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House of Lords: Reform

I find it very easy to respond to the noble Lord’s intervention because, in his case, he would certainly be the exception to my rule. I am trying to be sensible and point out some of the realities about the two places. I end with a few comments on the 20 per cent appointed Members of this House, if that option goes forward. One of the statistics produced by the progenitors of the Bill to beat us with is that on average only 44 per cent of Cross-Benchers bother to turn up to vote. That is precisely because many of them attend debates and Bills which engage their expertise and experience; otherwise, they get on with outside jobs and perform the outside commitments which feed and furnish their virtues of experience and expertise. I do not disparage people who may come here—I am trying to be realistic—but I do not believe that a full-time, paid 20 per cent of Cross-Benchers could do what the present Cross-Benchers do, for the reasons to which I have briefly alluded. Apart from all that, I suspect that the culture and tenor of this place will be very changed under the new aegis. Partisanship will, inevitably, be in full cry, not least because getting a candidacy under the new aegis will be via an even more narrowly partisan channel than that which applies to MPs now. Lastly, despite the best intentions of the framers of this draft Bill, I cannot see that it will yield a Chamber as ready, let alone as qualified, to amend government legislation as we are. I have not been able to update the statistics to this moment in time, but when I wrote an article in 2002, I found that in the period since Labour gained office in 1997, there had been more than 1,000 whipped votes in the House of Commons and not a single one went against the Government. In the same period, there were roughly the same number of votes in this place and a quarter of those were lost by the Government. I do not believe that that fantastic independence of mind and voting will survive an elected House. I believe that our native genius is demonstrated in the evolution of our Parliament, in both Houses. Let us continue on that evolutionary path and eschew revolution.