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House of Lords Reform (Draft Bill)

We will leave it to the House of Lords itself to decide the precise method of reduction by thirds. We have set out two options in the White Paper. One would involve moving to the full reduction of the size of the House of Lords to 300 immediately in 2015; the other would be to do nothing until 2025, which would mean that the reformed House of Lords would have become very large indeed in 15 years' time. We would then make the reduction at that point. Those are exactly the kinds of issues that we will invite the Joint Committee to look at. I can confirm our determination to see the reform of the House of Lords reach the statute book in time for the elections in 2015. We want to see the first elections to a reformed House of Lords take place in 2015. We will treat this legislation as we treat all Government legislation. This is something to which both our manifestos—in fact, all the manifestos—are committed, and it is clearly set out in the coalition agreement. We will use all the legislative tools at our disposal to deliver on that commitment.