House of Lords: Reform

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I never said that this Chamber should have a right of veto; I said it had a right to say no. There is a difference. Usually in this House somebody is allowed to develop an argument, and I will cover the whole question that was raised. I am not trying to be nasty to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. I am very affectionate towards him. There were a number of thoughts that passed through during the speeches. I liked the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, of a House of grandparents appointed through patronage. I think that is one to reflect on. I liked another one by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, who said,

“we must avoid what de Tocqueville called a ‘perpetual utterance of self-applause’”.—[Official Report, 21/6/11; col. 1194.]

We did not entirely manage that over the last two days.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

While my noble friend is very entertaining, does he plan to answer some of the serious questions that have been put in this debate?

[Lord McNally]

You have to be patient. You are behaving as you used to do in the House of Commons. That is why wind-up speeches in the House of Commons take so long. This has been a long debate. I am not going to answer every question in 100 speeches, partly because, as I have already pointed out, this is the start of a process of consideration. I think many of the questions that were raised quite rightly should be addressed by the committee to be chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and I will make further points on that. However, I must remind this House—this unelected House—that all three parties fought the last election advocating direct elections as part of their plan for reform of the House of Lords. Those policies presumably went through a decision-making process in all three parties. I wonder how many of the speeches made from the Labour Benches would go down at a Labour Party conference, or how some of the speeches made from my own Benches would go down at a Liberal Democrat conference.

My party leader and my party took a great deal of criticism when they appeared to go back on a manifesto commitment concerning tuition fees. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, made great hay of that during his contribution. However, this is a threefold commitment that the government proposals reflect. As far as I am aware, no one has put proposals to continue with an unelected House before a party conference or put them into an election manifesto. As the noble Lord, Lord True, suggested—