................................................................................ ON THE RECORD JACK STRAW SECOND INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE: 17.01.99
................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Jack Straw, the interim arrangement is obviously far from ideal isn't it because you want a more democratic set up. JACK STRAW: Well, it's a transitional arrangement, it is better than and will be far better than the existing House dominated by hereditary peers and just bringing up what Jane Dodge said, what we're doing it actually what we set out in our manifesto. We said we would have a transitional stage, a self-contained reform, removing the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.... HUMPHRYS: Somewhat unnovel.. STRAW: Well, I'll come back to that in a second if you like and then we say that there will be a second stage to make the...the chamber more representative and democratic and what we're doing actually was to strengthen the process by which we achieve that second stage by establishing a Royal Commission - the details of which should be announced later this week. HUMPHRYS: But that interim chamber, the transitional phase, I mean, that..it is going to be full of cronies one way or the other, I mean, all right, not just Tony cronies, William's cronies and Paddy's cronies and... STRAW: Let's be clear about this. There is always stuff about Tony's cronies, it would be nice if occasionally what was reported is that Tony is the first Prime Minister in history to deny himself the power of patronage, which previous Prime Ministers have always enjoyed over appointments to the House of Lords because what is going to be established is an Appointments Commission which will be an independent non-departmental public body which will oversee all the appointments ..... HUMPHRYS: Well they'll really only decide on the cross benchers won't they? STRAW: Well hang on a second, the only ones over which the Prime Minister will have any control will be his nominees. Now in the past, previous Prime Ministers have sometimes blocked suggestions and numbers proposed by leaders of the opposition. Indeed that was what scandalously happened under the previous Conservative administration. HUMPHRYS: But it will still remain the case that most will be political appointees. STRAW: Well some will be political appointees, what is the case.. HUMPHRYS: Most. STRAW: Just a second. But what is very very important to get across, is that we are not using the potential power we have to in any way to pack the entirely nominated House of Lords which will be there, to secure a majority for the Labour Party. HUMPHRYS: But he'll decide how many parties and the proportion and all that. STRAW: There will be arrangements made in terms of the proportion but the large size of the cross bench peers means unless you disturb that, and we're not going to do that in any significant degree, means that no one party will have a majority in that nominated chamber and that is very very important indeed. HUMPHRYS: But you do want to move on quickly to a properly democratic chamber. STRAW: Yes, and the argument was that oh well, we were just trying to kick all this into touch. We were never trying to kick it all into touch, but what we recognised when we discussed this in detail in opposition, was that given all the abortive attempts to reform the House of Lords over this last century, each of which has effectively been sabotaged by the Conservatives because they've got this built in three to one majority in the House of Lords, so it's not been in their interests, that you can't go for a single stage reform, and it was always my judgement that the only way you'd actually force the Conservative Party to address the reality of a wholly reformed chamber was to take it stage by stage and remove the right of hereditary vote to begin with. HUMPHRYS: And you're going to make sure are you that you get to the stage you want, the final stage, before the end of this parliament. STRAW: Well what we are doing is we are establishing a Royal Commission.. HUMPHRYS: Which you want to report this year? STRAW: We want that to report as quickly as possible.. HUMPHRYS: This year? STRAW: We hope so, but there'll be - obviously in the end it's up to them, but you know the previous experience of enquiries of this kind that once established they have got on with the job pretty quickly and although it's a very important task, it's not for example as complex and wide-ranging as say a Royal Commission for the future of care for the elderly. HUMPHRYS: So the whole thing can be done within this parliamentary session. STRAW: We hope this year, I mean within this parliament. HUMPHRYS: Yes, indeed, I'm sorry within the parliament.. STRAW: So the idea is that you have this Royal Commission reporting as quickly as it can, and certainly we'd all be very pleased if it did report within this year, then obviously judgements will be made in the light of its recommendations. I mean partly it will depend for example on whether it's a unanimous recommendation, how clear cut it is, how great a consensus it is. But we have every interest in securing a second stage as quickly as we can. HUMPHRYS: Will you accept, are you committed to accepting the...given that it's.. STRAW: Well, John, come on... HUMPHRYS: It's an important point isn't it. Yes I know you say it depends on what they report. But if for instance, they know no we're not going to accept this bit, that bit, the other bit. Huge delays, it can't begin.. STRAW: You can never in advance of setting up an independent committee of enquiry, say whatever you decide in this kind of
