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Constitutional Renewal

My Lords, if I recall from my reading of the press during the past few days, a number of them are public bodies financed by the taxpayer. The BBC is one; others escape me at the moment, but they are in that category. In the past 12 years, we have created the devolved Administrations, ended the hereditary principle in this House, and introduced the Freedom of Information Act and the Human Rights Act. That is what I believed until a few minutes ago, but it now appears that those measures were all the responsibility, almost uniquely, of the Liberal Democrats. History has been to some extent rewritten. I always thought that this Government had been responsible for the passing of that legislation—bringing it to Parliament and carrying it through both Houses—but I will apparently have to review carefully my no doubt rather strange belief. I was intrigued by the view of history of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, which was that there was a kind of golden age up to 2001 and that after that it had been downhill all the way. The Home Secretary between 1997 and 2001, when those great reforms occurred, was my right honourable friend the Justice Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, and I remind the noble Lord that any moves there have been towards reform of the House of Lords for a number of years are the responsibility of the very same politician; that is the view that many of my noble friends take, whether they are on the side of reform or not. To say that somehow the Justice Secretary has been a force for conservatism over the past few years in a constitutional sense seems to be rather stretching a point.