Mr. David Clelland (Tyne Bridge): It is a privilege to follow the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young), for whom I have a great deal of respect, though I cannot say that I agree with much that he said - apart from his comments about the rather curious position of the Liberal Democrats. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) descended on the word "legitimacy", which was mentioned by a number of hon. Members, and suggested that the House of Lords was illegitimate because it was not elected. That is a rather curious position for the Liberal Democrats to adopt, given that they want only 80 per cent. of the upper House to be elected, which means, according to their argument, that the other 20 per cent. would be "illegitimate". That would lead to one of the conflicts that I foresee with a hybrid House.
I agree very much with the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), in particular with his central point about whether any changes will add value to the process of governance in this country. We should all consider that crucial point.
I shall support option No. 1 tonight, which calls for a reformed, but non-elected second Chamber. That is not, as some have suggested, a move to support the status quo. The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) suggested that yesterday, and quoted from a letter that I circulated earlier this week, but he could not have read it very closely because those who signed the letter stated very clearly in bold type:
"We are not arguing for the maintenance of the status quo".
The hon. Gentleman should get his facts right before he makes such comments - [Interruption.] Yes, he is a Liberal, that is true.
The current position is unsustainable. I am in favour of reform and I intend to suggest what I believe to be quite radical changes to the current arrangement. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) that, in the initial stages, we should be thinking about the powers of the House of Lords. Once we have decided what those powers should be, it would then be the appropriate time to decide on whether we need to change the composition. However, we are where we are.
I am opposed to elections for any part of the House of Lords on the basis that a hybrid Chamber would, as I said, lead to a conflict with some Members claiming legitimacy and others not. I also believe that, as the Father of the House said yesterday, any hybrid Chamber would inevitably lead to a fully elected second Chamber in the long term, which would definitely challenge the primacy of the House of Commons. I cite in evidence of that statement the comments of Lord Strathclyde on the radio this morning, who said that an elected Lords would have the legitimacy to do the job of
"stopping bad laws getting through Parliament".
That rather gives the game away, because what Lord Strathclyde might regard as bad law - minimum wage legislation, for example - could be viewed as a good law by hon. Members in this Chamber. Clearly, Lord Strathclyde believes that elections would legitimise the House of Lords, giving it the power to stop an elected Government carrying out their manifesto commitment.
Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle) (Lab) rose -
Mr. David Clelland (Tyne Bridge):: I am not giving way, because other Members are anxious to contribute and there is not much time left.
The system of proportional representation has also been mentioned. It would undoubtedly be used for the election of Members to the upper House, but it is, in fact, just another system of appointment - any list system is a system of appointment by elected party leaders - and would lead to a conflict in constituencies between Members of that House and of this Chamber. Some have argued that, apparently, there are no such problems with the election of Members of the European Parliament, but I suspect that that is not true in all cases. Members of the European Parliament are, of course, in a different parliament and we are talking about Members in this Parliament. The proper comparison to be made is that with the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, particularly in terms of the problems caused by list Members in the constituencies of elected Members. We would encounter the same problem here.
The Leader of the House has prayed in aid public opinion, claiming that it favours elections. As we all know, public opinion depends on the question asked. My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) referred earlier to one question that was asked and the curious results that emerged. The public will realise that what is being proposed is the election of at least another 270, perhaps another 500-plus, elected politicians - at an estimated cost, according to this morning's report from Lord Lipsey, of more than £1 billion.
Mr. Straw: May I say that Lord Lipsey's estimate is absolute utter balderdash and nonsense? It cannot be the case that a partly elected other place would cost £1 billion when the total cost of this place, according to the most extravagant analysis, is £300 million.
Mr. David Clelland (Tyne Bridge):: My right hon. Friend does not understand that Lord Lipsey is talking about the costs over the suggested 15-year period. They come to more than £1 billion.
Let me clarify my preferred alternative - it is my personal opinion, which is not necessarily shared by all my right hon. and hon. Friends who signed the circulated letter. I believe that we can satisfy the demands of the Labour party manifesto, which said that Labour believes in "a reformed Upper Chamber" that
"must be effective, legitimate and more representative without challenging the primacy of the House of Commons",
and the demands of the White Paper, which laid down seven principles. Those principles were the primacy of the House of Commons; complementarity of the House of Lords; a more legitimate House of Lords; no overall majority for any party - though I am not sure how that can be guaranteed under any system of elections - a non-political element, although we would certainly not have that in a fully elected House; a more representative House of Lords; and continuity of membership. We can satisfy all those principles and the pledge in the Labour manifesto without moving towards a partly or fully elected second Chamber.
I believe that the hereditary principle should be abolished. If there is any certainty about today's decisions, the proposal to abolish that principle will almost certainly be carried. The system of appointing Members to the House of Lords should be changed to provide for a much wider franchise so that the Prime Minister does not appoint everybody. The current system is unsustainable. Organisations such as the TUC, the CBI, local authorities and other elected chambers, which play a legitimate and important part in our democracy and have a democratic structure at their centre, should make nominations to the second Chamber. If we had an appointments commission to vet the nominations and ensure adherence to the principles on which the upper House was set up, we could guarantee proper representation of women and ethnic minorities, a broad cross-section of skills and abilities and broad geographical representation, all of which would be much more difficult to achieve under any of the other proposed systems and certainly under the present one.
I believe that we can move towards providing for a second Chamber that fulfils all the criteria in the Labour manifesto and the White Paper, avoids the huge costs of creating another elected Chamber, produces a more representative and legitimate Chamber, which is populated by representatives with broad knowledge and experience, and can carry out the important work that the House of Lords needs to undertake. I believe that that is possible under the new structure that I described.
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Mr. David Clelland (Tyne Bridge): To return to the referendum in the North-East, there is a parallel, because although the Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos contained proposals to introduce an elected element in the House of Lords, the Labour manifesto did not mention anything about it. Could the Government introduce the radical proposals in the White Paper without having a referendum first?
Mr. Mullin: Talking of "big bang" solutions, to which I shall return, I am certainly not anxious to see the matter put to a referendum, for which I suspect that the public are not especially enthusiastic.
In particular, I do not want to see a Lord Sunderland floating about, who will have opinions on everything and responsibility for nothing. As one of my hon. Friends said - my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge, I think - the correct comparison is not with Euro MPs, with whom, by and large, we function well, but with what happens in Wales and Scotland, where we trip over Assembly Members and MSPs every five minutes.
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Mr. David Clelland (Tyne Bridge):: The hon. Gentleman obviously did not listen to what I was saying. I am not arguing for the status quo; I am arguing for a reformed second Chamber. If he looks at the White Paper and the proposals before us, he cannot miss the word "reform" in the context of the reformed appointed Chamber.
Mr. Heald: What the hon. Gentleman suggests is disadvantageous to the Conservative position. The hereditaries would go and the current membership of the other place would be fixed so that, taking into account the fact that the Conservative peers are older than the others, we would be stuck with the situation for ever. The new appointments system is extremely damaging. It would be bad news for the Conservative party.
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Mr. David Clelland (Tyne Bridge): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The House has made a clear decision on an issue that was not included in the manifestos of any of the political parties at the last election. Would you expect the Leader of the House now to come to the House with proposals for a referendum, so that the people of this country can make a decision as to whether they agree with that decision?
Mr. Speaker: I will leave these matters to the Leader of the House.
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