Straw: This is the time for Lords reform
Wednesday, 12 July 2006 12:00 AM
Politicians must "seize the opportunity" of a consensus on House of Lords reform or risk the issue being consigned to the backburner for decades, Jack Straw has warned.
In his first major speech since becoming leader of the House of Commons, he said he believed MPs across the political spectrum could agree on the idea of an upper House made of half appointed and half elected members.
However, he risked breaking the wider political consensus by rejecting the Conservative's interim plans for English votes for English laws as "fundamentally flawed" and unworkable.
Proposals to reform the House of Lords, which Mr Straw said would be phased in over a period of up to 15 years, are currently being considered by a joint parliamentary committee and their recommendations are due in November.
"I think a consensus is achievable and I believe this: if we do not seize the opportunity before us now, I fear that reform will be placed on the backburner for decades to come," he told a meeting of the Hansard society last night.
He added: "Maintaining the primacy of the Commons is key. But subject to this, there is no reason why the Lords should not be able to increase its relevance and its effectiveness."
Mr Straw said there had been some major reforms of parliament in the past 50 years, including increased power of scrutiny for select committees and the televising of chamber debates.
His job as Commons leader was primarily to make the system of parliamentary democracy "work better", he stated, although he made clear there was no question to trying to rediscover a "golden age" - as this simply did not exist.
House of Lords reform was key to this plan, Mr Straw said, and he welcomed the modernisation committee's consideration of other issues such as changing the way MPs consider new bills, and improving IT to "demystify" parliament's activities.
But he warned that one reform, the idea of English votes for English laws, would "undermine our democracy and government and profoundly weaken the United Kingdom".
This policy is currently being considered by the Conservatives' democracy taskforce as a solution to the West Lothian question, which asks why Scottish MPs can vote on issues that only affect England, but not vice versa.
Last night Mr Straw warned that while the option appeared "superficially attractive", in practice it would involve an "incredibly complex" system of splitting bills into legislative areas for separate consideration by Scottish and English MPs.
Most importantly, however, he said it was "wholly unjustified" - Scottish devolution was a way of countering the dominance of English MPs in the UK parliament, but the latter still controlled the majority of spending available north of the border.
Shadow Commons leader Theresa May welcomed Mr Straw's speech, but questioned what he was actually going to do to strengthen parliament's power to scrutinise the government.
"Unless the leader of the House is more forthcoming in his plans to enhance parliament's role in holding the executive to account, far from increasing people's connection with parliament, they will lose faith in the whole institution," she said.
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