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House Committee: Third Report

My Lords, I live on the south-west coast of Ireland and commute weekly to your Lordships' House. I pay my own air fares and always have done, since I joined this House in 1997. One role that I have tried to perform in your Lordships' House is to bring the expectations of the outside world into this Chamber and Parliament itself. That is not always an easy job. I totally identify with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and with the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, when he says that this is an opportunity. The opportunity, as I see it, is to try to align ourselves with the expectations of the outside world and, most particularly, with the expectations of first-time voters. Anyone in your Lordships' House who is interested in the future of participatory democracy has an obligation to take the views of first-time voters very seriously indeed. The report the week before last from the Hansard Society, Parliament 2020: visioning the future Parliament, contains a table. At the bottom of this table, it talks about various issues felt to be important to first-time voters. One of them is transparency and accountability. That is felt to be crucial by first-time voters. It is felt by Peers, MPs and parliamentary officials not worth mentioning. That cannot be right. The most important service this House owes to the country at large is to align our expectations with their expectations. If we do not, then in common with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, I truly fear for the future of parliamentary democracy.