tried to point out that another important reason for the British people's disaffection from their political class and system is not just that it is hard for them to think of anything that their politicians have got right in the past 20 years or so, but that they do not feel that they or their vote can make any difference or help to bring about the change which is so obviously needed. Of course they are right. That may be why only 60 per cent of electors now bother to vote in general elections. Under our first past the post system, the Government of the day are elected by about 40 per cent of those who do vote, or 24 per cent of the electorate. That 24 per cent has to vote for the Government's manifesto, containing about 150 commitments, many of which the voter may not agree with, en bloc.

It is, of course, worse than all of that because a large majority of our national law-perhaps 84 per cent if we accept the German Government's figure-is now made in Brussels, where our Government have only some 8 per cent of the votes for large areas of what used to be our national life. So the people are right when they feel disenfranchised and when they feel that they cannot make any difference to the progress of our national decline.

Anyone who doubts the extent of our national decline should perhaps read the brief document entitled Better Government, published in January 2007 by the TaxPayers' Alliance. Apart from the statistics I have already quoted on education, the study shows the UK as providing the worst healthcare among the top 18 developed nations and as having the third highest crime rate. It also contains a penetrating analysis of how Sir Humphrey has now completely taken over from Jim Hacker and how our Ministers have become incapable of delivering the services the people need at anything like a reasonable cost. I shall put a copy in the Library and recommend it as essential reading.

That is some of the background to my noble friend's Bill. As to its detail, its most radical proposal is that binding national and local referenda should be introduced in this country, based largely on the model which has been working successfully in Switzerland for many years. To me, this is the only way in which the people can be reconnected with their democracy because it would get round behind the Westminster hen coop and force their will on those who are supposed to represent them.

I am of course aware that there will be a certain amount of harrumphing about Members of Parliament taking decisions on behalf of the ignorant people, but I suggest that the harrumphers are centuries out of date. Of course that theory was valid in the 18th and 19th centuries when most people could not read, but now they can, and modern technology brings them instantly up to date with events unfolding all over the planet. I submit, for instance, that if the system of referenda envisaged by the Bill had been in force at the time, we would not have gone to war with Iraq, nor would the present Government be allowed to drag on in office, and so on.

There is also evidence that the proposed system is very much wanted by the people. There is an excellent new organisation called the Campaign for Democracy, to be found at campaignfordemocracy.org.uk, which is finding 50 per cent support on the doorstep in the marginal constituencies for the introduction of binding national referenda. I understand that that is a very high figure.

Perhaps the Bill's next most radical proposal is that the House of Commons should be reduced in size to some 250 Members and left in charge only of national matters. Those matters are defined in the Bill as the national treasury; defence; foreign affairs; border control; criminal law; agriculture, fisheries and food; national energy and transport policy; the national education curriculum and teaching qualifications; and our medical and nursing qualifications.

MPs would be limited to a salary of £30,000 per annum, with £170,000 for their offices and a transparent system for all their expenses. So most MPs would have to do a proper job as well and live in the real world, as do Swiss MPs. The Commons would not need to sit for more than 100 days in a year unless in emergency.

All other areas of our national life would pass under the control of local government with local tax-raising powers. Both the Commons and local government would sit for staggered, fixed periods of five years. The Bill leaves the method of election open. No doubt that can be decided when we come to Committee, but personally I have always been in favour of some form of proportional representation, perhaps different ones for national local elections.

The Bill would require a Royal Commission containing a majority of MPs within two years on the usefulness of our 1,000-odd quangos and other public bodies, including the regional and national Assemblies and Parliaments. I am aware that the Conservative leadership has today promised a "bonfire of the quangos", but I recall Mr Major setting Tarzan-in the shape of Mr Michael Heseltine, as he then was-the task of cutting through the jungle of red tape. That jungle has grown apace, of course, until it now ensnares nearly every aspect of our lives. I fear that today's Tory plans will prove just as ineffective.

The Bill would also require the consolidation of all existing legislation dealing with the same area of law, a long-overdue reform. If we could have thought of a way of preventing any new law being introduced without the repeal of, say, half a dozen others, we would have included it in the Bill, but we could not.

Our political class does not seem to realise that the people are entirely fed up with the endless interfering, restrictive stream of legislation from Brussels and Westminster. The Bill would do much to end it and even reverse it. It would introduce five-year sunset clauses for all new legislation and a 10-year sunset clause for the Bill itself.

