Lord Strathclyde
That this House takes note of the case for reform of the House of Lords.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, I for one am delighted to have been able to find this very early opportunity in the lifetime of this Parliament to discuss your Lordships’ House. I can say to noble Lords who have an interest—and many do—that this is the first of such opportunities that we will have to discuss the future of this House.
Lord Strathclyde
The noble Lord who asked a question a moment ago is now leaving the Chamber.
Lord Strathclyde
So I shall not bother telling him the good news about how often we hope to hear him speak in these quality debates over the next year.
Before the election, we knew that if Labour had won we would now be faced with a Bill based on Jack Straw’s committee paper, seeking to legislate on an elected senate in Labour’s historic fourth term—but that was not to be. Equally, we believed that, with a Conservative victory, reform would not be such an urgent priority and we could continue to seek a consensus for a long-term reform. Under the coalition Government, the three main parties all share similar objectives and the issue has now been given greater priority. Today’s debate is an opportunity for the Government to lay out the structure of their plan and an opportunity to listen to the views from your Lordships’ House.
There were more speakers who had put their names down on the speakers list but decided not to go ahead. Some have written to me with their views, but, as I said a moment ago, this, I think, will be the first of such opportunities to discuss the future of this House.
We seem to have been living with propositions for reform of your Lordships’ House for years, indeed decades. It is neither the most important question facing the country nor the least important; this is one House in a sovereign Parliament. It is a House that has often been proved right in recent years, but its voice needs to be better heard. Your Lordships’ House does an outstanding job, but it has not been able to avoid this country having a near disastrous experience from a surfeit of spending, legislation and regulation. We have done what we can well, but it has not always been enough to achieve all that we wanted, whether that was in the fields of ancient liberties, choice or plain old common sense. If the first job of your Lordships is to call the Executive to account and to challenge the other place to do its job, we have not lately excelled. It is at least legitimate to ask if one of the constraints on our ability to act lies in how we are constituted.
There have been years of debate since the 1999 Act changed this House for ever by ending the right to sit by virtue of hereditary peerage alone. We have seen umpteen schemes and watched them drift down umpteen backwaters, often with many here cheering loudly as they ran aground in the mud. We have seen umpteen propositions for change within the House, with my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood perhaps the most persistent in his bid to create the wholly appointed House that both Houses rejected in 1999. Many have hoped that it would all go away, but it has not. Indeed, all three major national parties promised a largely elected House in their manifestos only a few weeks ago, while the SNP pledged our abolition outright. A reformed House could play a great part in pulling together the voices of the devolved nations. No wonder those who would divide our kingdom see no place for any upper House, representative or not. That is a view that I totally reject. I have no doubt that this country needs a second Chamber with authority in all parts of the kingdom—one with confidence, powers and the willingness to use them in the public interest, even as the House that we now have acted to protect jury trial, defend habeas corpus and rejected the tyranny of electronic surveillance by compulsory ID cards. Can we create a Chamber better able to do all those things? That is the question before us. I believe that we can. Others believe that nothing under the sun could be better than this. As Leader of the House, I want to ensure that the voice of this House is heard from the outset in this debate, as sadly it was not always—indeed, some argue ever—heard in the past decade.
The coalition Government’s declared intention is to bring forward a draft Bill on reform of the House, which will provide a proper focus for debate and decision. It is something that I and many other noble Lords called for many times over recent years. My noble friend Lord McNally and I will set out the government agenda, but we are also, just as importantly, here to listen to your Lordships’ views. I can promise you this will not be the last opportunity. I know that many of your Lordships will have greeted this element of the coalition’s programme for government with a degree of apprehension, although the work of the cross-party group led by the former Lord Chancellor, Mr Straw, set it at the heart of the programme of the party opposite, too.
I hope that we will be able to reassure the House today that your Lordships, indeed both Houses, will have a full opportunity to take part before ever any legislation is introduced. In our programme for government, we said we would establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper Chamber on the basis of proportional representation. We have done that. My right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister is chairing that committee, which is composed of members from all three major political parties as well as from both Houses. My noble friend Lord McNally, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and I all serve on it. The committee is charged with producing a draft Bill by the end of the year.
Lord Barnett
Whatever is in manifestos, the plain fact is that at the moment the Front Benches of this House are on this committee and, as the noble Lord and all sides of this House know very well, in advance of a debate the Back Benches do not agree with the Front Benches. Why is there not a single Back-Bencher on that committee?
