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House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, I want to make a couple of comments on this. I had not really paid proper attention to this Bill in its previous three incarnations, mainly because I thought that we were going to see something through from the Government and that this was basically a side-show that would go away. Yet it does not seem to be doing that, which is worrying me. It is my experience of House of Lords reform that it flounders regularly. That is why 92 hereditary Peers were left here: to give an incentive for further reform. I am quite certain that if that incentive is removed, as is proposed under this Bill, we will eventually die out and end up with a wholly appointed House by default in a few years’ time, because further reform will flounder and they will just say that this is what we should have. All we have done is to use a backdoor method of circumventing the possible will of another place, if it really wants to have an elected House. This is a hugely dangerous Bill; it is a clever way around ensuring that certain people manage to maintain their seats here. My purpose is to make sure that there is proper reform and that I am removed, but democratically. The whole point, and this is why I oppose this Motion, is that if we end up with an appointed House under this Bill, the appointments commission is absolutely key to the future composition of this House. That commission will probably end up with the great and good sitting on it, and they tend to put people on who are like themselves and who will tend to believe that the sometime excesses of the bureaucracy and the Executive just need a little tweaking to get them right. That is very dangerous because we will see the mavericks disappear from this House steadily over the years, as they die out. We will probably no longer see another Michael Onslow—the late Earl Onslow— or people like that whom we need in this House, or somewhere in Parliament, in order to point out the errors of our ways from time to time when we all pat ourselves on the back for being wise and having great wisdom. The commission is key to it and I am not happy with the idea of an independent Appointments Commission as it is currently constituted, because you will not end up with something that our grandchildren like. This almost needs to be tackled very much upfront so that we can shape the future composition of the Lords, if we are to go down this route, in a way that is sensible and gives us back some independence. By the way, can I recommend the Cross Benches? It is wonderful sitting here because you can look both sides beadily in the eye without having to turn around and not address the House.