................................................................................ ON THE RECORD LORD CRANBORNE INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 7.6.98 ................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: The government is going to tell us tomorrow how it intends to begin reforming the House of Lords. The hereditary peers will lose the right to sit and vote and a number of new peers will be created so no single party will have an overall majority. That arrangement will last until the end of this parliament and after that - well, we don't know. What we do know is that the proposals could lead to an almightly constitutional clash that could jeoparidse the government's entire legislative programme. The Conservative Leader in the House of Lords is Viscount Cranborne, himself, of course, an hereditary peer. He is in our Southampton studio. Good afternoon to you. LORD CRANBORNE: Good afternoon Mr Humphrys: HUMPHRYS: So, now you have some idea, at any rate, what the government is going to do. The reality is because of the Convention, brought in by your own grandfather I think it was, Lord Salisbury, you are going to have to go along with that aren't you. CRANBORNE: Well of course what we don't know is what's going to be in the Bill. But, equally, what I do think is very important to remember is that Mr Blair badly needs a row, for two reasons. One, it's about the only thing now which unites him with his own backbenchers in the House of Commons, and the second one, is he wants to establish control over a second House of Parliament and in order to do that he wants to make people like me seem obstructive about abolition of the hereditary peerage when he knows perfectly well we've been exactly the opposite. HUMPHRYS: But the fact is that this principle of getting rid of the hereditary peers, and this stopping them voting and sitting in the Lords and all that, that was quite clearly spelled out in the manifesto. CRANBORNE: Oh yes. HUMPHRYS: So therefore, that is a principle and because of the Convention, brought in by your grandfather Lord Salisbury, you can't oppose it can you. I mean you've got to say, well you have to go along with the principle of it. CRANBORNE: Well of course and as the government perfectly well knows, I've never questioned that for a moment. What I do question, of course, is what they want to do, which is to establish complete control over the second house, as they have established it over the first. And, therefore, we have made it clear, from the very beginning, that we would be absolutely delighted to engage in constructive discussions with the government about how the House of Lords could be reformed, but what we are against, of course, is establishing this quango as stage one, without simultaneously going for stage two. And we wouldn't, in any way, object to a forum which discussed how that stage two might be implemented, simultaneously with the abolition of the hereditary peers and Mr Blair knows that. The difficulty as I say is, that he badly needs a row for his own internal party management purposes and in order to rig the rest of the British constitution. HUMPHRYS: Well two things about that. One, they wouldn't have control because no party would have overall control under these proposals and two, you have, as it stands, an almightly majority in the House of Lords. CRANBORNE: Well we are the biggest group but we don't have an overall majority and when you look at the number of Tory peers who actually turn up, that becomes very much a chimera of the Prime Minister's.... HUMPHRYS: Yes but they could turn up if they wanted to, they have in the past, we've seen them dragged from their deathbeds in the past haven't we. CRANBORNE: Well during the time I was Leader of the House of Lords, we only imposed one three line whip and we found it very difficult to get the backwoodsman in at all. Not that we wanted to. In fact what I think you could do, under the present system, and should do, is to increase the leave of absence scheme so that the reality of those who actually attend and those you theoretically could attend, is closer together. But, that is a very different matter from a constructive reform of the second House of Parliament which I would very much like to discuss and my own colleagues would like to discuss, not only with the government but to open it up to a forum so that we can and build a consensus. HUMPHRYS: Right, but we had this proposal now on the table. We don't know, as you say, we don't know what the second stage is, we had this proposal on table. How, since you can't oppose it as a matter of principle, how are you going to make life difficult for Mr Blair, are we going to see hundreds and hundreds of amendments, are you going to try and block it in that way, or what? CRANBORNE: Well, we'll have to see what's in the Bill. I think it's a great mistake just to rely on press reports, with the greatest of respect to your profession of course. HUMPHRYS: Well I did speak to Lord Richard himself yesterday morning and he was quite clear that there is absolutely no question, you lot, because of course you are one of them, aren't you, you lose your vote, you lose your seat in the House of Lords. That's quite clear, we know that much. CRANBORNE: There's nothing new about that is there Mr Humphrys: HUMPHRYS: No, indeed. Absolutely. CRANBORNE: He's been saying it for some years and as you say it was embodied in his manifesto. What we want to make sure is that a reformed second chamber, does at least as well in acting as a break on the elected dictatorship of the first after it's been reformed. Rather than becoming Mr Blair's second poodle. HUMPHRYS: But that isn't going to happen before the end of this parliament and we know what is proposed before the end of the parliament. My question to you, is what are you going to do to try and block the present proposal. The proposal that you don't like- CRANBORNE: I know that's your question to me but I also think your first assumption is not necessarily true. One of the things about stage one, without stage two, is of course that you never get to stage two and Mr Blair's knows that very well. Which is why I'm so keen that the second part of the reform should come simultaneously. Now what are we going to do? - as I say, we'll wait to see what's in the Bill. And of course what we are..in trying to do, under the Salisbury Convention you have rightly quoted, is not to oppose it at second reading, but we do have a constitutional obligation, which we try and fulfil to the best of our ability, whatever