The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of House of Lords reform.
On 17 May, the Government published a draft Bill and White Paper proposing a reformed House of Lords. Since then, there has been considerable debate on the content of the proposals—I, of course, welcome that debate. These are significant constitutional changes and so demand proper and full scrutiny. As the debate unfolds, however, it important for us to step back for a moment and remind ourselves why we are doing this. First, very few people seriously believe that the status quo—an unelected second Chamber—makes sense in a modern democracy. [Interruption.] Most people agree with that, anyway.
During last week’s debate in the other place, someone said that elections are not
“the only form of democracy”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 June 2011; Vol. 728, c. 1165.]
The suggestion that democracy can somehow exist without elections reminded me that there is a fundamental principle at stake here—a basic choice. Do we believe that people should choose their representatives in Parliament, or do we not? Should citizens choose the people who make the laws of the land, or should they not? Every hon. Member must now decide which side of the argument they support.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I apologise for intervening so early in the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech, but it is important to pick up his statement that everyone presumes that the status quo is not an option. What evidence does he have? The status quo is precisely the option for which I will vote.
The Deputy Prime Minister
If I remember correctly, my hon. Friend voted for 100% election to the House of Lords when this subject was last up for discussion, which suggests that he might be more willing to entertain change than his question implies. Even the advocates of minimal change—even those in the other place, as was witnessed in last week’s debate—accept that some change is now unavoidable.
We have all promised change—every major party committed to Lords reform in their manifestos last year—so there is a legitimate expectation that we will now deliver it. Liberals and Liberal Democrats have long pursued Lords reform as part of a wider renewal of our political arrangements; the Labour party has advocated it as a blow to patronage and privilege; and the Conservative party has, especially in recent years, pushed for putting more direct power in the hands of voters.
John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
In that regard, was my right hon. Friend struck by the contributions in the other place of Lord Whitty and Baroness Quin, which made clear both the need for reform and how it should be taken through, and which represented fine examples of what their party so often stood for in the past? Will my right hon. Friend encourage Labour Members to return to their roots by taking that as their example now?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The contributions of Lord Whitty and Baroness Quin were, indeed, excellent, and I look forward to hearing support for the ideas that they set out last week from Labour Front Benchers today.
Turning to the second key reason for change, if we do not modernise the other place, a question mark will continue to hang over our second Chamber. We have passed the point of no reform, and to come this far and give up is to condemn our upper House to enduring doubt about its legitimacy. Yes, Lords reform has been debated for a century and, yes, our second Chamber has evolved over that time, but the other place cannot afford another 100 years in limbo. Reform is overdue, and it is time to bring this chapter to an end.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I must confess that I think the House of Lords has done a pretty good job over the past 100 years, and I am glad that the Deputy Prime Minister acknowledges that it does, indeed, do a good job. I invite him to consider that House of Commons Library figures show that the average Member of Parliament costs the British taxpayer about £257,000 a year, whereas the average unelected appointed peer costs well under £100,000. Is now the right time to start demanding that we spend more money on more politicians, more expenses, more secretaries and more office space, when the House of Lords is doing a perfectly good job as it is?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I agree with my hon. Friend that the other place is oversized—it is far too large. That is why one of the centrepieces of the proposals worked up by the cross-party Committee, which I chaired, was that we radically cut the number of politicians in the other place right down to 300, so it would be less than half the size of this Chamber.
Mr Jenkin
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Will you look into the House’s sound system? I distinctly heard the right hon. Gentleman the Deputy Prime Minister refer to the size of the House of Lords, when my intervention made no mention of that whatever, so he must have misheard me.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will respond to that point of order, however. The issue of cost is, of course, directly related to the number of Members serving in the House of Lords; the larger it is, the more expensive it will be. Under our reform proposals, the size of the House of Lords will be cut to 300, less than half the size of this Chamber.
The Prime Minister and I are committed to reform, but the reform will go with the grain of the evolution that we have already witnessed in the Lords; it will be steady, ordered and careful; and it will be built on the widest possible consensus. That is why our proposals build on the work of countless others from both sides of this House as well as the other place over recent decades. The Wakeham commission, the Straw committee and the Cunningham report have all made hugely important contributions, and I pay tribute to the work of reformers on all sides of the argument. Without them, the case for change would already have been lost.