area, we're not talking about a..you know more judicial enquiry, whatever you decide we'll accept it. The whole point however is to have an independent enquiry, they are able to take stock of the issues in a far less partisan way than say a group of ministers could ever do so. HUMPHRYS: That's why you ought to be committed to accepting the recommendations. STRAW: Well, we're not going to be bound to accept the recommendations but of course they will have huge persuasive weight unless for example the recommendations were split or there were some obvious defects in them, then there would a very strong premium on them being accepted and I think everybody understands that. HUMPHRYS: And you want, I take the point that you want to see what they recommend before you would decide what's going to be done, but the broad principle is that you want a significant number of elected members of a new second chamber. STRAW: No, we're not going to pre-empt what the Royal Commission says. We want.. HUMPHRYS: But it can't be more democratic otherwise can it. STRAW: We have said that we want a more representative and more democratic chamber. Now obviously.. HUMPHRYS: How else could it be more democratic if you haven't got elected members. STRAW: That then raises the issue of the elected principle. David Winnick in the film that Jane Dodge just ran a moment ago, raised one of the ideas that has been around, which is how far there a role here for indirectly elected representatives. There are still elected representatives and there are many obvious problems with a wholly nominated chamber, that I think is a very interesting idea about how you use a second chamber to bind the union because we now, by the time the recommendations come out there will be a greater degree of devolution, much greater degree of devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and over time the English regions. That's the kind of idea that I'm sure the Royal Commission will want to look at. HUMPHRYS: So it's possible is it then and I take your point that you don't want to bind yourself to anything here, but it is possible that you might have a new chamber, a new second chamber without directly elected members. STRAW: Well that is to pre-empt what the Royal Commission has said... HUMPHRYS: No, but you've just said you found this other idea of indirectly... STRAW: But if you look as we have done in the Cabinet Committee on the House of Lords reform, at all the examples of foreign bi-cameral systems where they've got..they're running a parliamentary system as opposed to presidential system, then you have a very wide range of models and some are wholly nominated as we saw from the Canadian example, some are entirely directly elected, but often by different systems, and some are a mixture. Now we are laying out in the White Paper giving some details, some small synopsis of these different arrangements... HUMPHRYS: And you'll eventually be making your own recommendations, will be giving your own evidence to the commission, telling them what you think should be done. STRAW: Well we'll be giving our own evidence to the Commission, they'll query whether we tell them - I mean some of it will be of a factual kind whether... HUMPHRYS: Oh, quite so, but you'll be giving it your views. STRAW: We'll obviously be asked for our observations about the relative balance of power between the new House of Lords... HUMPHRYS: ..well I'll come to that in just one second. STRAW: ..a second chamber and the House of Commons, that's a very important area. But are we going to go before the Royal Commission and say, 'Listen folks, this is what we want you to do'? Well of course we're not going to do that because that would be to negate the purpose of a Royal Commission and we're going to wait...we will put before them a range of considerations but obviously.. HUMPHRYS: And be entirely neutral? STRAW: Well, no. But I mean the manifesto commitment was clear. It talked about a democratically representitive second chamber but one which has to acknowledge, very important, the supremacy of the House of Commons, whilst at the same time of course ensuring that the people who are, who do find themselves as members of this second chamber are able to do a proper and constructive job. HUMPHRYS: Given that it's going to be more democratic one way or the other, some people say perhaps it won't be if it's not - but given that it's meant to be more - will it have more power than the present one? STRAW: Well, that's a very important question. We are clear and we shall be saying so in the White Paper, that any recommendations for a change that they will come forward with in the composition of the House of Lords, cannot and must not challenge the supremacy of the House of Commons and that's for a very, very good reason that it is the elections, direct elections through constituencies to the House of Commons which determines who forms a government. HUMPHRYS: Could it not still have more power without doing that though? STRAW: It might have is the answer. I mean I would not anticipate it having more power for example over money which has always been very very clearly a matter entirely for the House of Commons for all sorts of very substantial reasons, about no taxation without direct representation. The Royal Commission is going to have to look at the issue of powers for this reason; that the only powers laid down for the House of Lords and restrictions of their powers in statute relate to their delaying powers which they very rarely use. Everything else is actually determined by convention and on the whole, although until recently, that's worked. So that's got to be an area that.... HUMPHRYS: There's no question of taking away some of those delaying powers? STRAW: Well, there's an issue - obviously if you.. what has held, until very recently, has held back the Lords from using its formal powers has been a recognition that it is wholly unelected and many of them have no legitimacy at all there as hereditaries. If you make the second chamber as you will do, a more legitimate more modern body, then of course those people are going to say 'well we might want to make more use of the powers that we really have which were in the locker', and that, therefore, leads to a question of whether the Royal Commission should look at those powers so that there is a proper balance in the new chamber between the supremacy of the House of Commons and the clear need for a revising chamber and for those people to do a proper job in the new House of Lords. HUMPHRYS: Jack Straw, many thanks for joining us. And that's it for this week. Until the same time next week - good afternoon. ...oooOooo...