---

Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech

My Lords, noble Lords will not be surprised that I wish to say a few words about devolution, but they might be slightly surprised that they are about Welsh devolution rather than Scottish devolution. I scoured through the gracious Speech, and I found the reference to the intention to give the Welsh Assembly transport-related powers. That is a bit timid; a bit too timid. We could move a little faster, to be honest, building on the work led by my noble friend Lord Richard, whom I hope will soon join us in his place again after his illness. Although it is not necessary to have a "one size fits all" approach to devolution across the nations of the United Kingdom, the case has been made well that Wales should move away from an assembly towards a parliament and have primary legislative powers. I have to admit—I do it with some trepidation—that, way back in 1997 and 1998 when I had something to do with these matters, I did not grasp the underlying principle that informed Welsh devolution. I thought that the slogan "A Welsh assembly for secondary legislation" was hardly the clarion call that would set the populace alight. The case has been made; let us move on and head towards full-blooded devolution in Wales. So far as I can see at the moment, we have a hangover from the old approach that said, "The Scots are getting a strong form of devolution because they're consistently in favour of it. The Welsh are a bit more dodgy, so we'll give them a weak form of devolution". That was not a logically coherent argument, so let us move forward appropriately. I hope that, if and when that is done, it will be time to review the future role and even existence of the post of Secretary of State for Wales, and possibly that of the Secretary of State for Scotland. I notice that, while I was talking, I got a number of nods from across the Chamber on that issue. However, in some sections of what I shall say, I shall not get any nods at all from the Liberal Democrats. I move on to reform of your Lordships' House. I very much welcome what is in the gracious Speech and what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor had to say. It is right that we move towards the elimination, once and for all, of the hereditary principle as a basis of composition of a legislature. Of course there are different ways of doing that and, now that the hereditary principle does not underpin a total distortion in the political composition of the House, there may be room for a greater generosity of spirit than, understandably, there was previously. I hope that we move forward, and do so in a generous and sensitive way. I am slightly concerned about the general process of reform. I fully accept—some of my friends and I have argued it long and hard—that there is an inevitable interaction between composition, function and powers, and you cannot get those out of balance and alignment. I am concerned that composition will be dealt with through the process of a free vote and then a Bill implementing that free vote. I do not have a great deal of confidence in that procedure. I would have thought that, on a major issue of constitutional reform—it is such an issue—it is the responsibility of the Government and other parties, after reflection, to put their proposals before the electorate and seek a manifesto endorsement. Something as major as that requires a manifesto endorsement, if only to avoid what is at least a possible outcome, to judge from conversations that I have had with some past and present Members of the other place—that there would be great support for an elected House and for a House with diminished powers. Honestly, I think that it is difficult to square those two components of the argument. It is the responsibility of parties to bring coherent and comprehensive proposals before the electorate. There is a need to codify and reform our conventions, understandings and practices, in terms both of our relationship with the other House—in the context of Parliament as a whole—and of how we work in this Chamber. Looking back over the nearly 10 years that I have been a Member of this House, I see that it has changed and is changing very quickly. We have a larger almost full-time House—not larger in number overall, but there is a larger component of Peers who see themselves as full-time Members of this House. They are younger. I mention softly that they tend to be more ambitious as well. That all changes behaviour. I am afraid that the poor old Companion, although not totally ignored, is often slightly fudged in relation to how things go and what is spelt out in it as to how they should go. I remember coming into this place 10 years ago and being rather apprehensive in my first meeting with the then Scottish spokesman, the late Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove. I was apprehensive because I came from a different wing of the party from him; back in those days our party was allowed to have different wings, but that is all over now. I came in during the lead-up to a general election. Poor old Neil had been doing all the hard work and I thought that my coming in was not going to be particularly easy, but he looked at me and said, "John, thank God you're here; I can have a rest". There was not that degree of seeking for office that may be more present now. If there is ambition and that changes behaviour, I suppose that soon we will have thwarted ambition, which is likely to change behaviour even more. I now turn to the bit where I shall run into trouble with the "Benches diagonal". It is on electoral reform. I am enormously pleased that there is no mention of electoral reform in the gracious Speech—no mention of proportional representation in general or of STV in particular. I am content with that. Of course there has been some increase in the public debate. It is interesting that very few people who favour proportional representation pray in aid the ideal typical example of it, which is the Israeli Knesset. It is a single list proportional system that, in the formation of the executive and government, hands power to the smallest, most extreme and most unrepresentative parties in the state. That is the important point.