Lord Strathclyde
Because, my Lords, this committee is charged to create a Bill in draft. There will be a full role for Back-Benchers in both Houses, on all sides and with different views, when we set up a Joint Committee of both Houses which will then give it the scrutiny it deserves before it is introduced to each House.
Lord Grocott
Could the Leader of the House, in the spirit of the coalition document, referring as it does to the importance of transparency, ensure that the agenda and minutes of this committee which is meeting at present are made available to the House and to the public?
Lord Strathclyde
I am very happy for the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to discuss that with the Leader of the Opposition, who sits on the committee, but the Government will not be publishing either the agenda or any minutes because our objective is to come forward with a Bill in draft. That will be the result of the committee and we hope to do that before the end of the year. This will be the first time that legislation setting out how an elected second Chamber might be constituted will ever have been published by any Government.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
Before we leave the matter of the composition of the committee, perhaps the noble Lord could explain why representatives of three of the main groups in this House are on that committee while the fourth group—the Cross-Benchers—is not represented? In order to save him from doing something which will irritate those around me quite a lot, will he please not say that it is because we have already made up our minds as to the shape of a future House?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I have no desire to irritate the noble Lord or, indeed, his noble friends, but the point is that the three main political parties each had a manifesto at the last general election which was broadly in agreement. The Deputy Prime Minister took the view that it was important to bring those political parties together in drafting the Bill. When we get to the creation of the Joint Committee of both Houses, the noble Lord and others of his views—not just on the Cross Benches, but elsewhere—will quite rightly be fully consulted and represented on that committee.
Lord Hughes of Woodside
Does the noble Lord agree that the path that he has now undertaken means that the House will be presented with the choice of the three political parties? It is a bit like Henry Ford: “You can have any choice you like, so long as it’s mine”.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, in a way that is how it works in Parliament. Governments propose legislation and then Parliament disposes of it in whichever way it wants—and that will happen. I am sure that what the Government publish and what comes out of this committee at the end of the year is not where we will be at the end of the day. This is the start of the process. It will be up to the two Houses to set up the Joint Committee; it is not the job of government. My noble friend Lord McNally, the Deputy Leader, and I will make the case for the inclusion of all strands in this matter.
The Earl of Onslow
I am normally an enormous fan of my noble friend on the Front Bench, but surely his argument about not including Back-Benchers is slightly destroyed when it becomes a cartel of the three Front Benches. If it was solely my noble friends on the Liberal Front Bench and my noble friends on the Tory Front Bench, his argument would be absolutely solid. However, as it has included the Labour Front Bench, which as far as I have gathered is not part of the coalition—even though 1931 might come again—surely to exclude Back-Benchers is not a sensible idea.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the point I was trying to make is that Back-Benchers will play their full part in the process when we get to the creation of the Joint Committee of both Houses. The committee that the Deputy Prime Minister chairs, with all his might and authority, is designed to create the Bill that your Lordships and others can then comment on. I suggest that we are not going to agree on this issue this afternoon, but I hope that we can move on.
Lord Campbell of Alloway
Is my noble friend the Leader of the House aware that there is another point of view? On 5 July, the question of due process concerning the setting up of this committee and its functions is due for consideration. There are two views. One is that of my noble friend the Leader of the House and the other is certainly my own.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I am well aware that there is more than one view on this issue. Today we will hear from 68 speakers and we may well end up with more views than there are speakers. The point of the Deputy Prime Minister’s committee is to produce a Bill. Then a Joint Committee will examine it and that will have representatives from the Cross Benches and the Bishops’ Bench. I look forward to them playing their full part in it. We would not wish to exclude anybody from this process. That is likely to mean that it will be a substantial committee. It will have a substantial job to do, but that will be next year’s job, not this year’s.
