*****Check Against Delivery***** QUEENS SPEECH 2012 CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS Lord Phil Hunt of Kings Heath, Deputy Leader

er of the Opposition in the Lords

My Lords, we meet at a critical time for our Country. The economy is in recession, unemployment is high, and investment disappointingly low. We have a Government failing the British people. A Government who having produced a tax cut for millionaires is now watching passively as millions live in fear of unemployment and forced to pay more in electricity bills, fares and petrol prices. We desperately need action to encourage growth; create jobs, halt fare increases, and tax the banks. What we have instead is a laissez-faire Government sitting on the sidelines devoid of ideas to grow the economy. No wonder business leaders have expressed dismay at the lack of help for the economy We have had the thinnest of Queens Speeches wholly irrelevant to peoples lives. Nothing on growth Nothing on jobs Only a draft Social Care Bill, with no guarantee to implement the much needed Dilnot proposals for funding long-term care. No High Speed Rail Bill No Development Bill Instead a hotchpotch of a programme in which Lords Reform was originally intended to be the focal point. But, we then had the elections last week and the ensuing panic on the Conservative backbenches in the Commons. Lords reform has now been downgraded to reserve status. Yet, in Your Lordships House, we now have two whole 2 days to discuss constitutional affairs! No doubt, we will have a stimulating debate.
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But I wonder what the public would think of this sense of priorities when so much of our economy is at stake? I wonder what the public think of this Governments endless tinkering with our constitutional arrangements. Already the Government have legislated for fixed term Parliaments They have legislated for a reduction in the number of MPs. We have been gifted politicised Police Commissioners with the first elections scheduled for November and a desperately low turn-out expected. Englands biggest Cities were forced to have referendums on elected mayors. Notwithstanding the large raspberry they got for their pains, Ministers now want to implant regional mayors on an unwilling population. A referendum on Scottish independence is to come. So my Lords, a huge amount of churn but little or no coherence in these standalone measures. I get no sense that this will enhance Public confidence in our democratic processes. I get no sense that we are anywhere near increasing public involvement at a time when voter turnout and public interest in politics is getting ever lower. Nowhere is the Governments piecemeal approach so exposed as in Lords reform which seems to be being pursued in total isolation from all these other these changes including the all important debate concerning the devolution settlement. We already have a Government Commission considering the West Lothian question and the place of Scottish MPs at Westminster voting on laws which apply only to England. The current terms of reference apply only to the Commons. But that same issue applies surely to an elected second chamber. This is readily apparent in considering the impact of a referendum on Scottish independence on Your Lordships House. Independences for Scotland would be a game changer, of course. Carwyn Jones, First Minister for Wales has argued that if Scotland voted to leave the UK and fearing an English domination of what is left of the UK, there should be a new Senate in which Wales, Northern Ireland and England should enjoy equal status.

Well you dont have to agree with the first Minister not to realise that we may well be heading towards a new constitutional settlement of major proportions in which the place of the Second Chamber ought surely to be a constituent part. I put it to the Noble Lord, the Minister that debates on the place of an elected second chamber need to considered as part of a more fundamental questions about the future of the UK and its democratic arrangements. The Alternative Report proposed a Constitutional Convention to look at the next steps on further reform of the House of Lords. An excellent suggestion, bit I wonder if its remit should not be widened to look at these pressing constitutional issues that we face as a United Kingdom. And perhaps we now have some time to do so. Briefings emanating from the Conservative parts of the Government suggest that the importance of reform has been downgraded. Threats to use the Parliaments Acts have faded. There is even talk of a search for consensus. Significantly, in the Prime Ministers call to arms in Mondays Telegraph, he made no mention of the Lords whilst the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Osborne, said it was absolutely not a high priority. Even yesterday, Mr Cameron seemed at best, lukewarm. The Tory game had already been given away over the week-end by Lords Leader, Tom Strathclyde when in dutifully proclaiming his belief in an elected second chamber, he predicted the Bill might get killed off in the Commons. That seems to be the option of choice for most Tory Cabinet Ministers. Yesterday, Lord Strathclyde went further in the Financial Times and said that an elected House would be more aggressive in challenging the decision of the Commons. Well yes My Lords, it will and if ever the Noble Lord was giving a signal to his own MPs to ditch the Bill that was it. In contrast, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Clegg signalled his determination to press ahead with Lords reform whilst his Rt Hon Friend, Mr Cable said that in a supreme moment of optimism we should get on with it quickly and quietly. So My Lords, what exactly are the Government intending? What priority are they giving to it? Yesterday, Lord Strathclyde talked of adapting their proposals in response to the Joint Select Committee Report. The choice of words in the Queens Speech to describe the Bill as being concerned with composition is intriguing. Has the Government dropped the idea of elections?

