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Parliament: Elected House of Lords

My Lords, I am a great fan of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, but I really think he ought to be more frank about his motives. This is going to be seen to be yet another attempt to delay long-overdue reform. The idea that somehow or other these issues have not been properly examined in the past is frankly nonsense. They were constantly and exhaustively examined. In 2002, the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform envisaged, "““a continuation of the present role of the House of Lords, and of the existing conventions governing its relations with the House of Commons””." That is clear enough. Then there was the Joint Committee on Conventions—the Cunningham committee—which has been referred to and which I also sat on, which looked at those conventions and spelled them out very carefully. Under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, we rejected any idea that there should be a cut in its powers and set out very clearly the present relationship. It, too, could not be clearer. Even more important, the Government responded to that report. I know I have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, in this contention because it was his Government who said in response to the Committee’s report: "““the Committee’s report shows that there is general agreement about the current role of the Lords in Parliament. The Government—" that is, his Government— "““believes that whatever further reform of the Lords takes place, that role is the right one. The question of composition of the House of Lords does not dictate its role””." I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott—who was Chief Whip at the time—would have signed off on that particular point. The truth is that the relative responsibilities and roles of the two Houses have been constantly re-examined. Yes it is true that when we get the draft Bill in the new year and there is again pre-legislative scrutiny, we will have to face up to the fact that all three parties have committed themselves to thoroughgoing democratic reform of your Lordships’ House. If we believe in the primacy of the Commons—and I know the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, does—that cross-party consensus must surely be extremely important. Our challenge as a House is to look at that draft Bill when it is published and do our best to make sure that it produces a new House that is worthy of its predecessor.