ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, it’s apparently the issue that the public don’t really care about with private polling showing this week that 0%, yes zero percent of the electorate think that House of Lords reform should be a government priority though it is reform of the second chamber which is likely to dominate the next parliamentary term with proposals likely to be set out in the Queen’s Speech next month. Joining me to discuss are some of the country’s finest Lords – Lord Adonis, Labour peer – don’t laugh Pauline! – and Gordon Brown’s former Transport Secretary, we have Pauline Neville-Jones as well who was the Conservative Security Minister and Lib Dem peer Lord Oakshott, a very good morning to you all. So we’ll stay with you Lord Oakshott, nobody cares about Lord’s reform and when I say nobody cares, they really don’t care, they don’t think it should be the issue that should be dominating the next parliamentary term.

LORD OAKSHOTT: Well why should it dominate the next parliamentary term? It only will if the people who are against it, who want to wreck it, make it that. It was in all three major party’s manifestos, it is something that we’ve been hanging about dealing with for a hundred years and it is a basic democratic principle. It cannot be right to have one of the two chambers of parliament voting on our laws, some of whom are there because their great-great-grandparents were …

DM: We’re in a double dip recession, perhaps we’re coming close to that, perhaps we’ll miss that but there are bigger fish to fry.

LO: Well there are always bigger fish to fry. I’ve been in the Lords for 12 years, I don’t remember the people who are against it now being in favour of it when the economy was fine. It’s a separate issue. Let’s just face up to this, during the War, 1944-45 we were fighting a war, it didn’t stop us reforming the education system in the country and reforming the national insurance system so this is not the top issue in the country but it is one that all opinion polls always show, when people are asked do you believe it should be elected or should it go on being appointed, a great majority say it should be elected and the time has now come to get on with it.

DM: Moving on slightly from whether the time is right is the type of reform that has been suggested, is it the right thing you believe for the second chamber?

PAULINE NEVILLE-JONES: Yes, that’s my point. I am not immovably opposed to change in the Lords but I don't think this is the right Bill and I do agree with the general public, it is not a priority. We have got more important things to do. My fundamental problem with that Bill is that it goes on and on about the method of selection and it is almost silent, not quite silent, on the subject of the powers of the House and what it says is that they should effectively remain the same. They cannot possibly remain the same. If you attach the importance which those proponents of Lords reform do the elected principle, if this becomes an elected House it is bound to challenge the Commons, the relationship would change. The Bill ought to reflect the realities of future life, it doesn’t, it pretends they’re not going to.

DN: Well hold that thought and let Lord Adonis set out his stall because a further reform you’d like to see is moving the Lords, the second chamber, out of London altogether.

LORD ADONIS: On the issue of timing of course, I’m in the opposition, it’s up to the government when it brings forward its proposals but the issue for the Labour party isn’t the timing because the government will determine that, it is whether we will vote for or against a proposal to have an elected second chamber. It is impossible in the modern democratic world to support a House of cronies which is what we have at the moment. I am in the House of Lords because Tony Blair put me there and I think he made a very wise decision putting me there, Pauline and Matthew make excellent peers too but …

DM: So you wouldn’t mind putting that to the test in an election?

LA: It’s not justifiable. The only reason we have an appointed House is because it’s what was left over after we removed the hereditary peers. If this proposal comes forward on the straight issue of should it be elected, should it be appointed, I think modern democrats, including my party, the Labour party, should support election. I also think we should look at a wider reform though too. We have far too much concentration of political power in this country in London, I think the issue, if we are going to have it elected, the issue of moving the House of Lords out of London – so we have one of our major institutions, I’m not allowed to mention the BBC on Sky am I but they moved out of London too – so having a second chamber in one of the great cities of the Midlands and the North, so we rebalance political power across the country, I think should be examined too.

DM: Okay, well that’s an interesting sidebar to the debate but on the issue, Lord Oakshott, that Pauline raised there, it’s got to in some way, shape or form, second guess or indeed overrule the primary chamber.

