Press Regulation

Lord Richard Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

That is precisely why I said the committee was set up yesterday and the membership of it will be announced very shortly. It is determined to act as swiftly as it possibly can to ensure that the PressBoF charter is given due consideration. Once that has taken place and depending on what is said, there is obviously the cross-party charter, which is being finalised. That can then be put before the Privy Council.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us who will be on this committee? Can he confirm that they will all be members of the Cabinet? Can he also confirm that the decisions that will be taken by the committee will not be reported to the whole of the Privy Council or indeed reported to Parliament but will be governmental decisions? We will then be faced with a situation in which a committee of the Privy Council, consisting of members of the Cabinet, will have taken a decision that will be backed by the Government and we will be presented with a fait accompli. Does he not think that that is an absolute disgrace?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

As I have just replied to the noble Baroness, the membership and indeed the chairman of that committee will be announced very shortly. It will be for that committee to ensure that its work is rigorously applied given the legal opinion that has been given.

Procedure of the House

Lord Richard Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, is right in what he says. We are only asking for a very modest proposal to be accepted by the House. We are asking for an experimental period of one parliamentary Session. We are not suggesting that, during that period, the present system should be completely abandoned. So the House will have the opportunity, as a self-regulating House, to look at the two systems working side by side.

In answer to my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, of course there should be a form of election for this committee. I would favour the various groups— the Labour group, the Cross-Benchers, the Bishops—nominating members to sit on this committee. That would be a tidy and sensible way of doing it. The committee would then have the opportunity to listen to the proposals put to it.

It is nonsense that we have had grave international situations that have not been debated in this House. We had to wait ages for the Arab spring debate. My noble friend Lord Higgins talked about the euro crisis. If this House, to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, is to be truly relevant to our nation and to its problems, it has to have the opportunity, in a timely and opportune manner, to debate the issues that are concerning people. Occasionally, these may be esoteric: I do not believe that a properly constituted Back-Bench committee would choose only grand international events to debate. Of course it should not, and I believe it would not. However, I do think we should give it a chance. We are a self-regulating House; let us regulate ourselves in this way in accordance with the recommendations of the Goodlad committee.

The greatest thing about this House, in my experience, is that it is collegiate in a way that the other place is not. We sit together on the Long Table and talk. We are not talking about debates that will end in votes. Let us discuss where we should focus our attention. Let us see how this group of colleagues works together. If at the end of the year the committee has not produced the goods, we will abandon the experiment. I do not believe that if you start an experiment you have to continue it in perpetuity; of course you do not. An experiment is an experiment, and I beg the House to give this one a chance.

[Lord Richard]

Perhaps I may detain your Lordships for just two minutes. I am in the very unusual position of agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. It is not something that happens daily in this House, and it certainly did not happen over reform of your Lordships’ House. However, I am bound to say that I came to this debate in a wholly neutral frame of mind. I was not sure whether I liked the idea or whether I did not. One argument seems to be absolutely critical, and for me conclusive. When I was Leader of the Opposition in this House, when I was Leader of the House and indeed since, it struck me—as I suspect it has struck every other Leader—that the one great gap in our procedures is that one cannot raise an urgent issue. It is almost impossible. If one wants to secure a debate in this House on an issue such as the Arab spring or North Korea’s nuclear policy, unless the Government are prepared to give it time, one cannot get it. That is wrong. A parliamentary assembly ought to have a procedure whereby issues that are clearly urgent and topical are capable of being discussed. That gap is partially—only partially—filled by the proposals for this experiment. For me that is the conclusive argument. It fills a gap in the procedures of our House that has existed for many years, and we would then be in a position, like other parliamentary assemblies, to deal with urgent, topical questions, which at the moment we are not.