Lord Richard
The noble Lord has been very good in giving way. Perhaps he could help me a little. I understand that this committee will produce a Bill. Will it produce a Bill in a legal form, properly drafted by parliamentary draftsmen? Will parliamentary draftsmen be attached to a committee of the three Front Benches to draft a Bill? Is that really the position, so that when the committee reports we get a Bill in draft—which can be introduced in the House—and carry on from there?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, yes. I would hope that the noble Lord would not be so incredulous. One thing that has been missing from this great debate is precisely that—a Bill in properly drafted form. It will not be introduced to Parliament as part of a legislative process, but as part of a pre-legislative process for proper discussion. I am not going to give way too often.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, I hope I can save the noble Lord the Leader of the House a little time. Will the draft Bill that is being produced by the committee deal with transition? I think it might shorten the number of speeches today if the noble Lord could be more forthcoming on that.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, yes, it will deal with transition, which is one of the most important issues. I do not suggest for one moment that the noble Baroness will agree with whatever we propose, although she might. I cannot tell her what it will be because we do not know either at this stage. It is still very early days. However, the Bill will cover that subject, as it must. Once the Joint Committee has completed its work, at the end of the process, it will be for the Government to decide whether to bring forward legislation. I hope that by the time we reach that point, this House will have had the opportunity for input—first into the work of the committee, and then that of the Joint Committee—before we get to a final decision.
Lord Rooker
I seek clarification on this point. Like other Members, I have read all three manifestos, which all talked about the House being mainly or wholly elected. Not one of them raised the issue of what this place is for. At what point will the House get the chance to debate what a Second Chamber is for, what it is to do and what its powers are? Surely, all we are talking about at the moment is its composition, which seems to be the wrong way round.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, was a senior Minister in the former Government. They must have debated these issues many times in the build-up to the 2008 White Paper. Of course we have to decide what this House is for and what it will do. The view at the moment is that the House should continue to have the powers that it holds and do the work that it does. We are looking at its composition and how people get here, rather than what they do once they get here. I have hardly started in my speech. I will give way to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, and then I will get on.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I am most grateful but, in the light of all the peculiar circumstances, it is important to know that, when the Bill is brought to the House, it will not be whipped so that there can be a genuinely free debate.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I have consistently taken the view over a long period—I am not saying that I will retain that consistency—that whipping a Bill on reform of the House of Lords is a particularly fatuous exercise as I suspect that Peers will make up their own minds, almost whatever the Whips tell them. However, we are a long way from having legislation on which we need to take a view on whether it will need to be whipped.
The coalition agreement, which noble Lords will have seen, envisaged a wholly or mainly elected House with elections on the basis of proportional representation. As the noble Baroness pointed out a moment ago, it also anticipated the transitional arrangement that a “grandfathering” system would be put in place for current Members of the House. I know that noble Lords will be anxious to know what both these things mean. They mean that we as a Government have yet to take a view—
Lord Strathclyde
We have yet to take a view on whether a reformed House should be fully or partly elected. Those words mean that we recognise the case for an orderly process of transition if the composition of the House is to change, just as in 1999 both Houses saw the wisdom of retaining a transitional element from the old House.
As I said at the outset, this House can be proud of so much that it does, but it lacks democratic authority. As a result, I believe that it does not carry the weight that the quality of its work merits. While we remain an overwhelmingly directly appointed House—something like 85 per cent appointed as against 50 per cent before 1999—our membership continues to grow. It is now fast approaching 800, with daily average attendance rising over 400. More new Members are due to be introduced over the coming weeks and months. I believe that it is time to examine what avenues could be created to make it possible for Members to leave the House permanently. To this end, I can announce that I will be setting up a Leaders’ Group, chaired by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, to investigate the options available. The group will include representation from all sides of the House and will be tasked with identifying the options that could be considered to allow Members to leave or to retire from the House.
Over the past 18 months, public confidence in politics, but more especially in Parliament, has been dramatically eroded. While many may reject the case for change, both Houses must surely consider it. Some in this House did not want change in Parliament in 1832, 1911, or, indeed, that much in 1999. Incredible though it may seem, the party opposite even voted against the creation of the life peerage in 1958. However, we came to accept all these great changes, just as in 1958 the then hereditary House accepted the case for change.
We cannot know precisely how this debate will unfold, but we know that it cannot be avoided. A great debate is beginning, or perhaps for some of us it is restarting. This House of all places cannot sit this one out. There is not a single Peer, whatever his or her views, who does not love this place, understand the need for a stronger Parliament and want the best for our House. This House, and its Members, must be at the heart of the debate ahead. I want to ensure this House a place in that process. That is the reason today’s debate was arranged. I look forward to all the contributions that will follow today and in the months ahead. I beg to move.