Has the Government decided to ignore the Joint Select Committees report and the Alternate Report on the inadequacies of that crucial part of the Bill, Clause 2? Has it been couched in neutral terms to allow for discussions on reaching a consensus? Well My Lords that would be welcome. Although it does depend on your definition of consensus! Lord Strathclyde defines consensus as what the Commons thinks. Mr Clegg defines consensus as what he thinks! But, Mr Clegg is Deputy Prime Minister and in a position of some influence. Why then is he so reluctant to have a proper conversation about Lords reform? But, perhaps My Lords, the curious wording of the Queens Speech is cover for Government support of Lords Steels Bill? Maybe, the Noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde has a Plan B for a Steel-plus Bill to deal with the size of the House? The briefings from different parts of the Government machine have been confusing, indeed. But, My Lords, let me tell the Government that if it presses ahead with proposals for an elected House, it is inescapable that unless they are able to articulate the role, function and powers of both Houses and the relationships to each other, the Bill will fall at the first hurdle. This went to the heart of the arguments in the Joint Select Committee, the Alternative report and the debate last week in Your Lordships House. My Lords, the Noble Lord the Minister, Lord Wallace of Saltaire is widely liked and admired in Your Lordship House. In his wind up speech he apologised for not answering all of the points made. My Lords he didnt answer any of the points made. Asked whether an elected second chamber elected by proportional representation would not claim greater legitimacy than the Commons, the Noble Lord was silent. Asked about the applicability of the Parliaments Acts, the Noble Lords was no more forthcoming. Instead he said that the Government would set out their legal reasoning on the application of the Parliament Acts if a Bill is included in Queens Speech. Well My Lords, perhaps he could say when it will be made available. And we need answers both on the use of the Parliaments Acts in relation to a Lords reform Bill and to its use more generally in application to an elected second chamber.

I remind the Noble Lord that both My Noble and Learned Friend, Lord Goldsmith and The Noble Lord, Lord Pannick have said that the drafters of the 1911 Act did not intend its provisions to apply in the event of a Second Chamber being constituted on a popular basis. On costs, the Noble Lord the Minister said no estimate of costs could be given because a final decision has yet to be made as to numbers of members. But My Lords what was to stop the Government publishing a series of options. On primacy, the Noble Lord, Lord Wallace suggested that primacy of the Commons is a wonderful obstacle against which one can kick. Well yes My Lords, but primacy is at the bedrock of our constitutional arrangements. There is an overwhelming consensus that an elected second chamber would affect the balance of power between the two Houses. Why does that Government deny that? Their only answer is some vague commitment to evolving conventions within a concordat to be agreed at some later stage. But My Lords, that will be too late. What if there is no agreement. In any case, what role do conventions play between two elected Houses. Surely their place is to help govern relationships between an elected and unelected House where the unelected House voluntarily restrains itself from the use of all its powers. Noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat benches are fond of saying how long it has been since the 1911 Act was passed. Its a pity they never seem to have studied that Act and its all important preamble. I remind the House that it suggested that for a Chamber constituted on a popular basis, new proposals would be needed for limiting and defining the powers of the new Second Chamber. My Lords, we are on an uncertain journey. Last week in a notable intervention, the Noble Lord, Lord Forsyth asked how the public would feel about a constitutional change which was really a deal got up between the two political parties in the Coalition whereby the Conservatives get extra members in the Commons and in return, the Lib Dems get to control the balance of power in an elected Lords. But I wonder how the public would now feel as has been briefed in the last two days that in order to save the immediate future of the Coalition another deal has been got up. So the Conservatives are not to get those extra seats after all! In return the Lib Dems will drop their passion for Lords reform! How indeed, do the public feel?

As a Birmingham resident, I have just taken part in a ballot to decide if we are to have an elected Mayor. Why My Lords, are people in Birmingham not to be given a say on whether we have an elected second Chamber? There can only be one answer, My Lords. Mr Clegg is frightened of the outcome. The Government owes it to the nation to think long and hard about the substantive issues likely to be raised in out debates before drafting a Bill. The Government owes it to the nation to let the British people decide, and allow them their say in a referendum. ENDS