[Lord Wakeham]

I will say a word or two because I was the Leader of the House when the noble Lord was the Leader of the Opposition. I listened to my noble friend putting forward a housemaid’s baby-type argument; we will have a little experiment and it will be all right. I also listened to the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell. I have no doubt that if he was in charge of all this, it would work very well whatever the rules because he is that sort of person and he would make sure that it did. However, I am still worried about the central proposition that a Back-Bench committee should be able to decide which Back-Bench topics should be debated. The committee will come under enormous pressure and a great deal of lobbying. Inevitably it will end up, in order to keep the peace, taking on the big issues and leaving some of the smaller issues to one side. That is what worries me. Of course I accept the argument that we have to have more topical debates, but I am not sure that a Members’ Back-Bench committee is the way to do it. I would prefer it if we found another way. Therefore, I will vote against the experiment.

House of Lords: Membership

Lord Richard Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

On the point about proportionality, the noble Lord will know that in the coalition document, the parties set out their position—although, as I argued earlier when I referred to the exercise of restraint, progress towards that form of words has not been put into effect in the same way. I agree with him about the importance of this being a consensual debate. I do not seek to make it political.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords—

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

Perhaps I may just finish this point. As things stand, it is clearly the case that the proportion of Labour Peers in this House is greater than was the case in the popular vote at the general election. It has not been the case since then, in 2010 or subsequently, that the Government have sought to redress the balance in a dramatic way. As we heard, many new Labour Peers were created. Therefore, I hope that restraint and the measured way in which the Government have proceeded with new appointments have provided the noble Lord with some reassurance. We are not saying that we rule out the measures that the Bill in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, seeks to enact. We are saying that they should be considered in their proper context as part of a wider reform of the House.

If I may, I will say something briefly about the effectiveness of the measures proposed in the Bill to substantially reduce the number of Members who attend this House each day. This point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Laming. In other words, would my noble friend’s Bill tackle the problem of size that it seeks to address? There has been mention already about the non-statutory, voluntary retirement scheme that has been put in place. Two Peers have taken advantage of it. Therefore, there must be some reason for the reticence of Members in volunteering for retirement. I am not personally persuaded that making the scheme statutory would overcome that reticence. Some supporters of my noble friend’s measures suggest that some kind of payment might help overcome this reticence. I should make clear, as I have done before, that the Government do not support making taxpayers’ money available to Members of the House to encourage them to retire. That would be wrong, and it would be seen to be wrong. I am glad to hear that my view on this is shared by all groups and all parties.

On excluding infrequent attendees, I say that those Peers currently put no pressure on the Benches at Question Time. If pressure is to be reduced, the people who need to retire are those who attend, not those who do not. I agree strongly that criminals should be excluded, but, unless there is a grand conspiracy in the House of which I am currently unaware, the suggested policy would not reduce the number of those currently attending the House.

Business of the House

Lord Richard Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Richard]

Before the noble Lord replies, I wonder if I could ask him one simple question. There are two parties in the coalition: the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats. The Conservative view will be put by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and the Liberal Democrat view will be put by the noble Lord, Lord McNally. Which of them represents the policy of the Government?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, in relation to the point that I raised initially about who should agree to two Statements, now that we have had an excellent explanation by the Leader of the House, I am absolutely certain that this House would agree unanimously and that we look forward to the entertainment later this afternoon.

Arrangement of Business

Lord Richard Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords—

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, with respect, I think that it is this side’s turn. I listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, has just said, but I am bound to say that I totally disagreed with it. I disagreed with it almost absolutely. It is an extraordinary proposition that, if the Government bring in a Bill that allows the Opposition to table an amendment to it, somehow or other, it is unconstitutional for the Opposition then to table that amendment because the Constitution Committee has not been consulted. That is nonsense. If the Government have produced their Bill in the form that they have produced it, and if the amendment is in order, there is absolutely no reason why the Opposition should not table it, why the House should not debate it and why a vote should not take place.