Lord Wright of Richmond
I intervene very briefly to remind the House that I am the only surviving Cross-Bench member of the conventions committee. We came under strong pressure from the then Government to make it clear that the conventions as they existed at that time would continue. In response, we made it very clear that under an elected House—
Lord Wright of Richmond
But not another Cross-Bench Member. We made it very clear that an elected House would totally change the conventions.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, I was interested to hear the quotation of Abbé Sieyés. The only one I know is that he was asked at the end what he did during the French Revolution and he said, “I survived”. That is a good lesson for everyone in politics.
I was looking at the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and I thought that he looked fit and happy and 10 years younger, and then I suddenly realised why. For many a day in the previous Parliament, when we sat over there on the Liberal Democrat Benches, we used to initiate debates on reforms of this Chamber, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, used to sit here, tense and flipping through his notes, waiting to reply. It is a lot more difficult on this side than it is on the other and I wish him good health.
I immediately take up the noble Lord’s point on grandfathering rights. If this excellent legislation will have his imprimatur on it, I shall certainly bring it to the attention of the Deputy Prime Minister. On the matter of the voting record, as he knows well, the record for this Government so far is that we have lost every vote in this House.
This is going to be difficult. I know that if I am too firm, clear and decisive then noble Lords will be up on their feet and saying that I am bouncing the House, not consulting it, and they will ask where all this came from. If I say we are listening and will consult, noble Lords will say that it is all wishy-washy. I can assure the House that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, I and indeed the Deputy Prime Minister are in listening mode. We are simply trying, with the best of intentions, to set out a road map for this House and for Parliament so that they can deal with an issue that some would say has bedevilled it for 100 years. Certainly those who have been around for the past 10 years have seen it being dealt with without much progress.
In 1909 the then Prime Minister, Mr Asquith, received the following assessment of prospects of reform of the House of Lords from his Parliamentary Private Secretary, Edwin Montagu. He wrote:
“The history of all former attempts at coming to close quarters with the House of Lords Question shows a record of disorder, dissipation of energy, of words and solemn exhortation, of individual rhetoric … without any definite scheme of action”.
In some ways, try as they did, that could be the description of the previous Government between the reforms of 1999 and the cascade of deathbed repentances which ended up in the CRAG Bill. We are desperately trying, perhaps in time for the 100th anniversary of the first passing of the Reform Act, to make some progress.
I want to make a correction. Noble Lords will know that the 1911 Act was passed on 10 August, and I said in an earlier debate that we all know why they managed to pass it then—their Lordships wanted to go off and slaughter grouse. Not at all, it turns out. The noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, immediately brought me his grandfather’s memoirs. His grandfather was the leader of the last-ditchers, and he explains in graphic terms that the reason why they failed to derail the 1911 Bill was that the bishops ratted. When the last-ditchers needed their votes, they were inexplicably absent. Those noble Lords who are relying on the bishops this time around, remember that precedent.
Quite seriously, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I know how much work he and Jack Straw put into attempts to make progress on this. That is one of the reasons why the Clegg committee is able to get off to a flying start; as the members will know, we are using quite a lot of that work. Some of the officials and experts have been on this topic for 10 years so they are not new to the issue, and the work that has been done, I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, includes some drafting of parts of a Bill that was commissioned by Jack Straw. As I have said before, some of the building blocks are there.
Yesterday, when we were talking about the expenses regime, the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, pointed out that this House has not been slow in bringing reforms forward. She said:
“In the space of less than a year we now have a stringent code of conduct, an active sub-committee on privileges and standards and greater financial transparency”.—[Official Report, 28/6/10; col. 1515.]
That is backed up by an officer of the House who is going to police those reforms. So we have carried reforms forward and we continue to do so.
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham. As I have said before, I sometimes think that we missed an enormous chance by not taking up the Wakeham recommendations; we would have been almost halfway through his transition period by now. That is a lesson sometimes in politics. I have said to the Deputy Prime Minister that he could well with profit read the Wakeham report as part of his reading on this subject.
I pay tribute to the noble Lords, Lord Butler and Lord Filkin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, for their initiative on the other matter of trying to parallel the Wright committee’s report. There are things that we could and should be doing as we approach the issue of major reform.
Let me take head-on the structure of the committee. Lots of people have asked, “Why are the Cross-Benchers not on it?”. I put it quite bluntly to the Cross-Benchers: they can be one of two things. They can be the fourth political party in this House or they can be what they all take pride in—individuals who come as independents to put an independent view to this House. Their strength is their individuality, which makes them separate from the political parties but does not make it easy for them then to be on a committee made up of three political parties which, in their manifestos, have just taken a case to the country.
