Leaders need more courage

Not all that long ago, when Robin Cook was still Leader of the House, one subject of debate was the reconstitution of the House of Lords.

I was always rather drawn to the old Lords – full of old buffers who inherited, alongside parkland and grouse moor, a duty to serve. Given sufficient education but not enough to harm them, they sat in the Lords supported by bishops, judges and only a scattering of people who knew much about doing things.

Like all institutions it was probably self-serving, but it behaved benignly on the whole, only reacting to the outpourings of the 'other place' when they saw genuine ethical, moral or public concern issues. Of course the whole thing was laden with privilege, and I suppose reform was long overdue. Having dumped most of the hereditary peers, the debate was whether to elect or nominate new members in future.

The prospect of two elected houses with both groups of representatives claiming mandates seems to me appalling. It's bad enough having to live with one set of politicians claiming our support for every feature of their manifesto – when the truth is that the electorate merely disagreed with them less than the others. Wouldn't we be creating US politics, where the President is so finessed domestically by layers of 'democracy' that the only place left to be noisy is overseas? Look what happens then!

The world faces global environmental, health and societal challenges. Dealing with climate change, for example, has a time base that transcends electoral terms and demands brave, continuous, political endeavour.

Government should calm, focus and empower the civil service to implement its environmental policies, then perhaps we might meet some of the targets.

  So why would this be the moment to set two elected houses against one another, atrophying political decision-making in the UK?

Against all probabilities we actually seem to have a courageous Government. (I say it is improbable because, as some of you may recall in Yes Minister, Sir Humphrey Appleby only had to describe one of Jim Hacker's policy proposals as "courageous" to ensure it was consigned to the bin). Unfortunately, the government sets brave targets, then fails to meet them. Perhaps as Sir Humphrey might attest, the civil service hates implementing radical policy. It seems that the principles of probity and thrift create so much fear of doing something wrong that little actually gets done, or odd decisions are taken.

Although I don't know more than I read about in the papers, why for example has the Abre Project just been sold for £3 million to an American minded to dismantle it and ship it off to India? It was to be our first coppicing based biomass power station. It cost £30 million of which £13 million came from public funds. If it goes abroad, it leaves a 35 strong farming cooperative with 1500 hectares of willow fuel crop wondering about basket weaving.