LO: Well let’s just talk about that. It is important, there has been so much tactics, the basic principle as Andrew is saying, which Liberal Democrats agree with, most Labour people agree with and indeed many of the younger more forward looking Conservative MPs agree with and the House of Commons has voted for, is the basic principle that the Lords should be elected. I mean at the moment the House of Lords is a closed political world in an increasingly open society as the Observer said very well today. It is just completely illegitimate and wrong that I’m here because Charles Kennedy put me in or as we say, the others are in, and the particular point that is so vital is that if you have the party peers, as we are at the moment, the majority of us, appointed by the party leaders, that frankly is a corrupt system. All parties have had major problems with cash for peerages, there is always going to be that implication. There is only one proper democratic way to get the party people into the chamber and that is …

DM: But that wouldn’t necessarily change would it?

LO: Of course it would, it would be elected by the people instead of this awful, awful pressure there is at the moment with all parties to have donations. That is part of cleaning up our whole system and it is in all the manifestos and we must get on with it.

DM: What do you feel about your democratic right to be a Lord, Dame Pauline?

PN-J: Well I think I’ve been put there under the present system and I said right at the outset, I’m not opposed to the principle of reform. I am opposed to the incompetence of this particular Bill and …

LO: But Pauline …

PN-J: No, let me now have my go if you don’t mind. You elevate above all other considerations the elective principle.

LO: Yes, we do.

PN-J: If that’s the case it follow from that that responsibility goes with that elective right. You cannot then say actually the relationship between the two Houses is going to remain as is, that’s to say that the Lords which at the moment not being elected does not have full rights, it has no power over money Bills, it is essentially a revising chamber, it does not have, the very fact of it not being elected is reflected in the powers that it is actually allowed to wield. Now that will have to change. Now the Bill needs to reflect the fact of change in the relationship and change in the power. It does not do so, we are going to have another botched reform. We’ve already got Scotland which has not been well handled, we do not need another constitutional reform which is botched.

DM: I mean if you take that analysis, Lord Adonis, and join it up with your plan to move it, there might be another power centre, a serious power centre that can gainsay the Commons in the Lords.

PN-J: Yes, absolutely.

LA: And a jolly good thing. Pauline and I have been Ministers, we do not have a problem in our system of unduly weak governments. The problem in our system, because the government is only the government because it controls the House of Commons. The present government has a majority of 80 or 90 in the House of Commons, all governments do, in our system the government is the government because it controls the House of Commons. The only real check, as I think we both found when we were in government, the only real check on what governments do is in the House of Lords but at the moment it is a very weak check. My own view – and I completely agree with Pauline – an elected second chamber will be more assertive, we have plenty of elected second chambers in the world and they do find a way of seeing that you don’t get gridlock which is the main concern, it’s very important that you don’t get gridlock. But having a more assertive second chamber, which can say no to ID cards, no to the health reforms that we had recently, no to the poll tax …

DM: But the Lords has already been saying that, the fact is that what you are saying is that we get a Senate and everyone looks at the United States and the Senators are more powerful than the Congressmen.

LO: Power is far too centralised in this country. We have uniquely no written constitution. I can remember Andrew, when you were working for Tony Blair you said to me once, the only two things we’re worried about in the Labour government are the press and the House of Lords. That’s not a very good basis of doing it and we should spread our power. I say to Pauline, you say you are not against it in principle but for the 12 years I’ve been there all the people who oppose it are not against it in principle but they are always against any Bill that actually comes forward.

DM: As we come to an end, Pauline you can have the last word here, should we have a referendum on it at least? Shouldn’t the public have a say?

PN-J: Well I’m on the whole not a great proponent of having lots and lots of referenda but I do actually think we have got an incompetent Bill and if haven’t got a competent Bill I would rather have it tested in public opinion. However what I want is a competent Bill which actually acknowledges the power implications of the reform that is being proposed.

DM: So back to the drawing board for you. Thank you all very much indeed. To be discussed again at length I’m sure. Lords Adonis and Oakshott and Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, thank you all very much.