Finally, the Bill considers the reform, even the abolition, of your Lordships' House. The above system will take some time to bed down, so the Bill envisages a national referendum on the future of your Lordships' House within seven years of the Bill's passing. The Commons would have to consult with local authorities and this House and put four options to the people, including abolition and no change to the existing arrangements.

We submit that it is logical to leave reform of your Lordships' House to the end, even if it is the softest target for our present political leadership. First, we must retrieve our democracy from Brussels, then we must sort out the House of Commons, local government and our myriad quangos. Only when we have done that can we decide whether we need a second Chamber, what its function should be, who should therefore sit in it and how they should be appointed or elected.

I am aware that my remarks may not meet with universal approval in your Lordships' House, but nevertheless I trust that they provide food for debate here and in the country at large.

Lord Willoughby de Broke: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Pearson for so eloquently introducing the Bill in my name, which had its First Reading about a month ago. In the time allowed I will touch briefly on only three points. Since both the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Stoddart, have been rather exercised about the number of MPs, perhaps I could make one or two points on that. Yes, of course, constituencies would be larger; I do not necessarily accept that that is a bad thing. My Bill will, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, wished, give far more power to local authorities. At the moment, I think it is fair to say that some MPs do a lot of work that might normally be done by local-whether district or county-councillors. They take on quite a lot of local work, which could better be done by their much more local representatives. As for making Parliament weaker, my feeling-which I hope is not unfair-is that Parliament is weak enough as it is. The other provisions in the Bill will strengthen it. Of course, this is a sighting shot. These proposals could be discussed later in Committee and amended if that was the wish of the House.

On fixed-term Parliaments, I take the point about the dramatic impact of a vote of no confidence, but it does not happen very often. Certainly, it is outweighed by the advantages that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was kind enough to enumerate; namely, certainty and the inability of a Prime Minister to call elections, even if they get the timing wrong.

Turning to the Bill itself, the principle of Clause 1 -withdrawal from the European Union-is a sine qua non because otherwise all or most of the provisions would be unachievable, so that is where we start from. Whether we agree with the exact numbers or not, it seems to be common ground that we have too many legislators, who are certainly passing too many Bills.

Why do we need 640 Members of Parliament and 750 Members of your Lordships' House? There is too much legislation and yet not enough time to debate it. In the last 10 years we have passed nearly 500 Acts of Parliament: six on immigration, eight on terrorism, a dozen on education and 25 on criminal justice. In the same period Parliament has passed nearly 40,000 statutory instruments. That does not even include the thousands of statutory instruments which have direct application, coming straight from Brussels into UK law, not even seen or voted on by Parliament. We do not have the right to do that. This endless avalanche of legislation really has overwhelmed Parliament. It has made proper scrutiny and debate virtually meaningless. A telling statistic is that a statutory instrument was last overturned 30 years ago, in 1979. It really is time that Parliament passed fewer laws.

It is not just the expenses scandal which has so outraged people and, I am afraid, brought Parliament and its denizens into contempt; it is the sense of powerlessness that is important here. Surely it is time for a transfer of power away from the centre to people. I remind noble Lords that 1 million people marched in London against the Iraq war, and half a million people marched against the proposal to criminalise hunting. Were those voices listened to? No, they were not, so people naturally feel powerless. People care about politics but if they feel that they do not have a voice, they will not vote and that is what has happened. In the local elections, European elections and general elections there has been a successive and increasing loss of interest. That must be unhealthy.

The solution, as my Bill makes clear, to a working democracy in practice, is referendums, such as are held in Switzerland-arguably the most democratic country in the world-where referendums work very well at both national and local level. Their great advantage is that they give people a say in what is happening. They give people a real feeling that they have had a proper input into the laws that affect their lives. My Bill makes provision for referendums to be held at national and local level, as in Switzerland, initiated either by the Government or the required qualifying number of voters, who sign a petition for a referendum to be held.

Many of us in this House will have heard the patronising arguments against referendums, advanced by some of your Europhile Lordships during our debates on the Lisbon treaty; that is, people are too ignorant or too irresponsible to be granted the power that is given by a referendum. I do not accept that for a single moment; that is an argument against democracy itself. We should really have none of it. Sir Francis Bacon said:

"A country is less free if it is all in the hands of the state".