I also thank the cross-party Committee established to consider this matter last year. We reached agreement on most elements of the proposed package and in the end there were only two issues relating to the content of the reforms on which we did not reach final agreement. On both, we have left our options open in the White Paper.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
Let me return my right hon. Friend to the cost of these reforms. He will be aware, no doubt, of Lord Lipsey’s estimate that 300 or so new Members of the upper House would cost about £430 million in the 2015 to 2020 Parliament, which is enough to employ some 21,000 nurses. Does my right hon. Friend believe that the British people would rather have 21,000 additional nurses or some 300 fully expensed and fully paid identikit politicians?
The Deputy Prime Minister
With the greatest of respect to Lord Lipsey, I think that his figure was a guesstimate rather than an analysis. There are all sorts of unknown quantities involved, such as what the final size of the House of Lords will be, how many Members will be elected, the time scale and the transitional arrangements for those elected and for those who depart. Until those things have been decided, which I hope will happen in the coming months, it is impossible to come up with an accurate figure.
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
Will the Deputy Prime Minister give way?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Let me make a little progress, if I may.
If we are to continue in the spirit of co-operation, it is essential that we are pragmatic. House of Lords reform has constantly been blighted by an inability to compromise, because of either pessimism on the one hand or purism on the other. Both must now give way. When we differ on the detail, we must not lose sight of our overarching aim, which is a more democratic and legitimate upper Chamber.
Members know my preferences for reform: I support a fully, rather than mostly, elected House and believe that Members should be elected by the single transferable vote to give the other place greater independence from party control. I shall continue to argue strongly for both, but I will not make the best the enemy of the good. I shall remain open-minded and realistic, and I hope that Members on all sides of the debate will do the same. On that note, I give way to the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis).
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister is being very courteous in giving way. Does he accept that to elect two Houses by different electoral systems will lead to arguments over relative legitimacy? Will he put this particular voting system to a referendum? Why should we have a referendum on the voting system for this House and not one on the voting system for the other House?
The Deputy Prime Minister
On the first point, we have an array of different electoral systems already in this country, from that used for the European Parliament to that used here in London and those used in the devolved Assemblies. Those systems all co-exist. I do not think that we need perfect consistency of electoral systems, as we do not have it anyway. On the second point, when all three parties have committed to something in their manifestos, such as House of Lords reform, the situation is unlike that with electoral reform to this place, so there is not a similar case for a referendum.
A range of issues will no doubt come up today, and many of them have been brought up already. There are two particular areas of concern, however, that have frequently come up in debates so far, and I want to address them in turn. The first is that the Government’s proposals risk creating a second Chamber that is too powerful and the second is that Members will be elected but not properly accountable.
On the question of the balance of power between the two Chambers, it is simply not the case that the other place will rival the Commons—with 300 Members, it will be half the size. That is the number that we judge to be right, although we are listening to views on that question. Whatever number we settle on, however, the Commons will remain significantly larger, as is the case in the vast majority of bicameral systems around the world. Members of the other place will serve long single terms of 15 years with no prospect of re-election, keeping them a step removed from the electoral cycle of this House. They will be elected according to a different voting system, which will be proportional and will have, we propose, larger multi-Member constituencies, giving them an entirely different mandate from MPs. Their elections will be staggered, so that they will be either elected or elected and appointed in combination in thirds. That will mean that they will never have a more recent mandate than the Commons.
The two Chambers will remain entirely distinct. The Commons will continue to assert its authority through the Parliament Acts, through MPs’ decisive right over the vote of supply and through the Government’s need to retain the confidence of MPs in order to remain in office.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The right hon. Gentleman knows my interest in this matter, which is to protect the power and functioning of this House. I do not know of any bicameral system that works as efficiently as the arrangements that we have at the moment. Every other bicameral system that I know ends up being deeply conservative and with the elected, mandated Government in the lower House being frustrated in implementing their manifesto by a second Chamber that becomes increasingly powerful over the years.
The Deputy Prime Minister
No doubt, those are the reasons why the hon. Gentleman voted for 100% election last time this matter came up for vote.
