- Question for Short Debate
- 7:39 pm
- Asked by
- To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the strength of parliamentary democracy in the United Kingdom.
- My Lords, I am delighted to see so many noble Lords keen to talk about parliamentary democracy; it is absolutely wonderful. I hope I will not shock them too much when I say that we do not really have democracy in this country any more. I extend a welcome to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield, who I think I met in a former existence. It is good to see him here. I hope he will have more than two minutes to make his maiden speech.I am going to argue that we have a failing democracy. It is exemplified by an Executive who are taking on the powers of Parliament to make, delete and even change laws. It is a power grab that will undoubtedly backfire when Labour comes into government. At the moment, we are seeing a Bill go through—the strikes Bill, which we will debate on Report tomorrow—that is hyper-skeletal and gives sweeping powers to the Minister. I find that quite shocking. In 1929, Lord Hewart, the Lord Chief Justice, warned of the Executive taking on oppressive power through the use of delegated legislation“to subordinate Parliament, to evade the Courts, and to render the will, or the caprice, of the Executive unfettered and supreme”.A few years later, we saw what that led to in 1930s Germany as a party gained power in an election and then destroyed all the democratic and social institutions that held it in check. We saw a ruling party—a populist party—stir up hatred of foreigners and minorities in a cynical but successful attempt to gain and keep power by fomenting divisions. A security expert recently highlighted the blacklisting from government events by the Leader of the House, Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, of any experts on any subject if they are critical of the Government. This country has proud, wonderful traditions of freedom and fairness but I am afraid that, as he so often is, Gary Lineker is right: we are on a downward track.The local elections are important for local democracy but, this time round, they are absolutely vital for our national democracy as well. They give electors a chance to warn a corrupt, far-right Government that they have gone too far; their undemocratic will asserting itself is a disaster for Britain. That same Government are using voter ID to suppress the vote, with older people like us able to use our railcard as ID but not younger people. If there is chaos at the local elections, with thousands of voters turned away or long queues putting others off of voting, that will make many question the validity of the results.Such voter suppression is common in America; it is definitely an import from there. It is used regularly to gerrymander results by those in power who want to stay in power for ever. If there is chaos, delays or dips in turnout at these local elections, the Government will have two choices. They can be honourable and abandon voter ID before the general election, or they can risk destroying what is left of our democratic system. I should say that I will not let the Labour Party off the hook when it becomes the Government, either.
- My Lords, may I politely remind the House that the speaking limit for this debate is two minutes? We have one hour and we must accommodate both the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield’s maiden speech and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, afterwards. I ask speakers to adhere to two minutes, please.
- 7:48 pm
- My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for giving us an opportunity to speak on this important subject, even if I do not, I am afraid, recognise her bleak and at times rather fantastic and comic picture of what is going on in this country at the moment. I also look forward to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield’s maiden speech.In the short time I have, I want to take a step back. As a concept, modern parliamentary democracy is linked to the concept of the nation state. They rose together. We saw the growth of democracies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, then again after 1990 as peoples found their independence and wanted to give it institutional form. So, although plenty of nation states are not democracies, there are, I think, no democracies that are not also nation states. That is not surprising. The nation state allows for the creation of a common demos, common loyalties and the readiness to settle political differences within an agreed set of rules.It follows from this that, when the nation state weakens, confidence in democracy weakens. That is just what we saw in this country over the past nearly 50 years during our membership of the EU. Then, we were in practice only a limited democracy. Fewer and fewer issues could be settled in national elections. Policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries, the environment, employment, social issues, migration and citizens’ rights could be changed only by agreement in Brussels, whatever our national electorate said.It is no wonder that people switched off and stopped believing that voting could change everything. Luckily, we have now escaped that, or at least, 95% of us have escaped that, since the Windsor Framework unfortunately preserves some of these weaknesses—I hope not for too long. Overall, we have brought politics back home. We have revived political life. We can debate and change everything again in this country. Of course, many people clearly are uncomfortable with that, and it sounds like the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, may be one of them. They call it populism when a democracy reflects citizens’ actual views but for me, it is a strength. Our democracy is healing. Politics is coming back to life.
- 7:50 pm
- My Lords, after 44 years in Westminster, do I believe that UK parliamentary democracy has been strengthened? On the contrary: I believe it has been weakened. What is my measure? General election turnouts, which are a good measure of confidence. The turnout was 77% in 1992 and 67% in the last election. Why the 10% decline?There are two explanations: the conduct of a few in Westminster’s political class; and the internet, which has hugely increased transparency across the political divide. What has it revealed? First, a breakdown in our criminal justice system, with escalating street and online crime, to which the Government’s response is just more cuts. Secondly, the shift in policy towards the personal funding of hitherto public service provision, breeding inequality while penalising the poor. Thirdly, the state’s ruthless indifference to the scandal of housing policy, which through managed scarcity enriches property owners and exploits those who rent. Finally, government indifference to the income greed of a few, whose settlements insult the intelligence of a hard-working majority living in the real world of deprivation and struggling to survive.It is against that background that the public increasingly shun the polling booth. I predict that when the scandalous gerrymandering of the electoral system through individual registration is fully exposed, there will be an angry outcry from an alienated, disfranchised public.
