House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Lord Blunkett and David Nuttall

Friday 18th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunkett]

Yes, I do believe that, and I put forward a paper to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee on how the House of Lords could have a different function, building on what it already achieves and is good at, if we took away, very carefully, the element of it being a legislature. That does not mean that it could not debate and put forward legislative propositions; I am talking about the constitutional role that it plays, which is what upsets people so much—people not being elected to it— even if, under the proposal of the Deputy Prime Minister, those people would not be responsible or accountable to the people who elected them, because they would never have to stand for election again; nor would they have held offices, or have had to report back to their multiple constituencies in any meaningful sense. It would be good to start with the question of what we want the House of Lords to do, and then go on to how it should be made up, and how we could make it function better.

Unfortunately, as the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, who opened this Second Reading debate, is always ready to acknowledge, the pressure on him was to minimise any suggestion of any proposition whatever. He cannot be blamed for bringing forward a Bill that moves—I was going to use the term “goalposts”, but I think that has been overdone in the past fortnight.

[Mr Nuttall]

We are talking about badgers again.

[Mr Blunkett]

I was thinking of pitches. Let me put it this way: it is a Bill that moves the sods very little at all. We should commend the Bill, ask ourselves whether we are serious in wanting reform, and put it to our respective parties that it would be quite useful to put in the manifestos commitments to finding solutions, rather than putting up propositions that we all know will meet their demise once the practicalities, sensitivities and realities are examined and voted on in this place. Then we might get commendation from the electorate for acting like grown-ups and adults, and for being prepared to move our constitution on a little bit, while the rest of world moves the constitution around us.

I give my support to the hon. Member for North Warwickshire. Whatever heads of pins people may stand on, and while they might make sensible points in amendments to the Bill, it would be a great shame if so modest a measure was scuppered by people who wanted the perfect as an alternative to it.