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Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I accept your guidance, Mrs. Heal. On term limits for Ministers appointed as Ministers to the other place, I think that there is a very strong argument—we dealt with this in our cross-party discussions on the future of the House of Lords—that, if someone is appointed as a Minister, the term should be for the duration of their role in the Administration. There is no argument for its coming automatically with a permanent seat or even a 15-year seat or whatever in the House of Lords. It should be an ad hoc position, if it is our view that Ministers should continue to be appointed from that House. Entry to the House should be for the duration of the time for which that person is a Minister. If there is then an argument that the person involved has performed distinguished service, perhaps in the role of Secretary of State, and merits a term peerage, so be it. Their appointment should not be a disqualification from a term peerage, but it should not automatically be assumed that because someone has been an Under-Secretary for a few weeks that person merits a permanent place in the revising Chamber of our legislature. That seems to me to be an unanswerable argument. I would have preferred it if this amendment had included a section on Ministers, but I appreciate the fact that we are talking about a principle. It is a principle on which we will divide, if the hon. Member for Chichester presses his amendment to a Division. I shall recommend to my right hon. and hon. Friends that the amendment should be supported. I shall not do so, however, because I think that it is a perfect amendment or that a reformed House of Lords with term peers in it would be a reformed House of Lords. It would be just slightly better than what we have at the moment and I suppose that any advance is better than none.