We are making very heavy weather of this. The constitutional position is very clear: there is no Speaker in this House; there is nobody here who can determine whether the amendment is in order; and the clerks are there to give advice. Of course, there is an obligation to take the advice, but there is no obligation to follow it any more than there is an obligation on the Speaker of the House of Commons to follow the advice that he is given by the clerks of the House of Commons. If this House is self-governing, as it is supposed to be, the body that has to determine whether the amendment is in order is this House and nobody else, and certainly not the Constitution Committee.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I know that one or two Peers still wish to speak, but I wonder just how much will be gained by that. Perhaps I can give a brief response to some of the points that have been made. The noble Lord, Lord Laming, as Convener of the Cross Benches, said that we should invoke proper procedures in accordance with the rules of self-governance. I very much agree with that approach.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and others referred to the fact that I said last Wednesday that I expected that we would continue the business today. That was my expectation. The fact is that the discussions that I hoped would take place have not been completed. Therefore, rather than having a debate which may prove to be unnecessary, it is far better for those discussions to continue.

The usual channels were informed at the earliest possible opportunity, on Thursday evening. I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, that 41 speakers have put their names down for today: not much notice, but enough for 41 speakers to put their names down.

To the noble Lord, Lord Peston, who said that we should just accept the amendment, and to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott—

Arrangement of Business

Lord Richard Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, the Leader of the House has given all of us an opportunity to look at this matter in a reasoned way, because of the delay. As someone who has spoken on this legislation, and who intended to speak on it today, I would have been very concerned to see a brand new amendment talking about delaying the boundary changes for several years. More senior Members than I can remember that there was a great dispute around 1980 because there was a delay in the boundary changes and it was felt that that was undemocratic. A knock-on effect of that delay was that when a Member of Parliament in Glasgow died—my good friend the late Tom McMillan—his constituency consisted of an electorate of 20,000, which was just slightly bigger than a regional ward in the Strathclyde region, because of those delays.

The time factor given to us by the Leader of the House has given us all a chance to reflect on this amendment, which I have not had the opportunity to examine. I would be very concerned about any amendment where the advice of the Clerk of the Parliaments has been rejected. I understand that it is advice that the officials give and it does not necessarily need to be taken, but it is sound advice that the Clerk gives. I am not taking sides with the Labour Party or the Conservative Party or indeed the Liberal party, but at least with this delay people like me, who have taken an interest in this legislation, can go to the Clerk and make him an even busier man than he is at the moment and get advice, and ask him why he feels that this matter is out of the scope of the business before us. I do not see any harm in a delay. In fact, often it is better to have a delay so that we can come to a reasoned decision.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, following on from the point that has just been made, as I understand the position in the House of Commons, if this were to happen there, the clerks would advise the Speaker. The Speaker would then consider the advice and would decide whether or not he wanted to accept it. If he decided that he wanted to accept it, he would rule the amendment inadmissible and therefore it would not be taken. If, on the other hand, he decided to overrule the clerks’ advice, which he is perfectly entitled to do, he could decide that the amendment was admissible and it would then be taken.

This House is self-governing; we do not have a Speaker. Who plays the role of the Speaker to decide that issue in this House? The answer is: the House as a whole. Therefore, we are in the same position as the Speaker of the House of Commons. We have been presented with advice from the Clerk, which I have not yet seen, as to a certain course that should be pursued. Just as the Speaker in the House of Commons can accept or reject that advice, so this House can accept or reject this advice.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, in order that we might use the time for reflection to best effect, would it not be highly desirable if the opinion which I understand has been taken by the noble Lord, Lord Hart, or others of the group pressing the amendment, was made available to us? We could then take that into account along with the advice given by the Clerk. Is my noble friend the Leader of the House aware whether that might be enabled?