Mr Sheerman
I have several times voted for the abolition of the House of Lords, and I want that to be on the record.
The Deputy Prime Minister
And for direct, full election, which is obviously something that I welcome—we are at one on that. To address the hon. Gentleman’s point, anyone in doubt should remember that there are 61 elected second Chambers in the world, and the overwhelming lesson is not the one that he has underlined but that they do not threaten the primacy of the first Chamber. As Baroness Quin, who was rightly cited earlier as having delivered an excellent speech last week, eloquently put it:
“Experience from abroad shows that second Chambers generally live within their powers. They cannot increase them unilaterally and they do not cause gridlock on the whole…Surely our Parliament, with its long and proud democratic tradition, is capable of creating a democratic, competent and respected second Chamber for the future.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 June 2011; Vol. 728, c. 1233.]
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
On the 61 countries in which the second Chamber is elected, does my right hon. Friend acknowledge that in those countries there is a written constitution that clearly enshrines the relative powers between the first and second Chambers? I welcome many of these reforms, but I have many misgivings about that particular aspect.
The Deputy Prime Minister
It is the view of the Government that this reform, which is long-overdue and long-debated, can take place without the embellishment and framework of a written constitution.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman says that the Parliament Acts are the reason why this House will retain primacy, but they apply only to legislation that starts in this House, not to that which starts in the House of Lords or to secondary legislation. When the House of Lords overturned a piece of secondary legislation concerning large casinos that this House had supported, the right hon. Gentleman supported the House of Lords and not the House of Commons. That was the first time that that had happened since the Southern Rhodesia issue.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Perhaps I have not followed the hon. Gentleman’s point carefully enough, but that arrangement will not change. The asymmetry between the two Chambers rests not only on the Parliament Acts but on the different mandates, different terms and different electoral cycles of the two Houses, as occurs in the vast majority of the 61 bicameral, elected systems around the world, which seem to rub along perfectly well.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) has said that this House has the capacity to overrule the other place only in respect of legislation that starts here, but it would be a very simple matter to change the law so that this House had the power to overcome the House of Lords whether a Bill started here or in the other place.
The Deputy Prime Minister
That is one of the many options available to both Houses to ensure that the deliberate imbalance between the two Chambers persists. As I have said, all the evidence from bicameral systems around the world indicates that that imbalance is perfectly well understood, whether the Chambers are elected or not.
On accountability, given that we are proposing single, fixed, 15-year terms, some Members have asked, “If someone cannot stand for re-election, how can they be held to account?” That is a reasonable point to make and a concern that I understand. It is important to strike the right balance between increasing the democratic legitimacy of the reformed Chamber and preserving its independence from the Commons, and these arrangements are essential for that.
The longer non-renewable terms ensure that serving in the other place is entirely different from holding office here, separate from the twists and turns of our electoral cycle and more attractive to the kinds of people whom we wish to see in the other place—people who are drawn more to public service than party politics and who are not slavishly focused on their eventual re-election. That system guards against—dare I say it?—an element of political selfishness, ensuring that Members of the other place are there to do a job, not simply to pursue their own electoral ambitions.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman has explained the accountability issue very well, but if somebody in the other place has no accountability, no electorate to whom to be answerable and no prospect of overturning anything that is done by this House, which is what the right hon. Gentleman has just promised, why on earth would anyone of any standing wish to become part of such a House?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I know as a leader of a party, people are queuing up to get in there right now without elections, and I suspect that that will continue, because the House of Lords does an excellent job as a revising and scrutinising Chamber. There is a place in politics for people who do not want to become Members of this Chamber, but who want to play a role as serious scrutineers of legislation and holding the Government of the day to account.
Mr Sheerman
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I represent Huddersfield, and presumably one of these 15-year senators, or whatever they will be called, would, theoretically, float above the two constituencies of Huddersfield and Colne Valley. They would be elected only every 15 years. My successor or I would be fighting an election every four or five years, whereas this person, who presumably might be from another party, would not get involved in my election, campaign in general elections, have any political will or conduct any activity at all. Is that what he is saying? A kind of neutered politician would float—
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has, say, six Members of the European Parliament floating around, as he puts it, in his area already, and I assume that relations are perfectly cordial. I do not want to cast aspersions on the future reformed House of Lords by comparing it too directly to the European Parliament, but the idea that politicians with different mandates, elected on different cycles and different systems, cannot co-exist, is patently not the case. It happens now, and I think it will happen in the future.
