The House Of Lords
How did you become a Lord?
It was because I got to know a lot of Liberal Democrats when I was very active, including Patty Ashdown, who has been a long-standing friend. I have been his lawyer forever, as I was David Steele before him. When he had a chance - Tony Blair in '98 gave him two extra places for the Lords (Liberal Democrats get two a year) - he used that as an opportunity to get me in.
What happens when you become a lord?
It's very easy. You get a little message from the Queen saying, "I make you Baron Phillips of Sudbury in the County of Suffolk." You go along, and you get admitted. You have to wear these fantastic robes, which they kindly lend you for the occasion. It's a bit of flummery that is perfectly harmless.
Why didn't you take a coat of arms?
I just thought that it was unbelievable pretentious. I think the title is ludicrous, to be honest. The first thing that I would do if I had a magic wand is eliminate the title. I mean, people say, oh its a bit of fun and its colorful, but its distancing, and I don't go around saying, I'm Lord Philip of Sudbury. I only use it where I have to. I just think we have enough distance between public and Parliament already, and you don't need to add to it. I don't see why I can't just be Andrew Philips MHL, Member of the House of Lords. MHL after my name, what's wrong with that?
Who assigns you your title and how is it chosen?
It's the Garter King of Arms I think his title is at the College of Herald. They basically have to try to ensure that you don't get two peers with the same name. When I went in there was already a Lord Phillips of Ellesmere, I had become Lord Phillips of Sudbury. The Duke of Grafton had a subsidiary title involving the name of Sudbury but that was cleared. I asked the town council if they minded my using the town's name as part of my title but they were very delighted that I did and that was it.
What do Lords do?
Well, all legislation has to go through both the Lords and the Commons, both houses equally. And ironically although most of the legislation emanates from the Commons we give it more scrutiny than they do. In fact sometimes we get very important bills coming to us with whole sections that have never been debated and that's because the government legislating far too much doesn't have time to properly debate parts of bills and puts a guillotine on it which means that they can only discuss it for however long the guillotine allows and up it comes to us. We don't have a guillotine and some legislation is debated at great length. Some of the anti-terrorist measures were debated. One debate which is usually remembered went on until 4 or 5 the next morning. We were sitting 36 hours I think continuously more or less. And so the Lords have a hugely important task in scrutinizing legislation and amending legislation. Some of it, in fact more than people realize, probably a quarter of it starts with us and then goes on to the Commons. So we have the primary first consideration of bills. And I think the other thing worth mentioning is that the Commons these days are made up of what I would call professional politicians, young men and women who have never done anything with politics from a university or a think tank, or a political party, or an aid for a member of Parliament, or whatever and then into the Commons. They've got no experience in, how shall I put it, running things. The Lords by contrast is a much older chamber. The age of the Commons goes down. Our average age is about 67 and it's packed with people who run everything. You can't find an aspect of modern life where the Lords don't have at least one and sometimes several representatives.
Can Lords change legislation?
Yes, as I said, where the bill starts in the House of Lords the last port is the Commons, but we amend the legislation far more than the Commons does, far more. And although the government has the right under the Parliament Act of 1911 to have its way, so that they can ultimately vote down whatever we persist in voting up, they have the last word, it's a very laborious process. It slows down their legislative program so that they very rarely resort to the Parliament Act. Having said which, they've used it nearly as much as it was used in the previous eighty or ninety years. But, as I say, we amend legislation to a high level. During my time there, we were defeating the government or voting lobbies on average twice a week. In the Commons, in the same eight years, they only defeated the government on a whip vote once, so it's a massive contrast. In the Lords, this isn't to glory it in many way, the voting majorities that prevail in the House of Commons don't persist in the Lords and nobody there has a majority. Not forgetting that nearly a quarter of the Peers are cross benchers, that is to say, unattached politically. So, put all that together and you've got what I call a persuasive house, where if you want to win a vote you've got to persuade people to come to your side. If I may just add one more thing which people don't realize. Whereas in the Commons, you are whipped on virtually every vote and if you don't follow the whip, the consequences for your career can be deathly and it can even mean your losing your seat because if the constituency party, which may be very small, thinks that you are acting disloyally or something, they can just chuck you out. In the Lords there are no sanctions. We're not paid, we're not elected, we're there for life and most of us are pig headedly full of our own views because we've lived a long time, we've seen a lot. We've had to exercise our own judgment in whatever walk of life we have existed in. And that makes the Lords, it has a sort of independence really, that I wish the Commons would have.
What was you greatest success in the house of Lords?
Well I think I would have to select the Identity Cards Bill, where I led the opposition, which I think was a hugely important piece of legislation and we undoubtedly won the floating opinion in the Lords during the course of those debates. They came over to the side of those of us who said we should not have compulsory ID cards. And although the government, we sent it back to the commons five times, in the end there was a compromise. That they wouldn't seek to make it compulsory until 2010 at the earliest, before which there is likely to be the next election. And I think that firstly Labor may not go into the next election saying that they are going to make it compulsory because I think that there are moves in public opinion against it. Secondly, the Tories, God bless them, came out and joined with the Dems in saying no; compulsion is a fundamental breach of fundamental liberty and could lead to an overwhelmingly powerful state, a prying state and all the rest of it. So, that I think was the thing that I will... the single thing, but then the charities bill was not contentious. I carried that for the Lib Dems, and being the only charity lawyer taking part in that bill, that took me a year of my life virtually. And then I think the oddly named Regulation of Investigatory Powers act which... highly technical measure, again, all to do with the relationship between the individual citizen and the state. Where the government was taking far too many, far too wide powers, and a nightmare of a bill. I mean if you weren't a lawyer I don't know how the heck you got to grips with it at all. So I think those are three amongst many bills that I look back on with most satisfaction.