House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Richard Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

Yes, my Lords, we most certainly can. My noble friend is entirely correct. There has been a very robust analysis of the cost, including an examination of what the cost might have been if no reform had taken place—it would increase substantially. I said in reply to the Leader of the Opposition that the net cost in the first year after transition would be an extra £13.6 million per year, and I stand by that amount. I am very happy to write to my noble friend about how the costs have been robustly examined. I think the House will find that when it looks at the Explanatory Memorandum and the reply to the Joint Committee of both Houses, it will see very clearly how those costs have been reached and how they are substantially different from the ones proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, it was indeed a privilege and a pleasure, although perhaps not a treasure beyond measure, to have been asked to chair the Joint Committee. It was a fascinating experience, and I greatly enjoyed it. We exposed a very large number of issues in the course of it, some of which I am happy to say the Government have taken on board. It is now proposed that the size of the House should be 450 rather than 300. That is thoroughly sensible. However, the main issue that the Joint Committee spent a great deal of time on was raised by the noble and right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester: namely, the primacy of the House of Commons and the relationship between the two Houses.

The Government are quite right to put in the provision clarifying totally the issue of the Parliament Acts. There was a lacuna there, and it was clearly pointed out to the Joint Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith. The Government have put that right, and that is to be welcomed, but I am not sure whether merely dealing with primacy in that way, and only in that way, in the Bill will be sufficient. I ask the Leader of the House whether he will look at this issue of primacy again, and at whether there are ways in which one could perhaps not exactly buttress the primacy of the House of Commons but at least harden it.

There was one Joint Committee recommendation which the Government did not accept, and I would be grateful if the Leader of the House could tell me why. It came originally from the Cunningham report, and was that you could not codify the conventions dealing with the relationship between the two Houses and that you should not put them in statute. That I entirely agreed with. On the other hand, as we suggested, each House could almost simultaneously pass resolutions in identical terms spelling out what that relationship is and what the conventions underlying that relationship were. In other words, you would have a concordat spelt out in two documents between the two Houses that would set out the basic relationship between the two. I am not suggesting that that is immutable and can inevitably last in perpetuity, but I do say that although you cannot guarantee the primacy of the House of Commons in perpetuity—it cannot be done—you can produce a set of proposals that make it far more likely that that primacy will last than if you do not have those proposals in the Bill.

The Government should therefore perhaps look again at whether you cannot harden that part of the relationship between the two Houses, and I ask the noble Lord to look at it.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord is of course entirely correct that a large part of his report and the evidence that he received was on precisely this point about powers and primacy. There is a difference of opinion. My view, and the Government’s view, is that we should not worry too much about this at this stage. There is no need to do so. What could be a potential outcome of this? We could end up with an elected House having less power than the current House. That would be completely absurd. In the Bill, the Government have protected the current rights and privileges of the House of Commons and the House of Lords and have asserted that the Bill is about composition and not about powers at all.

The noble Lord, Lord Richard, has made an entirely sensible observation: that one way around this is to look again at the conventions that exist between the two Houses, and to ask each House to pass some sort of resolution. Well, maybe that is exactly what will happen, but there is no need for it to happen now or before Royal Assent of this Bill, or indeed before 2015, which is the anticipated date of the first elections. However, it is certainly a suggestion that a successor House may well wish to look at sensibly.

House of Lords: Behaviour in the Chamber

Lord Richard Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I have every sympathy with what my noble friend says. The Companion allows Members to interrupt each other with,

“a brief question for clarification”.

But it also makes it clear that Members are entitled to,

“refuse to give way … in time-limited proceedings when time is short. Lengthy or frequent interventions should not be made, even with the consent of the member speaking”.