our failings might be as to composition. To improve and amend up to the point when amendments become wrecking amendments and I don't think we need to break that convention in any way. HUMPHRYS: Ah, well, up to the point that they become wrecking amendments. Let me remind you what you said. You no doubt will remember, on May 5th, just a month ago: 'the government might find its legislative programme will be in even greater trouble next session, we have nothing to lose.' We, meaning the hereditaries, I imagine like yourself. CRANBORNE: Well, of course that's perfectly true, but if you look at the pig's ear that the government has made of the present legislative programme, they don't need much help from us in order to make sure they get themselves overcrowded. I bet you anything that by the end of July when they find themselves in trouble over the Welsh Bill, the Education Bill and the Scotland Bill they will blame the House of Lords for it, and I would refer them to the warnings that my Chief Whip and I issued last summer saying that the shape of their legislative programme actually portrayed their
incompetence and lack of experience in this field, because they were going to get themselves in trouble without any help from us. HUMPHRYS: Well, then they're not going to get any help from you are they, with this on the table? CRANBORNE: That's not our job,is to help the Government. Our job of course is that the Queen's Government must be carried on. We're an unelected chamber, and the House of Commons must in end always win, but what we equally must try and do is make sure if we can, that the second chamber carries out its constitutional duty, which is certainly not to transform the second chamber into a second poodle for Mr Blair. HUMPHRYS: No, but what Lord Strathclyde said is they won't get a normal programme through because there won't be time, so either, he said, either there'll be a normal - it will be a normal legislative year or reform, - they cannot have both.... CRANBORNE: Well, I think it's going to be extremely difficult, because Mr Blair knows that an increasing number of his natural supporters among academic journalists or journalistic academics, whichever way you like it, and I cite merely two of them, Vernon Bogdanor and Hugo Young have waxed extremely eloquent of late and accused Mr Blair of not realising what he was doing when he was reforming the House of Lords, and they themselves are insisting on no stage one without stage two. So this is not just a privileged hereditary peerage plot to try and preserve their own cast, it's nothing like that at all. It's a question is: is Mr Blair going to control the House of Commons, or is - and the rest of parliament, or is parliament going to hold him accountable to them, which is what the constitutional reality should be. HUMPHRYS Right. So if no stage two - you're quite clear that if what's announced tomorrow, what's going to be in the bill is the first bit and not the second bit, you'll get your quango as you put it, you will block it one way or the other, you will block it? CRANBORNE: Well, all I can say is that we will certainly give the Government a thorough examination of the Bill which is what we always try and do anyway, and if you look at the lack of examination of a lot of the serious constitutional legislation that is coming through in this session, it's up to House of Lords really to examine the bits which the House of Commons doesn't get a chance to look at. HUMPHRYS: So the effect of that, the effect of what you'll do will inevitably be to delay it, will it not? CRANBORNE: Well, I don't know, we'll have to see how reasonable the Government is, because it does seem to me that it's they who have picked this fight. I've made it perfectly clear from the very beginning if it does turn out to be a fight, that they could have had a perfectly sensible attempt to build a compromise for a stage two which we could encourage the public to participate in discussion of, but also so that we can get a sensible passage through both Houses of Parliament for it. But they do't want to do that, because as I say, it's not in their interest. HUMPHRYS: So, given that you won't get that second stage, then the rest of the legislative programme might well be in jeopardy? CRANBORNE: Well, you're trying to make me answer yes to that question, which is a purely hypothetical queston. We do't know what the legilsative programme is going to look like next year. I've always assumed it would include a phase one bill, because the political realities are as I've described them. HUMPHRYS: Well, you say I'm trying to get you to answer yes to that question, let me remind you of another quote of yours: "Tory peers would stop pulling their punches in the event that we see, what we have in fact just seen. It's possible that we'd amend not just this bill, but others". So I mean the implication of that's quite clear isn't it? CRANBORNE: Well, it certainly could happen. But I think what would be extremely sensible of the Government is, even if at this late stage it managed to get it's act together and realise that what we want to do is to play a constructive part in reform, but it refuses to admit that's what we want to do, because as I say, it's not in their interest to do so. We would very much like to try and see whether a forum could produce an agreed way forward for reform of the House of Lords, which could perfectly well envisage the abolition of the hereditary peerage. That's not what we're dying in ditch over. What we do want to do is to prevent an accretion of power to an already over-mighty Prime Minister. HUMPHRYS: And given that that is what you believe is going to happen as a result of what we're going to hear tomorrow, you might well set about amending other bills in order to stop that happening, including perhaps the bill on Ireland? CRANBORNE: Well, of course what has happened in the past is that the House of Lords, - this is the great argument for reform of the House of Lords, - doesn't have enough self-confidence in its present composition to do its full constitutional duty, and it has always pulled its punches in the past. One of the reasons why I think there is a good case for reform of the House of Lords, is that you will produce a more powerful House of Lords which will then look more carefully at incompetently drafted legislation coming up to us from the House of Commons. So that is something which I think a reformed House of Lords could with advantage do. HUMPHRYS: Lord Cranborne, many thanks. CRANBORNE: It's a pleasure. ...oooOooo...