PLEASE NOTE "THE ANDREW MARR SHOW" MUST BE CREDITED IF ANY PART OF THIS TRANSCRIPT IS USED Andrew Marr interviewed Leader of the House of Lords Lord Strathclyde on June 19th 2011. ANDREW MARR: Right this week the House of Lords is going to debate proposals for one of the most monumental changes in its history. In fact really the Lords would start to disappear, to be replaced by a mostly elected Second Chamber. If Lords reform goes ahead, the Government predicts that the first elected members - senators apparently they'll be called - will take their seats in less than four years time. But there's a lot of resistance and scepticism about it all. Lord Strathclyde, the Leader of the Lords in charge of all of this, joins me. Lord Strathclyde, one of your colleagues, Bernard Jenkin in the Commons, has asked rhetorically whether this is not just another tatty roadshow brought to you by the same people who thought the British people were interested in the alternative vote, and he has a point. LORD STRATHCLYDE: No, I don't think he does. We've been talking about House of Lords reform for well over a hundred years, and it's rather nice that exactly a hundred years ago in 1911 Parliament passed the Parliament Act and said the second chamber should be elected by some sort of popular mandate. ANDREW MARR: (over) That does sort of slightly say it all. LORD STRATHCLYDE: We've taken a long time to get here, but for the first time ever a government has published a bill in draft with a white paper laying out what an elected Second Chamber would look like. Why is this important? It's important because I think that people need to rebuild their trust in politicians, and I believe that in the 21st century, if you're going to wield political power you should do so because people have elected you into Parliament rather than simply being appointed or indeed inherited or anything else. ANDREW MARR: Though in fact under the Government's proposals, a fifth of those people would not be elected and so you'd still have the possibility of the elected will of both the Commons - and I don't know, do we call it the Lords or the Senate or whatever, the Second Chamber anyway - being overridden by unelected people, which would cause outcries. LORD STRATHCLYDE: Well we've put forward two proposals. One is a 100 per cent elected house, which is obviously a model that most people will find very easy to understand; or an 80 per cent elected model with 20 per cent appointed. And there is a reason for doing that. The House of Lords is currently almost entirely appointed and there is an argument that says we should preserve a small part of Parliament for those kinds of people who would never stand for election like former cabinet secretaries, senior civil servants, ambassadors, top soldiers, policemen and so on. ANDREW MARR: (over) Who you want to get of course. LORD STRATHCLYDE: (over) Who you might want to get in there for their expertise and their knowledge. That's not to say that if you are elected, you are devoid of expertise and knowledge, which is clearly not the case. ANDREW MARR: And it's right that this would be effectively a Senate if things went ahead? LORD STRATHCLYDE: Effectively it would be a Senate. Senate is a good word. There are many Second Chambers around the world called a Senate. But the Government hasn't said it should be called a Senate. We said there should be a consultation on what to call it, and no doubt a number of names and number of people will come up with different ways of how to call the House of Lords when it is devoid of lords. ANDREW MARR: There's a great deal of opposition to this in the House of Lords in your own party, and indeed in the other parties too, and quite a lot of the main opponents of this are going to be sitting on the very committee which is going to be looking at it, aren't they? LORD STRATHCLYDE: You're quite right, there is a lot of bad feeling about it in both Houses of Parliament and across all the parties. But at the last General Election all the three main parties stood in their manifesto on a commitment to come forward with either a wholly or entirely elected house and we're trying to build on that consensus. There's a firm commitment from the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Cabinet, from me and many others to try and deliver this in time for 2015 and I think that's what we're going to try and … that's what we're going to do, yes. ANDREW MARR: (over) You're going to try and do it, but you've got absolutely no chance I put it to you. I mean let me be very blunt. The sort of general suspicion is that this is not going to fly, this is not going to happen, it's too difficult to get through both houses, but you have to make a sort of good fist of it to appease the Liberal Democrats otherwise they will be terribly cross. LORD STRATHCLYDE: It's not just Liberal Democrats. There are people in all parties and in both houses who have been talking about reform for many years … ANDREW MARR: Talking is one thing, Lord Strathclyde. LORD STRATHCLYDE: … and this is the time for action. This is the first time in a generation that we can really move this forward. There is momentum, we're building on the consensus. And if we can get the opposition party, the Labour Party, to agree it in both Commons and Lords, then I think for the first time in a hundred years we could achieve that goal of having an elected Second Chamber. ANDREW MARR: Could, but you can't really look me in the eye and say you will do it. LORD STRATHCLYDE: Andrew, what is different about this issue from so many others is that there are divisions within the parties rather than between the parties. ANDREW MARR: Yuh. LORD STRATHCLYDE: But because we put such a clear case forward and we're only at the very start of the debate - it won't be for another 12 months before we bring legislation forward - I think that we will convince people that this is the right thing to do and by 2015 we'll have an elected house. ANDREW MARR: Given that we've got sort of outraged public sector workers arguing about pensions, we've got the economy in terrible trouble, we've got so many problems ahead - our forces in action in Libya and Afghanistan - is this really something that politicians should spend a lot of time thinking about? LORD STRATHCLYDE: It is a very important issue. It's been rattling around the constitutional bottom drawer for very many years. Just because it doesn't seem to be the most pressing issue, it doesn't mean it's not an important issue or not relevant to the people of this country. And certainly if we had a Second Chamber that was elected, it would change politics. I think it would be better able to hold the Government to account. It would be more independent a party. ANDREW MARR: So you are a genuine convert because you used to be against this, didn't you? LORD STRATHCLYDE: About 20 years ago, I wondered if there was any point in all of this. But I've studied it, looked at it, and I'm very ambitious for the House of Lords. I think the House of Lords would be better if it were elected. It would have more authority to hold the Government to account, and indeed when it had battles of will between the House of Commons I think it would strengthen its hand. All these I think are good for parliamentary democracy. ANDREW MARR: Wouldn't you have to write in effectively a new constitutional settlement to ensure that the House of Lords, if elected, didn't override the House of Commons because, particularly if it was elected on a more proportional basis, it might think that it had more of a right to speak for the people? LORD STRATHCLYDE: It's a key issue, but over the last hundred years we've developed a constitutional understanding between the Lords and the Commons: we don't need to rewrite that constitutional settlement today or indeed next year. Over time, as we develop to a fully elected house over the course of the next 10 or 15 years, yes I'm sure that those boundaries between the two houses will be tested. But that's not a bad thing and many other countries do it, and I'm sure we'll be able to get it right. ANDREW MARR: And chances of there being a senator sitting in the House of Lords by the time of the next election? 20 to 1? LORD STRATHCLYDE: Well I have sometimes speculated that it's going to be very difficult, and indeed some have said it's impossible. I don't think so. I think that this time there is a momentum, there is political will, and I believe we can win the argument and there will be senators being elected in 2015. ANDREW MARR: Lord Strathclyde, thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning. LORD STRATHCLYDE: Thank you. INTERVIEW ENDS
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