Having had the experience of the past 10 years—this is something that always happens with these debates in the House—I know that there are colleagues who couch their speeches in notes of surprise as though some of the issues that have been raised have never been put to them before; this is all a matter of shock, goodness gracious, we must start from first principles and it will take at least five years. But if you start in the first few weeks of the Parliament, you are then accused of rushing them. Then, if you leave it, as the previous Government did, to the last few weeks of the Parliament, you are told, “This can’t be done in the last few weeks of a Parliament”. I know Catch-22 when I see it.
We are trying to produce what we have not had in the last century—a Bill which we can focus on. All the issues can be considered. It was said that Cross-Benchers were not being consulted. I assure your Lordships that not only will the Hansard of this debate be put before the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister and the other members of the Clegg committee, but so will a paper analysing the major themes that have come out of it. This is part of a consultation that we want. It is not matter of just going through the motions; it is a matter, at this stage, of having a committee of the willing to try to draw up a Bill to make progress. I have in my notes a line—it is all mine—that says that if the Member for Old Sarum had been on the committee for the 1832 Reform Bill, he might still be in the House of Commons. I was going to leave that out of my speech so as not to be provocative, because my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said, “Don’t provoke them. Be conciliatory”. I really resent the attack of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, on my noble friend, whom he implied was trying to lure the House in directions that it would not otherwise wish to go, which is again far from the truth.
We are trying to set out the Government’s strategy, listen to the views of the House and then try to resolve the differences such as we can. However, if I believe in a directly elected House and my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon believes in a wholly nominated House, I have with all respect to ask him what alchemy will provide a solution. The late Liberal MP David Penhaligon used to say, “If you believe in something, write it on a piece of paper, stick it through a letterbox and persuade people to vote for it”. That is how democracy works—I assure my noble and learned friend that I am not telling him how to suck eggs. I cannot see a way of resolving a dilemma such as this other than by the political parties taking their case to the country and then bringing it back to Parliament. That is the process that we are undertaking at the moment. We have taken our case to the country; we are bringing it back to Parliament for a full debate, for full scrutiny, on the basis of a draft Bill. I cannot for the life of me see any other way forward.
The noble Lord, Lord Norton, asked why the Parliament Acts exist. I have always understood that the Parliament Acts are there to underpin the supremacy of the Commons. It was asked what the new reformed House would do and how it would challenge Parliament. There are many bicameral regimes around the world that manage to work out the relationship between Houses and do not end up with gridlock. I say in response to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that I see this as an advisory and a revisory House. I was on the Cunningham committee. I remember the debates, and I remember why the refuseniks were so determined to write in to the Cunningham committee to say that its proposals should apply only to an unreformed House. They want to do exactly what they are doing now, which is to raise the spectre of some great constitutional battle between the two Houses.
I signed the Cunningham committee in the end, not, as the noble Lord, Lord Wright, implied, on the basis that at the point of reform there would be a great constitutional crisis; I signed it on the basis that it would apply to a new House, but that at the point of reform it would have to be looked at again. Noble Lords can read the Cunningham committee report, and that is what it says. That is absolute common sense. My belief, which was confirmed in many discussions in the Cunningham committee, was that the Cunningham committee conventions would still work and operate in a reformed House. If there was a transitional period, there is no doubt that it would give the opportunity for a proper look at where and what part of the Cunningham conventions would need to be looked at again. I do not see them as the great crisis point implied in the debate.
A number of noble Lords said that we should not be looking at this because there was a great economic crisis. As I said during the Queen’s Speech, the Churchill coalition brought in the Beveridge report and the Butler Act and won a war. I do not believe that Governments are one-trick ponies; they should be able to bring forward other reforms at the same time as dealing with the economy.
I have no doubt that if a pre-legislative scrutiny committee of both Houses was set up to look at a subject as important as this one, whatever I say from this Dispatch Box, those Members will not be bullied or railroaded. They will do a proper, thorough job. Every one of them will know that it will be one of the most important pieces of pre-legislative scrutiny that anyone has ever considered, and I do not believe that it would be a problem. I am sure that I have missed some other questions.
