Will that be in Dutch or Double Dutch?

It seems certain now that David Cameron will make his much-postponed speech on "Europe" or Britain's role in the European Union, to give it its proper title as he is unlike to refer to the possibility of Britain being out of said Union on January 22 during a visit to the Netherlands. Why on earth the Netherlands? I have nothing against that country or its people but why is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom making a supposedly important speech about the politics and constitution of this country somewhere else? One can't help wondering whether it is likely to be in Double Dutch.

James Forsyth in the Spectator gives a preview of what he thinks will be in the speech. It is uninspiring enough to make one think that Mr Forsyth does, for a change, know what he is talking about.

I understand that he intends to argue that Britain needs to remain inside the single market. But he will commit to a renegotiation of Britain’s terms of membership, starting after the next election. Once this process is complete, the British people will be offered a refendum between staying in on the new terms Cameron is confident he can negotiate or leaving the European Union altogether.

This means that Cameron intends for the Conservative party to campaign for Britain to stay in the EU, albeit on new terms. If he is going to persuade his party to do this, then he is going to have to bring back terms of membership very different than Britain’s current ones. Exempting the NHS from the working time directive or repatriating regional funding can only be the beginning. But if this is all Cameron can get, the Tory party will face its greatest split since the Corn Laws.

My own guess, based on general knowledge of politics and politicians, is that Mr Cameron has no idea of what he is going to say as he has so many people and constituencies to reassure. Nor has he ever shown the slightest understanding of what the EU was, how it was structured, what Britain's role was in it and what the alternatives are. Indeed, as the Boss has shown repeatedly on EURef, he has actually lied about what the possibilities are for countries in the EEA. (Actually, he may not have lied in the technical sense that he believed what he was saying, having been told so by his advisers.)

Meanwhile, let us have a look at what he will be missing in Parliament (we have all been alerted to this by His Grace, Archbishop Cranmer in a tweet): the Second Reading of the Succession to the Crown Bill 2012 - 13.

What exactly will the "reformed" House of Lords be doing?

For some time we have known that in the new session, which, outrageously, will not open till the spring of 2012, there will be a Bill to reform the House of Lords. Those people who were so outraged by Nick Clegg's recent idiotic pronouncements about the present Chamber being an affront to democracy will do well to bear in mind that on this issue (as on so many others) he and the Prime Minister are at one. In fact, they are at one with the previous two Prime Ministers.

The need to "reform" the House of Lords is not immediately obvious and was not so even in 1997 when Tony Blair decided to use that and the ban on hunting as a sop to this disgruntled left-wingers. (Much good did it do him.) The Upper House does its business considerably better than the Lower one and, though its members are paid merely expenses when they sit in the Chamber, they spend a great deal more time and energy on their work as legislators and revisers of legislation than our highly paid Commons. I have written about this too often to be able to link to any specific post but as the Bill starts making its way through Parliament (and, maybe, even before) I shall return to the subject.

How people get there is, after all, less important than what they do when they are there. After all, our real government is in Brussels, in any case, and that is not about to change.

The real reason for the proposed reform is the need felt by this and previous governments and by the political parties to control the Chamber that is likely to oppose and revise whatever legislation they try to bulldoze through. It has been hinted that the reason Mr Cameron has appointed more peers than even Mr Blair did in his first year was to ensure that there was a large cohort of people grateful to him for when the "reform" is to be pushed through. That may be a miscalculation. For the time being, even appointed peers are not dependent on those who had appointed them and may well vote according to their consciences. They may even turn up for the debates, something many of Blair's appointees did not once they realized that a great deal of work and very little pay were involved.

That this "reform" will not be any better thought through than the previous one was, is indicated by the response given to Lord Kakkar's Starred Question on Wednesday.

To ask Her Majesty's Government why the draft Bill on House of Lords Reform makes no provision for defining the powers of an elected second chamber.

A fair question. After all, once the make-up of the House of Lords changes, its role and duties will change, too. The notion that the Upper Chamber is secondary to the Lower rests entirely on the assumption that the former is unelected. That will, logically, change once they are both elected and we have something resembling a Senate. Also, the elected members will expect to be paid and paid as handsomely as their colleagues are in the Lower House. In other words, everything will be different. Lord Strathclyde (for it is he, again) does not think so. At least, the people who wrote his reply do not think so.