That is good practice for the House of Lords and we should not emulate aspects of behaviour in another place that do not suit the flavour of this Chamber.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, it is certainly true that the House is now a bit more assertive than it was. I am bound to say I think this is a good thing rather than a bad thing. It is also true that people get intervened on in the course of their speeches. It seems to me that that is part of normal debate. I hope the Leader of the House agrees that this is meant to be a House of debate, not one in which people just get up and read set speeches from a script. In that sense it is much healthier than it used to be. Will the noble Lord consider another issue, which is Question Time? Behaviour at Question Time seems to be getting increasingly disorderly. I hope the noble Lord will agree that one of the main reasons for the disorder is that there is confusion as to whether the other side of the House is entitled to two slots or to one. On this side of the House we are perfectly clear that the coalition is entitled to one slot in the normal ladder and not to two. I ask the Leader of the House to confirm that again.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I very much welcome the assertiveness of the House. However, there have been instances in the past of Peers intervening in an opening speech and then leaving the Chamber, not intending to speak themselves. This is something which I think we should all deprecate and is not part of the normal traditions of this House. I wish to make two comments about Question Time. I think that the behaviour in the House over recent months has been very good and I have had to intervene on very few occasions. I comprehensively disagree with what the noble Lord, Lord Richard, says: we have a very good system of understanding which side should speak next. The statistics demonstrate that at Question Time Labour Peers probably speak more than is their fair share.

News Corporation: Conduct of Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

Lord Richard Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for very much supporting the position of the Prime Minister. Many others have taken on this question of having two parallel inquiries going on at the same time. Like him, I am convinced that we have made the right decision.

As for his specific question, the House will know that my noble friend Lord Fowler is pretty much pre-eminent in this House and elsewhere with his expert knowledge on this subject. I cannot speak for the Leader of the Opposition, but my advice to the noble Baroness is that she ought to bring to his attention the words of my noble friend Lord Fowler, and he might change his mind.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, perhaps the Leader of the House can help me. I do not understand the Statement that he has just made. He says that there is a process and the process should be followed. What is the process? The process is that evidence was given to Lord Justice Leveson; Lord Justice Leveson has said he is not going to decide the issue as far as Mr Hunt is concerned. It is astonishing for the Leader of the House to say that it should go in front of Lord Justice Leveson when Lord Justice Leveson has just said that he does not want it to come in front of him.

What is the object of the exercise? Is it that Mr Hunt should give his evidence to Lord Justice Leveson, and the Prime Minister should look at it and say, “I am satisfied with that so we will not do anything else”, or alternatively say, “Something may be wrong here”, and then perhaps he will refer it to somebody else? The fact of the matter is that Lord Justice Leveson cannot resolve the issue. For the noble Lord to come here and say, “There is a proper process and the process is Leveson”—as indeed the Prime Minister did in the House of Commons—is wrong. There is a process and the process is to use Sir Alex Allan: that is what he is there for; that is what he is set up to try to do. With great respect to the Leader of the House, I do not understand what the Government are playing at.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, is quite deliberately misunderstanding the position and misunderstanding what the Prime Minister has said. An allegation was made at the Leveson inquiry. It is entirely right and proper that the Secretary of State should be able to go and give evidence on the same terms and by the same method as those who have accused him of wrongdoing.

Incidentally, the decision on whether to refer the case to Sir Alex Allan is a decision for the Prime Minister. He can make that decision whenever he wants. He has suggested that he will make that decision—or take action, if he believes there was any wrongdoing—following the evidence being made public in the Leveson inquiry. The Leveson inquiry is a proper inquiry where, as I pointed out, evidence will be taken under oath and there will be cross-examination of the witnesses by barristers; in other words, the evidence that has been given already will be properly tested. That is entirely appropriate and there is no confusion at all between the two issues.

Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Richard Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Lord Richard]

That this House takes note of the report from the Joint Committee on the draft House of Lords Reform Bill. (HL Paper 284)

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, perhaps I might say right at the outset that I am glad this debate is now to extend over two days. The subject deserves proper treatment, and to have to discuss it at two or three o’clock in the morning would be unacceptable. I start by paying tribute to the Clerks of this Joint Committee. From this House we had Mr Rhodri Walters, the Reading Clerk, and from the House of Commons Mr Liam Laurence Smyth, Principal Clerk. They jointly led a group of committee clerks who were, frankly, as powerful and formidable as any group I have ever come across. We are all indebted to them for their skill, determination and commitment to the committee’s deliberations. I am extremely grateful to them and wish to acknowledge this publicly.

