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House of Lords Bill [HL]

My Lords, I remain here to be the grit in the oyster for reform, not just to ensure that change comes, but to ensure that when reform does come, the power of this House is not reduced and can still hold the Government to account. This Bill seeks to pre-empt any reform, and, incidentally, if passed will give the Labour Party and the Lib Dems more Peers in this House and my party and the Cross Benches fewer. If it had been enacted in 1999 we would have 10 fewer colleagues, but I am sure that the Prime Minister would have carried on appointing Peers to the Government Benches. The concept of an appointed House has been rejected by another place. It is not the policy of the three major parties. This House is, after all, a political Chamber. Business is managed by the parties and their whips. With respect to the Cross Benches, if both Opposition Front Benches went home early, business would collapse. I agree with noble Lords who have spoken who say that this Chamber works. It works as well as it ever did. The Bill seeks to improve some aspects, such as leave of absence, size of membership and suspension for those guilty of a serious offence. However, I note that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, is content for Members of this House to take temporary leave of absence if they sit in the European Parliament, but not if they sit in either the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly. Why should not the rules be the same for all three? Perhaps the noble Lord might address that when he winds up. The hereditary by-election system was supposed to last only a few years. Whose fault is that? The Government must take full responsibility for this bizarre electoral system continuing. For change to be accepted it has to come from another place. I believe that it will come only after the next general election when both parties will have to spell out their plans in their respective manifestos. We should not try to pre-empt that. All parties favour an elected second Chamber. It would be a second Chamber that is rather different from the one now; it would have different conventions, different powers and probably a different role. Would it work better? Who knows? Is the country clamouring for an elected second Chamber? The answer must be no, not at the moment. Equally, neither have they endorsed the concept of an appointed second Chamber. They do agree that there should be a check on the Executive and a revising second Chamber with power to delay and make the Government of the day think again. We were promised another stage of reform by this Government, by the then Lord Chancellor, his word given as a Privy Councillor—so far a hollow promise. The Bill has a number of things wrong with it. It enshrines the status quo; it is a slight benefit to the Lib Dems. But the most important thing is that it lets the Government off the hook; it lets both major parties off the hook. It comes in the middle of yet another consultation process. We do not know what the Government’s response will be but we can guess. They will take the views expressed in this debate into account very seriously during their consultation process to produce yet another White Paper. However, if recent remarks from a former No. 10 official are true, they suggest that the Government would like to do away with the second Chamber altogether, and have only one House—the House of Commons. The Bill pre-empts what is generally understood to be the business of government in another place. It would deprive the electorate of a chance to vote for the party which offered the way forward for constitutional reform. The Bill perhaps could be re-titled, ““The Life Peers Rescue Bill””. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Steel, for allowing one lifeboat for the hereditary Peers to clamber into. As always, I am pleasantly surprised to be here—10 years after a Labour victory and 34 years after I made my maiden speech. That is not a bet I would have taken 10 or even 34 years ago. The Bill lets the Government off the hook and I do not believe that it should be supported.