House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

No one doubts the commitment and public service of many Members of the House of Lords, but dedicated individuals cannot compensate for flawed institutions. The Bill is about fixing a flawed institution, so let me begin by setting out why our upper Chamber is in need of these reforms—the three simple reasons why I hope Members will give it their full support. The first is that we—all of us here—believe in democracy. We believe that the people who make the laws should be chosen by the people who are subject to those laws. That principle was established in Britain after centuries of struggle and it is a principle that we still send our servicemen and women halfway across the world to defend, yet right now we are only one of only two countries in the world —the other being Lesotho—with an upper parliamentary chamber that is totally unelected and instead selects its members by birthright and patronage.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I should like to make a little progress.

The House of Lords is an institution that offers its Members a job for life; an institution that serves the whole of the United Kingdom, yet draws around half its members from London and the south-east; an institution in which there are eight times as many people over 90 as there are people under 40; an institution that has no democratic mandate—none whatsoever—but that exercises real power. The House of Lords initiates Bills, it shapes legislation and, as Governments of all persuasions know, it can block Government proposals, too. These reforms seek to create a democratic House of Lords, matching power with legitimacy.

[Mr Lilley]

In his preamble to the draft Bill, the Deputy Prime Minister wrote:

“The House of Lords performs its work well”.

Is he saying that it works in practice, but not in theory?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think that it is both flawed in theory, because of its lack of democratic legitimacy, and flawed in practice, because the status quo is unsustainable, as I shall now explain.