That is surely right. Power to the people: that is what my Bill is about.

Lord Tyler: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, for this debate, not least because the title gives us an opportunity to speak about all sorts of issues, rather than simply concentrate on the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke. I feel that I should allow other speakers to deal, as they already have, with that. However, it is important to deal with one illusion-or, perhaps, delusion-that has been referred to by speakers, and that is the idea that such a huge percentage of legislation that affects our fellow citizens originates in the EU. It simply is not true. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, referred to the figure of 84 per cent. That relates to the German situation at federal level. It does not refer to all the regional laws that are developed in that country. It is rather ironic to have a UKIP Peer using propaganda from Berlin as if it were somehow sacrosanct to explain the situation in Britain. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, referred to a figure of more than 70 per cent. That is not true either. I think that refers to a speech made by Mr Hans Pöttering, in which he referred to the fact that 75 per cent of the legislation within the EU system went through the EU Parliament. He did not refer to an individual country at all.

Reference has been made to the extent to which regulation in this country originates in the EU. In a very interesting document published in May this year, entitled The EU and British Regulatory Systems, the British Chamber of Commerce pointed out:

"In terms of the number of regulations, the EU this year accounted for only 20%. The reduction from the previous EU level of about 30% is the primary reason for the overall decline in 2007/8".

Therefore, I am afraid that some of the rationale for the Bill that has been put forward to the House, and in speeches this evening, does not stand up to scrutiny. In any case it surely is not the number of legislative proposals that is important, but their significance. There is an important issue-this has been referred to briefly this evening-regarding the extent to which British Governments of both colours have tended to gold-plate in Whitehall and Westminster what has come from the EU.

In the other place I held responsibility for shadowing the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, as it then was, in the 1992 Parliament. I can tell your Lordships that a vast amount of addition was extended to the regulations that came through MAFF during that period. Yes, they originated in Brussels but by the time they reached the poor benighted farming community, or those seeking to sell or process home-grown food, they were quite unrecognisable from what had originated from the EU. If one compares-as I did during that period-the way in which abattoirs were treated in Germany, France, Scandinavia or this country, it was totally different, not because of anything that came out of Brussels or Strasbourg but because of Whitehall imposing much more stringent restrictions on small throughput slaughterhouses in this country. Other countries, notably the Scandinavian countries but also Germany, are meticulous in implementing EU directives, but take the opportunity to vary them and to use derogation. There is substantial variation all through the EU. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, that we are woefully overcentralised in Whitehall and Westminster. However, you cannot blame the EU for what we do in Whitehall and Westminster.

Proposals are already before your Lordships' House that fall within the title of this debate. Two of my noble friends have Bills already in Committee before your Lordships' House on the reform of the House of Lords itself. We look forward with avid interest to see what the Government will produce on that score. The Prime Minister's statement just a week or so ago implied that legislation would come before your Lordships' House. We look forward to that with interest. Then there is my own Constitutional Renewal Bill, which is still mark one because, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, said, the Government have not come forward with their proposals. On Wednesday we shall have the Second Reading of the Parliamentary Standards Bill. I entirely endorse the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, in that regard.

The serious issue here is that we are packing into a few days before the Summer Recess extraordinarily important proposals for the British constitution. I cannot think that it is appropriate to do so, or of any time over the 60 or so years of my interest in politics when so much has been crammed into the last few days before the Summer Recess. I understand-I do not know whether this is a well-founded rumour-that the Government are considering re-establishing September sittings to deal with this problem. I do not know whether the Minister can confirm that. When I worked with Mr Robin Cook when he was Leader of the other place and I was his shadow, I recall that we produced what we thought was a very sensible bargain; namely, that Members with families should have half-term recesses in the spring and autumn in return for the two Houses of Parliament coming back in September. I think that would be a very sensible way to deal with this matter. It would be a parliamentary scandal if we are kept up all night on Monday 20 July for ridiculous ping-pong, ill-considered amendments and a revision of amendments to deal with this Bill. It would do nothing to reconnect people with their Parliament or give them more confidence and assurance that Parliament is dealing appropriately with the great issues of today. I hope that we will be reassured that that will not happen.