Why are you so interested in regulating the power of the state?
So much is done with the best intentions, that lead to inadvertently adverse consequences, that is why I concentrate highly on these state powers measures. A lot of the commons people particularly, are frankly a bit wet behind the ears. They simply think that because they have good intentions, it will all work out fine, well it won't, and it doesn't, and once you've given these huge powers of surveillance for example, into the hands of the state and you've got a massive machine, the MI5 and 6, the police, and so on, operating what become expensive complex mechanisms, it's very difficult for a state to yield those up. I am an absolute believer in the importance of maintaining a healthy relationship between the citizens and the state, which is the secret really, of Britain's specific Democratic history, that we haven't gone too far in terms of state powers, that we have respected individual liberty, even at the expense sometimes, of allowing things to happen which, had there been surveillance, had there been further state powers, would not have occurred. That is no argument, because, as I said, it's rather like the blood getting infected. If the relationship between the individual and the state is not healthy, and mutually respected, then doesn't matter what you do by way of Elastoplasts and plaster of Paris, the body will fail.
Do Lords draw a salary?
No, they don't. They are unsalaried, and if the government has its way in electing all, or part, of the Lords, of course that will go. One of the reasons that I am, in a way, surprisingly, against election is that I think it will weaken Westminster as a whole because, at the present, the House of Lords is a complete contrast to the Commons. All of us in the Lords absolutely accept Commons as the primary chamber. They must have their way, in the end. However wrong we think they are, because they are elected. Now, once you elect the Lords, who's to say who's to have primacy? And once you elect the Lords, two things will follow, as night, day. Firstly, you will lose the independence that we currently possess, because people who get into the Lords through party lists will be answerable to the party clique who put them high on the list. They will be even more vulnerable than the people in the Commons, who, at least, have a constituency. Secondly, besides the loss of independence, you lose that phenomenal body of experience, because I can't think of many peers, particularly many of the best peers, who will be interested in standing for election at age 55, 60, or 65. I just think it's some nonsense.
What do you think of the ablishment of hereditary peers?
I would feel very sorry for those of them who have taken an active part in the life of the lords, very sorry. There are many conscientious men and women. But I am also in favor of it because I think you really can not have in a democratic country, people sitting in your legislature for their simply of the achievements of their great, great, great grandfather. We have got this wonderful British compromise still at ninety two hereditaries that are left behind, and as I say I was a reluctant supporter of that legislation.
Why did you resign your post?
It was certainly considered bonkers by most of my peers, because you spend a lifetime trying to get in there, and here was me leaving it. But I swore to myself when Patty Astan put me in that I would either do things with authority or get out and let someone else have a go. And I got to the point after 8 years of very, very active involvement, pretty well full time really. I got a) frustrated, because as a lawyer, my effort there was principally in legislation. And I saw 13,500 pages of new law a year coming out of Westminster, which is a totally unsustainable, indigestible and counter-productive output. And the whole way of modern government is, I think, self-defeating. And in the end, I didn't think it was almost right to be part of it, because I think it's doing us great damage. So I thought, well I'll get out and I'll write about that. And I'll do other things that I want to get back to, like my involvement with some of the charities that I serve. And of course, there were personal reasons. Just seeing more of my friends, family, children, and grandchildren. Mundane things like that. And also a sense that I didn't want to do as happens with too many in politics, which is get out when your energy has collapsed, and therefore you can't really do the things that you've saved to do at the end of your career.
As a life peer you could return, do you ever consider returning?
I suppose never say never. It was my intention when I withdrew, and I had a big farewell party on the basis that I was leaving forever. It's gratifying how many people say, "Come back." And I miss it terribly. But then, I knew I would. I didn't leave out of pique or because I didn't like the place. Quite the reverse. It's a very beguiling place with lots of fascinating people, and it functions in a much more adult and constructive way than the Commons, I have to say.
What do you think of New Labour's policies?
No, I think a lot of Blair's strategy was actually to recant from a socialist position to a liberal position. That's why he had long anguished talks in Pakistan about forming some sort of liaison. David Cameron's has now done the same with the Tories. He's decamped onto a lot of traditional liberal territory. One of the reasons that the public is confused about politics is that the parties shift their positions from decade to decade, and it isn't always easy to see the differences between them.
What do you think of the state of the Lib Dems at the moment?
People forget where we've come from and that fact that local government, the last election we got the second highest vote. Many huge cities and rural districts of England, Wales, and Scotland indeed are now Lib Dem. That was unthinkable when I started in politics. Whether we get to be a government on our own, I don't know, I doubt it. What I do expect to be in coalition sometime if before then we haven't had a revision of the electoral system so that you get a more proportionate result. I think it's a real turn off for democracy that we have this crazy outcome. For example now, labor, you've got 37% of the vote and only 60% of the population voted. That means in terms of the electorate they've got a quarter of the electorate and a big overall majority in the House of Commons, they can push through any legislation they'd like.
Are you still involved with the Liberal Democrats?
Yes, in leaving the House Of Lords, I didn't turn my back on politics, and I'm still an open, and partly active Liberal Democrat. I've been to conferences recently, and spoke there. I go up to the House Of Lords every month or so, maintain contact. I'm in contact with some of the ministers, chairing ministers and feed in thoughts, I'm sometimes asked my views. So, no, I haven't opted out of politics.