By reforming the upper House so that it is more legitimate but still independent, we can ensure that it continues to function as an effective revising Chamber, able to hold Government to account, but with a new democratic mandate. We can preserve everything that is good about the other Chamber—expertise, independence and wisdom—but at the same time we can inject democracy into the mix and reform the Lords so that it is fit for modern times.
Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I am probably in a minority on the Government Benches, but I support a democratic House of Lords. Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise, however, that the complications that he has already put in place in the 20 minutes that he has spoken so far will help opponents of reform to frustrate what he is trying to achieve, whether it be 15-year terms, a partly elected or fully elected Chamber, or a proportional representation system? It is literally seven and a half weeks since the people of this country, in a plebiscite, had a chance to say, overwhelmingly, that they did not want a PR system in our Parliament. How can he possibly consider that this is the right way forward for democratising the House of Lords?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The two issues are wholly separate. More than that, if my hon. Friend has other ideas about how we can arrive at our shared objective of a wholly or mainly elected House of Lords, that is precisely why we are now creating a Joint Committee. That is precisely why we have published not a final Bill but a draft Bill with a White Paper and why that followed a process of cross-party discussion in a Committee that I chaired, and which in turn built on many recommendations of a cross-party nature over the years and the decades. It was not just an invention of this Government. The Wakeham commission, the Straw committee and others came up with many of the recommendations that we are now suggesting. If he thinks they are too complicated, I look forward to his suggestions about how they can be made simpler.
The Deputy Prime Minister
If I may make a little progress, because I know many others wish to speak.
Our proposals are a comprehensive blueprint for change—there are 68 clauses and nine schedules. There is a lot to discuss. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) will respond to points raised in the debate in his closing speech.
The next stage, as I have just mentioned, is pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill and White Paper on a cross-party basis by a Joint Committee of both Houses. I am sure that the Committee will take note of today’s debate in its deliberations, and we look forward to hearing its conclusions in due course. The Government’s plan is then to introduce a Bill next year in order to hold the first elections to the reformed House in 2015. There is clearly a lot of detail to be hammered out between now and then, and I hope that both sides of this House and of the other place will work together constructively as we move forward.
The truth is that no one seriously supports the status quo. [Interruption.] The vast majority of people do not support the status quo. I am delighted, by the way, by the enthusiasm for change from Opposition Members, which is excellent progress compared with the previous debate. Everyone has committed to change and we must now be pragmatic on the detail, never losing sight of the basic principle at stake: in a modern democracy, people must choose their representatives. Let us complete the long journey of Lords reform once and for all.
Sadiq Khan
I would make sure that my leader, if he were the Deputy Prime Minister, negotiated properly for a fully elected second Chamber so that the problems that have been highlighted did not occur. What has happened—[Interruption.] I hear the chuntering both from Government Front Benchers and from Liberal Democrat Members, whose concerns and aspirations I will come to in a moment. We remember the sanctimony of Liberal Democrat Members when we were in government. I will talk about the progress that has been made over the past 13 years, but I accept that there was not enough.
We have also heard that 100 years is too long to wait for those who sit in the Lords to be elected, and those of us who want a fully elected second Chamber understand the wish to proceed sooner rather than later, but there are many issues that the Deputy Prime Minister has not addressed in the draft Bill or in the White Paper, and with the best will in the world it is simply unrealistic to expect the Joint Committee to have resolved them by February, as he wants it to.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
If the right hon. Gentleman is in favour only of 100% election as a matter of great principle, why when the House last determined the matter in 2007 did he vote for all the elected options that were on offer?
Sadiq Khan
The hon. Gentleman might not recall, but in 2003 this Chamber rejected all seven options, so it was important to ensure that some proposals went through. They went through, and both the party that he is now in coalition with and our party had in their manifestos a promise of a 100% elected second Chamber. We are not in government; the Liberal Democrats are.
