---

House of Lords Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am sorry if I accused it of dishonour. I feel strongly that our views in this House have not been accorded the weight that they should have been in the deliberations of our party. I very much hope that this will change. It distresses me greatly that that should be the case. I return briefly to the Bill. I also support it because I see it as an excellent first stage in getting towards an elected House. To move from where we are now to a substantially or fully elected House would be an enormous change. When you make an enormous change to the constitution, it is extremely difficult to predict the consequences. We cannot do much to ameliorate that, but what we can do is to move this House towards the sort of status and arrangements which it might have as an elected House, and this Bill seems to do that. It gets rid of a lot of the anomalies and brings us very close to an elected House. The transition to election need not be that cathartic if we pass the Bill, and it would greatly lessen the chance of future conflict between an elected House of Lords and an elected House of Commons if we make the changes proposed and are used to being, as it were, a more representative Chamber but performing the role that we perform now in relation to the Commons. We would not find that it raised the questions. Doing this now would make the change to an elected House much easier in five or 15 years’ time, whenever it comes.