It is important, too, at the outset for this House to be clear as to what precisely the Joint Committee was asked to do. Our mandate, in a sentence, was to examine the draft House of Lords Bill. The committee consisted of 13 Members from each House, a total of 26, who I think were carefully chosen to represent as best they could all the views that existed in each House. For the Lords, there were four Conservative Peers—one of whom, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, is an hereditary Peer—four Labour Peers, two Liberal Democrats, one Cross-Bencher and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. From the Commons, there were six Conservative Members, five Labour, one Liberal Democrat and one Ulster Unionist. On any view of the matter, this was a large committee. While that of course made it more difficult to achieve consensus, it nevertheless meant that almost every variety of view found expression.

We had 15 evidence sessions, stretching from October 2011 to the end of February this year. We heard evidence from 20 witnesses, including the Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, Mr Mark Harper, who we saw no fewer than four times. The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Nick Clegg, gave evidence to us in a lengthy session. We also took evidence via videolink from members of the Australian Senate, particularly on the issues of primacy and constituency representation. In addition to all that, we received 227 written submissions of evidence. I would not recommend that people read every word of the evidence, particularly in relation to the scope covered, unless they are extremely enthusiastic, but I urge them at least to glance at it. Taken together, the oral and written evidence represents as full and comprehensive a survey of the current position, and of possible ways of reforming the House, as it is possible to get. I cannot think of any major issue that was not covered and was not therefore firmly before the committee.

May I now say a word about the function of the committee? It was not a royal commission. Had it been, I hope it would have been smaller and its membership less political and more widely drawn, and it would certainly have been more wide-ranging in its terms of reference. We did not start by being presented with a clean sheet of paper. We were not told to produce a plan for a future House of Lords; that was not the purpose of the committee. We had a Bill to consider, which itself had specific provisions. The Bill had 68 clauses and nine schedules, and was accompanied by a detailed White Paper. That had to be our starting point. However, in looking at the Bill we had to examine virtually all the major issues around the central themes of an elected House versus an appointed House, the primacy of the House of Commons, the electoral system, the size of the House and its functions and powers.

That the committee was divided was not, perhaps, surprising. The issue has proved divisive now for well over a century. It would have been remarkable had this not been reflected in the committee itself. There were divisions within parties and within the Houses. There was no clearly visible Labour view versus a Conservative view. There was no clear Lords view versus a Commons view. Opinions inevitably differed. However, we managed to create a genuine atmosphere of what I would call rational discussion. The mood in the committee was, on the whole, equable and tolerant; I pay tribute to its members for that. Thankfully, we avoided a “Lords versus Commons” direct confrontation. Both sides and all members of the committee felt that the issue was a bit too serious for that.

I turn now to some of the specific recommendations that the committee made. First, and perhaps most importantly, it agreed by a majority that the reformed second Chamber should have an electoral mandate. That was agreed after a division in which 13 voted in favour and nine against. Of the 13 in favour, nine were MPs and four were Peers. Of the not-contents, seven were Peers, one was an MP and one was the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. It was a clear vote and a clear majority. In relation to the alternative report, I am somewhat fortified in saying that by the remark on page 31, which says that that a vote of 13 to eight was a considerable and substantive margin.

Secondly, it was agreed that 80 per cent of Members of the reformed House should be elected and 20 per cent should be nominated. In the vote on that, there were 16 contents and six not-contents. Of the contents, nine were MPs, six were Peers and one was the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. Of the six not-contents, two were MPs and four were Peers. Again, it was a clear vote and a clear majority.