On the attitude towards the Steel reforms, I am a little worried, as the Minister responsible for freedom of information, that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, breached the Act by revealing our e-mails. I have always said that we should let the Steel reforms be part of the mix, and the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has already indicated that one particular reform will be taken forward in a study group. The other elements will certainly be reported to the Clegg committee.
On the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, on working practices, I am assured that the usual channels are looking to make an announcement very, very shortly—and that means very, very, very shortly, within the next few days—about how to go forward with a full debate on that issue.
The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, asked what would happen if a party came from nowhere to amass an overall majority. There is ample precedent for that. Labour was the junior partner in the war coalition but won a landslide at the 1945 election. I like to tell the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that on a regular basis. Again, that shows you how the House deals with such things. That is where the Salisbury convention came from. One of the great things about our Parliament is its ability to adjust to new circumstances, and that is a good example of it. We all want now to go to our beds—
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
Forgive me, my Lords. The noble Lord answered the question from the noble Lord, Lord Norton, about future use of the Parliament Act, but my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and others asked whether that Act would be used in the case of a forthcoming Bill on House of Lords reform. I wonder whether the noble Lord could clarify that.
Lord McNally
That is why I was going to sit down before the noble Baroness asked her question. She has been in Government. If I said at this Dispatch Box now, “We are going to use the Parliament Act”, those on half the Benches would stand up, and quite rightly so. We are going to produce a Bill that we are going to ask you to look at in the most constructive form possible. Let me end—
Lord Desai
The noble Lord mentioned the Salisbury convention. That convention had to do with a party’s manifesto before the election. If there is a coalition, there is not one manifesto; there are two. How does the Salisbury convention apply if there is a coalition Government?
Lord McNally
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, is already preparing a book on the whole subject. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Desai, when he was a troublemaker at the LSE. He has not changed.
Lord Rooker
With respect, he deserves an answer. The political parties all took legal advice before they drafted their three manifestos as to whether their words would cover them in the event of the Parliament Act being used. That was the case and it is why they are so similarly drafted. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, deserves an answer to his question tonight.
Lord McNally
I am not aware of that. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde said that the Labour Party must have had more money than sense if it was taking legal advice. Look; the fact is that the commitments made in our manifestos have been merged into the coalition agreement. If the Labour Party is saying that it is planning some kind of guerrilla warfare on that basis, while as far as I am concerned the Salisbury convention and the Cunningham conventions will still be operated in this House, we will have to wait and see.
The Earl of Onslow
What is slightly odd in this thing is that those on the two Front Benches and I, and the noble Lord, Lord Desai, agree. There is a sea of people from all over the place who do not agree, so those who are causing trouble will be led by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, who is a Labour Peer, and by my noble friend Lord Cope, and my noble and learned friend Lord Howe, who are Conservative Peers. I am sure that I can think of one here as well. It is not a party political issue of where the Parliament Act arises. It seems to me totally wrong for this House to throw out a Bill like that, which had been agreed by the Commons. That is why I could never, ever agree to that myself.
Lord McNally
It slightly chills the soul to think that my sole supporters are the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, and the noble Lord, Lord Desai, but I will take any help I can on this. However, the noble Earl makes a valid point. This is something else that this House has to think about, and it is why we want to take it gently through this. If the other place, on the basis of a substantial majority, brings a Bill to this House, this House will have to think very hard about what it does next. I think that has been understood over a long period.
I will give your Lordships two quotes to finish, and shall then sit down. The historian Janet Morgan, writing over a quarter of a century ago, wrote:
“On summer evenings and winter afternoons, when they have nothing else to do, people discuss how to reform the House of Lords. Schemes are taken out of cupboards and drawers and dusted off. Speeches are composed, pamphlets written, letters sent to the newspapers. From time to time the whole country becomes excited. Occasionally legislation is introduced; it generally fails”.
That is a very pessimistic view, so I finish with this. As something of an historian manqué, I subscribe to History Today. The latest edition has an article on the 1832 Act. We might find its opening useful as we go to the next stage of Lords reform. It says:
“There is a curious but almost entirely consistent feature of the history of constitutional change in Britain, a feature which could be said to typify the twin national characteristics of boldness and caution. It is that significant political alterations … are generally resisted for decades, but once adopted are almost immediately absorbed into the general pattern of stable political continuity”.
I believe that would happen if we faced up to the fact and reformed this House.