- 7:52 pm
- My Lords, it is not without irony when this Chamber discusses our democracy. Many people recognise that we often do a very good job here, a much better job than the Commons, of scrutinising legislation. There, MPs are hardly given the time to look at most of it. A second Chamber is therefore needed. However, when we ask MPs to think again, our carefully considered views are too often ignored by government and the overpowerful executive branch imposes its will on MPs.The preamble to the Parliament Act 1911 promised that we would move from membership here being based on the hereditary principle to the popular principle. We are still waiting for that reform 112 years later, although the coalition Government made a brave attempt at it, winning support from MPs by a majority of 462 to 124 for the Second Reading of a Bill which, if enacted, would by now have meant at least two rounds of elections for Members of this place. This failure came despite commitment to reform having been included in all three main UK parties’ manifestos at the previous general election.As the parties now prepare their next manifestos, I hope they will pledge to stop the process of electing more hereditary peers, make the recommendations of the House of Lords Appointments Commission binding and spell out their proposals for proper reform here. The House of Lords Reform Bill 2012 would not be a bad start. The manifestos should also include proposals to ensure that we have an electoral system which means that when people vote in a general election, they get the MPs they vote for. Just 43% of those who voted in 2019 gave the Conservative Party an 80-seat majority. A more representative Parliament would have prevented much of what has gone wrong since then.
- 7:54 pm
- My Lords, in 2019 I thought that our parliamentary democracy was doomed. The majority in each House of Parliament seem resolved to frustrate the will of the British people as expressed in the Brexit referendum. Both Houses found devious ways to undermine the Executive and sought to impede our exit from the EU. It was a very unhappy experience.All of this was exacerbated by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, itself an unhappy reminder that coalition Governments breed bad legislation. Parliament eventually remembered that the people are the most important part of any democratic system. It allowed a general election, and the great British electorate told us what they thought. They elected my party with a majority to get Brexit done, and we did it. We then expunged the Fixed-term Parliaments Act from the statute book. Parliamentary democracy has been rescued.That does not mean that there are no problems, but they are not the ones analysed by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. Two minutes does not allow me to critique the noble Baroness’s speech or to list the challenges that I see, so I shall conclude my remarks with just one observation. Your Lordships’ House is well on the way to reinventing itself as a House of opposition to the elected Government. We may become the weak link in our parliamentary democracy, and that will not end well for your Lordships’ House.
- 7:56 pm
- My Lords, I shall focus on trust. Public trust in government is low and getting lower. The survey evidence is that the distrust is not in the institutional structures but in the people who inhabit those structures. A survey by Ipsos MORI in February found that lack of faith in politics, politicians and Governments ranked fourth in response to the question, “What do you see as the most important issue facing Britain?” A survey last summer by YouGov found that when offered a list of 18 options in response to the question, “How much better or worse would democracy in the UK work if …”, the most popular option for working better was if politicians spoke more honestly. A total of 81% answered that it would work a lot or a bit better. Constitutional change in the form of structures and processes came in notably lower, all figuring in the latter half of the list. Fewer than 50% of respondents thought that democracy would work better if the House of Lords was replaced by an elected Chamber. The problem is not structures; it is behaviour.I make one other related point following the resignation of Dominic Raab. The coverage of it misses the point that the conduct involved was a symptom of a systemic problem with government. In September 2021 I initiated a debate in your Lordships’ House on the need for Ministers and senior civil servants to be trained in core leadership skills. Until there is such training, there will continue to be problems with the capacity of Ministers and officials to deliver good government. Does my noble friend the Minister, who took part in that debate, not agree?
- 7:58 pm
- My Lords, I am proud of this country’s parliamentary democracy. We only have to look a few hours’ flight away from London to find countries such as Russia and Belarus that are denied the rights and freedoms we have, which stemmed from the historic signing of Magna Carta over 800 years ago. Over the years our parliamentary democracy has developed in a powerful way, and individual communities have been able to make their voices heard. Causes that were once seen as niche interests are now settled public policy, because of Back-Benchers sent to Parliament by our democratic systems.I will give two examples. The campaigner William Wilberforce was laughed at and mocked, at first, before he succeeded in bringing about the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. In more recent times, the securing of equal rights and equal marriage was once a lonely fight confined to a group of fringe MPs, but it is now seen as a basic human right. These different cases both show the power of our parliamentary democracy in providing a platform to campaign about, debate and force social and political change.However, to continue to strengthen our parliamentary democracy, it is beholden on all our political parties to do two things. First, they must increase engagement with young people to show them that there is a role for them to play in our democracy, make politics relevant to them and dispel apathy. Secondly, they must encourage and nurture talent from every corner and community of the UK, making it easier for those with the ability but who lack the encouragement to enter politics. Much progress has been made over the years, but there is much more that we must do.
- 8:00 pm