The genuine obstacles and difficulties that remain require solutions, but they are not limited to the two areas to which the Deputy Prime Minister referred. First, we must identify exactly what we want a reformed House of Lords to do. My view, and I agree with some of the interventions from Government Members, is that it should continue as a revising Chamber that seeks to finesse legislation and, yes, on occasions, to act as a check on this House. We might not like it, and when in government we might all prefer to push our legislation through without any opposition from the second Chamber, but its role is an important check on this House and on the Executive, and that is right and proper and part of a healthy democracy. Too few checks are bad for all of us, and it is important that we preserve the balance.
Sir Stuart Bell
I certainly voted for an 80% elected Upper Chamber, but never on the basis of proportional representation—never! A number of votes were taken on that occasion, but Members who were present at the time know that they were no more than wrecking votes or wrecking amendments. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting voted for every motion put to the House that night. [Interruption.] He said so earlier.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
I am very grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s very positive winding-up speech. He clearly listens to the debate in this House, which is unlike that in the House of Lords. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in the House of Lords debate last week, there were 101 Back-Bench speakers, of whom 19 were in favour of a wholly or mainly elected House, at least in principle. I thought that was actually quite encouraging, given the turkeys and Christmas principle. It is worth noting that 68 of those speakers were former Members of this House, which gives the lie to the idea that all those who speak in the other place are disinterested experts; they are largely people who have been in politics and remain in politics. It seems to me that such people would have no problem standing for election.
Our debate was more balanced. Out of 34 Back-Bench speakers, I counted 15 who were broadly in favour of the proposals, 16 who were not in favour and three who were broadly in favour of reform, but had significant concerns about our proposals. It was a fairly balanced debate, which I think is why the Opposition Front Benchers became more enthusiastic about our proposals as the debate proceeded. The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) started very positively by saying that he was committed to a 100% elected Chamber. However, I detected that there was a danger of his letting the best be the enemy of the good.
The right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) gave a sensible counsel of action. He made it clear that he was in favour of a 100% elected Chamber, as is my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. However, neither of them wants to let attempting perfection prevent any reform whatever, and both think that ending up with 80% of Members of the House of Lords being elected would be an improvement on the position that we have today. I hope that other Members will pay attention to that.
It is worth reminding everyone at the beginning of my remarks that we are considering a White Paper and a draft Bill. We are carrying out pre-legislative scrutiny, which we were urged to do on previous constitutional Bills. A Joint Committee has been set up, with 13 Members of this House and 13 Members of the other place of varying degrees of enthusiasm for reform. If we look at the Committee in the round, we see that it is broadly representative. I hope that it will consider the issues raised in the House of Lords last week and the House of Commons today. I know that a significant number of its Commons members were present today and listened to the debate either in full or in part.
Mark Durkan
Is the Joint Committee not really going to be just a theatre for screensaver politics, in which images are going to be projected, an impression of activity and movement generated and shapes thrown, but nothing real will actually be achieved?
Mr Harper
I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman is wrong. There are serious people on the Committee, and it is chaired by a very senior Member of the other place, the noble Lord Richard. It has the capacity to consider the matter seriously, examine our White Paper and our draft Bill and bring forward a serious report that we in this House and the other place will consider. It has that opportunity, and it is up to the Committee whether it decides to grasp it or to do what the hon. Gentleman says. From looking at the members of the Committee appointed from this House and the other place, I have confidence that it will take the matter seriously. The Government will listen to it if it engages seriously in the process, and I hope that it will.
A number of Members wondered why are introducing these proposals. The simplest answer is that those who make the laws should be elected. One Member of the other place, who will remain nameless, said last week that she did not believe there was a democratic deficit, or that elections were the only form of democracy. In response, the noble Lord Sharkey said:
“She argued that the scale of the House’s outreach and its collective wisdom constitute a kind of democratic system.”
He continued, in a way that I thought was appropriate to the House of Lords, that that allowed
“a much more flexible definition of democracy than is usual.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 June 2011; Vol. 728, c. 1233.]
