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House of Lords (Amendment) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am afraid the noble Lord is not even correct in that. I have on occasions tabled amendments which were against the advice of the Clerks. What actually happens is that the Leader of the House advises the House that the amendment is contrary to the advice of the Clerks, and then puts the matter to the House as to whether it should be allowed. In the end, as I said, it is for the House to decide whether amendments are within the provisions of the Standing Orders or not—and my contention as of now is that any amendment to the 1999 Act would be authorised within the provisions of this Bill, the Long Title of which I have already read to your Lordships. Whatever the noble Lord may think, if he gets a Second Reading of his Bill today, as I dare say he will, and if he then refers the Bill to a Committee of the Whole House, as I dare say he will also, I shall most certainly table large numbers of amendments because it is a very bad Bill. The Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, which we were considering previously, also has a number of very serious shortcomings and I took the liberty of tabling a large number of amendments to that—which caused no difficulties with the Clerks, may I add. To be fair, the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, has one or two small points in it with which I do not necessarily disagree—for example, the exclusion of Peers who may be committed to prison and so on. Those are reasonable provisions which may or may not find the light of the day, but they are certainly worth considering. Sadly, the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has no such merit to approve it; it is a thoroughly bad Bill. I hope that he will not proceed to a Second Reading with it but, if he does and it comes to a Committee of your Lordships, I shall seek to amend it in a great many ways which I hope that he and your Lordships will find acceptable.