ory intellectual asks how House of Lords can be reformed when future shape of United Kingdom is unknown
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Jesse Norman is following in the footsteps as Gordon Brown with a simple but powerful argument against constitutional reform
Jesse Norman, one of the leading intellectuals on the Tory benches, has come up with a potentially killer argument against the rapid reform of the House of Lords.
In an article for the Times he poses a simple but powerful question. How can the upper chamber of the United Kingdom parliament be reformed before the political future of the UK has been decided in the Scottish independence referendum?
This is what Norman wrote:
It now seems likely that there will be a referendum on independence for Scotland in 2013-14. Unlike an elected House of Lords, Scottish independence is a highly contentious current issue for many people on both sides of the border. The secession of Scotland from Great Britain would throw our constitutional arrangements into turmoil. Whatever one's views, it makes no sense to consider the issue of electing the House of Lords before the basic question has even been framed of who exactly will be governed by such a House, and how.
The strength of Norman's argument, which may well complicate Nick Clegg's campaign to reform the House of Lords, lies in its simplicity. It is easy to understand and sounds like a pragmatic response to a problem and not the ranting of a traditionalist determined to maintain the status quo.
This is illustrated by the FT, a supporter of a mainly or wholly elected House of Lords, which agrees with Norman. Here is the concluding paragraph from an FT editorial today:
Like it or not, Britain already faces constitutional upheaval in coming years. The referendum on Scotland's membership of the union due in 2014 is likely to lead to changes one way or another. It is conceivable that the UK could move towards a federation – a "home rule all round" system that would also be familiar to Asquith. House of Lords reform is part of this debate, not separate from it. The chamber's future can best be defined when the UK's own future is more certain. After a century, it is worth getting the answer right. Mr Clegg should wait.
David Cameron, who pledged in his general election manifesto to "build a consensus for a mainly-elected second chamber to replace the current House of Lords", is supporting Clegg. But it feels like he is ticking a box in the coalition agreement.
Norman, who is close to George Osborne, will no doubt be hailed by Tory MPs and peers fighting the Clegg reforms. But Norman may find support in the Labour party. Carwyn Jones, Labour's first minister in Wales, said last month that if Scotland becomes independent a new upper house would have to be created to ensure that England does not dominate the UK. Jones said the commons should be balanced by an upper house in which England, Wales and Northern Ireland would have an equal number of seats.
Norman's article has echoes of a key intervention by Gordon Brown on constitutional reform in 1998. As chancellor Brown came up with a simple, but devastating argument, that killed off the report by the late Roy Jenkins into electoral reform. The then chancellor told anyone who would listen (in private of course) that it was absurd to try to reform the voting system for the House of Commons when the future of the House of Lords was under debate. The Jenkins report soon died.
Norman, who helped Osborne devise his assault on Brown in opposition, will wince at the comparison with Brown. But he may just have articulated an argument which could have the same impact as the Brown assault on Jenkins.