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House of Lords Reform

The hon. Gentleman asked me a large number of questions, and I shall try to get through them as rapidly as I can, but first, may I thank him for the courtesy and generosity of his opening remarks? As he said, and as I said, this is a Government White Paper. It is, I think, faithful to what was decided in the cross-party group, both where there was consensus and where there was not. The hon. Gentleman is entirely correct to say that, as the White Paper records, the Conservative party favours a first-past-the-post electoral system, basically based on the old European constituencies. I understand the argument in favour of that, but from a position of total neutrality on the issue, I think that there are stronger arguments in favour of first past the post than those to do with the complexity of the ballot papers. There are other issues, and there is much to be said on the matter. The costs clearly depend on the final size agreed on. That runs into issues about transition. It is a self-evident truth that the smaller the size, the lower the costs will be, but for all parties there could be difficulties with transition. We have said that the matters must be discussed. I accept that the longer transition goes on, the more difficult it will be for the issue finally to be agreed. There is a balance between the best and the good, and in future the Houses will have to come to a judgment. The hon. Gentleman asks about the name of the senate. What he says is consistent with what is written on page 7 of the White Paper, where the word ““Senate”” is used. It records the view of the cross-party group, but it goes on to say—this is the Government view—that"““To avoid a preoccupation with name over function and composition…we use the neutral term 'reformed second chamber' throughout this document””," but there is no copyright on that term, and others will use whatever name is appropriate. On hereditaries, I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, because it is just a fact of life that of the hereditaries that remain, 44 are Conservatives and four are Labour. I have always said that were we to change things, we would have to make arrangements for those existing hereditaries; as I have said publicly, it has never been part of the Government's agenda, or my agenda, gratuitously to disadvantage Conservative party representation in either place, and I have made that very clear. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about retired justices. I agree—this is a personal view—that an appointed minority is the best type of consensus, but let us see. Of course I agree that both Houses need to be strengthened. We should consider how rebellious the Houses have become, compared to how they were in the 1950s, when they were not rebellious at all. This House has been strengthened over the years, and an interesting Hansard Society report about that is coming out tomorrow. He asked about legislation. As I said, it is certainly our intention to bring forward a Bill after the next election, and I look forward to the Opposition parties giving us support by ensuring that they put that in their manifestos, too.