One of the most important points that the committee discussed—and discussed, and discussed—was the primacy of the House of Commons. We unanimously agreed that Clause 2 was of little use and should be discarded. It was, in the committee’s view, declaratory only and risked becoming justiciable. Again, there was a vote on primacy of the House of Commons. This was a topic on which we spent a great deal of time. Those arguing in support of the proposition that primacy could not be safeguarded based their case primarily on the belief that once the House of Lords had an electoral mandate it would behave in an unpredictable and confrontational way and would not accept its subordination to the House of Commons. It was argued that that would apply even in the case of finance and taxation.

The other side of the argument pointed out that the Commons would continue to be the House where Governments were made and destroyed; that the Commons had the exclusive right to determine financial and taxation policy; that the House of Lords would be elected on a different electoral system; that 20 per cent of the membership would be appointed not elected; and that the Parliament Acts would continue to apply. The Government’s position was that the current relationship would evolve but that on balance Commons primacy could be maintained. In the end, the committee, by a majority of 12 to 10,

“while acknowledging that the balance of power would shift, consider that the remaining pillars on which Commons primacy rests would suffice to ensure its continuation”.

The vote was 12 in favour and 10 against. Of the 10, one was an MP; of the 12, eight were MPs. I could not help observing at the time, and, indeed, still do, that it is passing strange that if the primacy of the House of Commons is such a burning issue to the House of Commons, only one MP voted against the proposition and eight MPs voted in favour of it. One would expect that Members of the House whose primacy is deemed to be so much under attack would be reluctant to accept that the Bill ensured its continuation, but far from it. The committee agreed with the Government’s proposal for election under the STV system, with the variation to take in the practice currently used in New South Wales, which gives voters the right to express a preference between parties as well as individuals.

The committee agreed that conventions governing the relationship between the Houses cannot be legislated for and that such conventions would evolve further once the House of Lords was reformed. We recommended that any new conventions, or modification to existing conventions, should be promulgated by the adoption of a concordat in the form of parallel identical resolutions prepared by a Joint Committee and adopted by each House. In a sense, this is the daughter of Cunningham, if I can use that phrase. It provides a framework within which the two Houses can operate, work out their relationship and within which primacy can be maintained.

On the size of the House, the committee unanimously agreed that a House of 300 Members was too small and that the size of the House should be 450. We also accepted that Members should serve a 15-year, non-renewable term. The vote on that point was somewhat interesting: the contents were 20; the not-contents were two—the two being the noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Trimble. Every other member of the committee then present voted in favour.

One of the most important issues that we discussed was the transition from the existing House to the one proposed in the Bill. I wish to say one or two words about the transitional arrangements because I am very conscious that they are of great importance to Members of this House. Of the three transitional arrangements proposed in the White Paper, the committee agreed with that preferred by the Government and set out in the draft Bill. However, the committee also recommended an alternative option, which makes a bigger cut in the transitional membership in 2015 with no further cut until the end of transition in 2025, so that there would be one cull, so to speak, at the beginning of the process and the remainder would go at the end of it. That proposal has the following three characteristics: first, a transitional membership in 2015 would be equal to a benchmark figure derived from the total number of Members attending two-thirds or more of sitting days in the 2011-12 Session. Those transitional Members would remain in place until the final tranche of elected Members arrived in 2025—at which point all the transitional Members would leave. There would be an allocation of the transitional seats to parties and Cross-Bench Peers in proportion to the current membership. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, parties and Cross-Bench Peers would determine for themselves the persons to serve as transitional Members. The transitional Members would continue to receive daily allowances rather than salaries. We agreed by 13 to 7 votes that Bishops should continue to have ex-officio seats in the reformed House of Lords, and we agreed by 13 to 5 that that number should remain at 12.

In the course of our deliberations, we dealt with many other issues—all of which are set out in the report. We made recommendations, for example, on the operation of the Appointments Commission, disqualification of Members and the position of Ministers parachuted into the Lords as Ministers. However, I should like to say a word about two of the more prominent issues that troubled the committee.