My Lords, the draft House of Lords Reform Bill specifically provides that nothing in the provisions affects the status, powers or jurisdiction of either House of Parliament. We therefore do not believe that it is necessary to define the powers of this House in primary legislation.

The rest of the short debate, which is well worth reading, consists of peers attempting to point out to the noble Minister that the provisions of the Parliament Act applied to one elected and one unelected Chamber and, therefore, cannot apply in the same way to two elected ones, with the said Minister refusing to acknowledge that black is black and white is white. I quite liked Lord Howe of Aberavon's contribution (yes, yes, Geoffrey Howe):

My Lords, is it not possible that including such provisions in the Bill would make lucid and clear the increased risk of conflict between the two Houses and the disastrous consequences of the creation of a new structure? Will my noble friend tell the House whether that is the explanation, and is it the consequence of idle carelessness or deliberate deceit?

Dear me, what a suspicious nature some people have.

Another brief comment about the House of Lords

Readers of this blog will know, firstly that I work for various peers in the House of Lords and, secondly, that I do not think the progressive undermining of that institution's position and activity by various governments is in this country's interest.

It always astonishes me that people who ought to know better call for a fully elected Upper House, arguing that somehow, miraculously, that will solve all our problems, make governance more democratic and improve the work of the House of Lords (or Senators as they would be called).

The most obvious response to that is a question about the elected House of Commons. Is it really more democratic, transparent, efficient than the House of Lords? It is elected but, strangely enough, it appears not to know what its constitutional role is. Why would a fully elected House of Lords be any different?

Then there is a question of the peers' independence, particularly those on the Cross-Benches, something that seems not to be well known to the vociferous critics. This morning I attended the Service of Thanksgiving for the life of Lord Monson, where one of the eulogies was spoken by Lord Montgomery, who told us with great delight about Ivan Monson's continuing battle as a Cross-Bench peer, often though not always supported by others, for the various causes, all to do with individual freedom, throughout his stay there.

In a fully elected House of Lords there will be no Cross-Benches, no independent peers, no independent thinking, voting or behaviour at all. There will be no detailed analysis of legislation (done without any salary being received, something else that will change) as all peers will behave just as MPs and the more political members of the Upper House do now: they will obey the Whips and the Leaders.

What matters is the role of an institution and the activity of its members, not the shibboleth of whether they are elected or not. Obviously, the main House has to be elected if we want to preserve any illusion of political accountability. But the necessity for two elected Houses, especially if other reforms do not follow, remains unproven, except for those who think political life has to be controlled by the main parties and their organizations.

Furthermore ...

Further to this idea that "Europe" does not matter: if the deficit is, indeed, the most important problem why is the Cleggeron Coalition intending to tie up Parliament and the country in an unwanted, unneeded and completely unnecessary constitutional reform proposal, whose aims are to keep themselves in government (though not in power) for a good many years and to ensure that they are even less accountable to Parliament than before?

Did you really think they knew what they were doing?

In the House of Lords there was a preliminary debate about potential reform of it. I shall read Hansard tomorrow and blog about it then. In the meantime, here is evidence (as if you needed it) that the government has not thought its ideas on the subject through.

There was a written question from Lord Stoddart of Swindon on June 24:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will ensure that any proposals from the committee on House of Lords reform for a wholly or partly elected second chamber will be accompanied by a re-allocation of powers to each chamber and the repeal of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949.

This is a perfectly rational question and an important point that HMG will have to think about when it presents its, no doubt, badly worded, Bill for the reform of the Upper House. Apparently, so far they have not done so. Lord McNally's reply was short of logical thinking:

The Government believe that the basic relationship between the two Houses, as set out in the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, should continue when the House of Lords is reformed.

Ahem, the basic relationship between the two Houses was brought into law in 1911 and 1949 (and, as a matter of fact, there is some doubt about the full legality of the latter Act) because the Upper House was unelected and could, therefore, be regarded as somewhat inferior. But if both Houses are elected then what is the justification for regarding one of them of greater importance than the other?