At the first meeting of the 1922 Committee following the 2010 election, I was the only new MP to speak. I used my time to set out why I would support a coalition: the country was in an economic crisis and at war; we knew what needed to be done – deal with the debt and radically reform education, welfare, local government, healthcare and defence; and we knew no one else was going to do it.
In the following two years my rebelliousness has stretched as far as two abstentions on votes against opposition amendments. The first was on a Labour amendment to extend national insurance contribution holidays for start-ups to the South East, and the second was an amendment on capping interest on payday loans. Apart from that I have supported every inch of the Government’s programme, and done so in the knowledge it has been the right thing to do. I have thought carefully about each important and pressing issue. What is the problem we are trying to solve? What do we want to achieve? Is this the right solution? Is this our priority? So it is with some intellectual consistency that I am about to spoil my near-unblemished record on an issue which did not feature in my 1922 speech, on the hustings, or in my postbag: House of Lords reform.
What problem does the Bill laid before Parliament yesterday seek to solve? Its progenitors say that ‘in the 21st century, law makers should be elected’. Law makers are elected, and they are found in the Commons. The Lords does not legislate; it revises and scrutinises, and it does those things rather well. It cannot gainsay the elected legislators in the Commons. If enacted the Bill would create a democratic deficit as the will of the democratically-elected government could be frustrated as the Senate asserted its mandate against the House of Commons.
The Lords has a settled constitutional position, which its members accept. They are there to scrutinise and revise. It is an act of self-delusion to pretend that an elected Senate would or should accept the same terms.
What does the Bill seek to achieve? We still wait to be told. The Joint Committee was not able to consider the constitutional role of the Lords, or how a second chamber could be more effective; it was only able to examine the Deputy Prime Minister’s etchings. The closest we have got to a stated objective is Mr Clegg’s mantra of ‘those people who shape the laws of the land should be held to account by people who have to obey the laws of the land’. At least he used to say this until it was gently pointed out to him that his plans explicitly prevent accountability – elected for non-renewable fifteen-year terms, Clegg’s senators would never face the judgement of the people. There has been no suggestion that legislation would be improved; that scrutiny would be more intense; that our politics would be more open. There is no intellectual coherence – as demonstrated by the Bill eating its own tail on Commons primacy – only a blinkered appetite for elections.
Finally, does it qualify as a priority? One does not even have to venture outside the topic of constitutional reform to find more pressing and timely issues. Surely we must know whether Scotland will separate from the Union before reforming the UK Parliament; and even then democrats should set their sights on the West Lothian question.
At each stage of my legislative checklist House of Lords reform fails. The second chamber needs some tweaking, but it works. I like the fact that in voting in a general election you elect your government, and that it can get on with the job. I like the fact we have a second chamber packed with expertise – political and otherwise- that scrutinises our wholly elected legislative chamber.
I am not prepared to trade this in for an ill-considered pet project that undermines the principles of democratic government that have served this country so well and will at best lead to legislative paralysis and at worst constitutional crisis.
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