House of Lords

Debate between Lord Cotter and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

It is difficult—

[Lord Cotter (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I have given way to one noble Lord. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, that I respect the qualities that he brings to this House. I heard his maiden speech. I thought that it was terrific and I look forward to hearing much more from him. I now give way to the noble Lord.

[Lord Cotter]

I am not down to speak but I want to say that I disagree with my colleague about turkeys. I have great respect for the experience of Members of this Chamber. I am sorry that I have not put my name down to speak so that I might say more but perhaps I will be able to do so on another occasion. I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I certainly think that we have great strength in this Chamber and I repeat that I disagree with my colleague on his point about turkeys.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

If I have achieved nothing else with my speech, I have had two Liberal Democrat interventions and that is a little step forward. What I said about Mr Clegg applies not just to House of Lords reform. We are now seeing the problems of fixed-term Parliaments. Thankfully, his misguided attempt to reform this place—and it was misguided—was thrown out. I think that a lot of the Liberal Democrats, including the one who has just intervened on my speech—I spoke to him about it—thought that it was misguided. Mr Clegg’s proposal on voting reform for the House of Commons was thrown out. That is one reason why we should view talking about the size of this House as a small step towards getting holistic, sensible and reasonable reform not just of the House of Lords or of Westminster but of our whole constitutional set-up.