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Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

During this debate people have been quite disrespectful about Lord Irvine. However, who knows what went on inside that great mind? At one level, what he did was extremely shrewd. He created a system in which a risible way—to use the Lord Chancellor's words—of having by-elections would ensure reform. There has been a lot of debate about this, so I do not need to go over it again. I just want to say—because nobody else has—that, as so often happens with the law of unintended consequences in our historical development, we have ended up with a pretty good system. Everyone who has spoken so far has played the democratic hand and said, "What I really want is a democratically elected upper Chamber." Some have argued that we must move along the lines suggested by the Lord Chancellor, and others have expressed another point of view, but nobody has said that what we have ended up with is a great British compromise. I say to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) that there is nothing wrong with piecemeal reform, and I say to the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) that there is nothing wrong with shoddy backroom deals. This is how the British constitution—God bless it—has always developed.