I agree with him. Democracy is based on direct election to key institutions, and the House of Lords is a key institution that makes laws. It is a legislating body. Having been responsible for steering legislation through Parliament, I am not sure about the idea that the other place simply gives the Government advice, and it is entirely up to us, in a relaxed manner, whether we take it or leave it. I am afraid that was not my experience of trying to get legislation through the other place. It is part of this Parliament, so its Members should be elected.
A number of Members suggested today that they had concerns about primacy, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), who was the first Back Bencher to speak, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley). We have not said in our proposals that there will be no changes if Members of the other place are elected. We have said that there will be an evolution of the relationship between the two Houses, but that ultimately the primacy of this House is guaranteed by the Parliament Acts. We control the supply of money, and ultimately we can pass legislation without the agreement of the other place. The relationship will change, as it has over the past century. It has changed since last year, with the advent of a coalition Government and the fact that the Salisbury-Addison convention does not operate in the same way, if at all. That change will continue, but ultimately this House is supreme, and that is guaranteed by law.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), supported by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), made the point that this is not a zero-sum game. Improving the way in which the other place works could mean that our game is raised, and that collectively these Houses will do a better job of holding the Government to account. Many Members have referred to the role of the other place, which is to scrutinise and revise legislation, but also to hold the Government to account. Both Houses have a responsibility to do that, and both could do it better.
I say to those concerned about primacy that we considered carefully how to constitute the other place and examined ways of preventing it from being able to argue that it was more legitimate than this House. We proposed a different system of election, and elections by thirds, so that the House of Lords never has a more recent mandate than the House of Commons. We have said that Members should be legitimate by being elected, but we recognise that they will not be as accountable as us because they cannot be re-elected. They cannot therefore argue that they are more legitimate and usurp our powers.
Let us consider the point about talents and skills. Broadly 25% of the current House of Lords are Cross Benchers; the rest are already party political nominees appointed by the party leaders and the Executive. The idea that the other place is somehow free of politics or party politics is simply wrong. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald) explained that elections will be an improvement on patronage.
The hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) said that the House of Lords was larger than all Assemblies except China’s National People’s Congress, which has more than 3,000 Members. That was a particularly topical reference given Premier Wen’s visit today. I will not pass on that news to the Prime Minister—he might think that 3,000 Members is a target for which to aim rather than something to be discouraged.
The serious point is that the other place has talented Members on the Cross Benches and the party political Benches, but I strongly agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda: so does this place. Someone mentioned a national health service debate in the other place, in which Lord Howe of Aberavon referred to the number of experts there. We have them in this House, too. We have a practising dentist, a former GP, a former hospital doctor, former nurses, former members of the armed forces, former business people, former opticians—[Interruption.] I skipped over lawyers deliberately, but we have other talented people who can contribute to the House. We should not do ourselves down and pretend that Members of this House do not have a lot to offer.
I have been present for the entire debate and I have read Hansard for the two days of debate in the other place last week. Frankly, I must say that more fresh and considered ideas about improving the draft Bill came out of today’s debate from elected Members of this House than emerged from the debate last week.
One or two hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), asked why we favoured proportional representation. The answer is simple. First, the Government should not have a majority in the other place. It should not be a carbon copy of this House, so the system should be different. We selected single transferable vote in the draft Bill. We recognise that there is a case for an open list. The STV system would reduce parties’ control and allow Members to be more independent. People said that they liked that aspect of the existing House of Lords.
I agreed with the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) when he said that having first past the post in this House, which he and I supported in the recent referendum, and proportional representation in the House of Lords, forms a solid constitutional settlement. The two Chambers have a different role and should therefore have different electoral systems that play to those different roles.
For the future, we have a draft Bill, and both Houses have appointed a Joint Committee, which can start its work. Both Houses have given the Committee an “out” date—we want it to report by 29 February next year. If the Committee wants more time, it can come back to both Houses, as is usual. The Government will listen to what the Committee states in its report. We have listened carefully to the debate last week and today, and we will continue to listen to hon. Members’ views. We will listen and adapt our proposals, and in the next Session we will introduce a Bill to reform the other place, with the first elections in 2015. I hope that we will get the support of as many Members as possible.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the matter of House of Lords reform.