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House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

The plain fact is that the Joint Select Committee, of which I have the honour to be a member, is considering a government draft Bill. I have been accused of opposing all kinds of House of Lords reform simply because the hereditary Peers will in due course come to the end of their time, but that is not my position. As a matter of fact, I am not opposed in principle to House of Lords reform; indeed, I am not opposed in principle to what is proposed in the government draft Bill being considered by the Joint Select Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Richard. When and if full reform is achieved, the hereditary Peers will of course come to the end of their time. This Bill—the part of it that we are now to consider first—includes ending the by-elections. The by-elections which were agreed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, and my noble friend, now the Marquess of Salisbury, secured the passage of the 1999 Act. Had those changes not been agreed that Bill would not have been passed—or at least it could have been passed only with the provisions of the Parliament Act, which I do not think that anyone was considering at the time. My noble friend’s Bill therefore seeks to undermine and destroy a clear and categorical undertaking that the by-elections would remain in place until full reform was achieved. This Bill is by no means full reform. Indeed, removing the clauses on the Appointments Commission, as my noble friend now proposes, further removes the Bill from any possibility of being described as House of Lords reform. As one noble Lord said in our previous debate, this was House of Lords improvement. It is hardly that. Above all, it undermines a clear and categorical undertaking given at the time of the passage of the 1999 Act and which has been repeated and agreed by numerous Ministers in almost every Administration since that time. I therefore ask my noble friend whether he is really determined to take the Bill through—if he can, in the teeth of the opposition of some of us—