It became apparent that one of the issues concerning Members of the House of Commons was the relationship between an elected Member of the House of Lords elected, as he would be, by STV on a large constituency basis and an individual Member of Parliament elected by first past the post for a particular constituency. MPs were clearly worried that elected Members of the Lords would involve themselves in personal casework of the kind currently undertaken by MPs on behalf of their constituents. We therefore recommended that IPSA should make no provision for Members of a reformed House to deal with personal casework, as opposed to policy work, or to have offices in their constituencies. We did, however, consider that elected Members would inevitably be concerned and be approached about regional, local and legislative matters.

The possible use of the Parliament Acts was a subject we considered. We had evidence from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, both written and oral, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith. Their evidence raised two issues. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, told the committee that the Parliament Acts could properly be used to reform the Lords, and that the courts would uphold such a decision. As to whether the Parliament Acts would continue to apply to a reformed second Chamber, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said that there was at least doubt that the Acts, or all their provisions, would apply. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said that the better view was that the present Acts would not apply to a reformed second Chamber. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said that it would, however, be open to Parliament to legislate now—now, my Lords—to make clear that the Parliament Acts should operate in the same way in relation to an elected second Chamber, although the present clause was not acceptable for that purpose. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said that it was vital that the reform Bill specified clearly whether or not the Acts would continue to apply to a reformed second Chamber, and he agreed that Clause 2 did not adequately address the question. The Joint Committee therefore recommended that if the Government wished to ensure that the Parliament Acts applied to a reformed House, they should make statutory provision for it. Both Peers considered that the issue could be resolved by suitable wording in the Bill. That seemed to me to be persuasive evidence.

I should like to say something about costs. We accepted the recommendation of the Government that the salary of an elected Member should be somewhat below that of an MP but above that of a Member of a devolved Assembly. We also accepted that the sort of constituency allowances that were paid to MPs should not be available to elected Members of the House of Lords. So far as transitional Members were concerned, they should continue to receive a per diem allowance. This was also to be applicable to appointed Members—the 20 per cent. What we could not do was go into the costs of the whole exercise, very simply because although we asked the Government to produce some figures, they did not do so. I regretted that very much because, apart from anything else, it prevented us having a sensible discussion on the issue.

I am sorry to have taken up so much of the House’s time with the details of the report, but in view of some of the comments that have been made, I thought it was important that the House should get a clear picture of what we actually recommended. We undertook a thorough and detailed analysis of the proposals put forward in the Government’s draft Bill. It is now for the Government to consider our proposals before coming forward with the final Bill, which they can present to Parliament for further scrutiny.

Finally, I say one or two words about the alternative report. By the rules of the House, there could not be a minority report. There was, however, nothing to prevent members of the committee issuing their own commentary on the process, and this the alternative 12 have done. I have read the alternative report with great interest and some surprise. I see that the alternative 12 now call for reconsideration of the 15-year term. I cannot help but observe that 10 of the 12 voted for it in the committee. However, the main problem I have with the alternative report is the suggestion of a constitutional convention on further reform of the House of Lords. It would be lengthy, time-consuming, diffuse and, judging from the report, distinctly overpopulated. I will not bore the House by reading out the provision in the report which sets out the dramatis personae of those who are supposed to be eligible to take part in the constitutional convention. I recommend Members of the House to read it and observe the ominous words at the end of the list:

“This list is not exhaustive”.

More important than that is the fact that there is really nothing much left to say about this issue. We have been round this course now year after year after year for more than a century. In the 22 years since I have been in this House, it has been the subject of intense discussion in the course of which the same points are made, remade and re-remade again, again and again. I see no virtue whatever in setting up a convention to reiterate the differences which already exist and which we all know about.

The idea that somehow there is a mechanism whereby all those differences can be fused and that there will then be a general agreement about proposals to reform the House of Lords is fanciful. It is an absurdity. There are divisions in the House as to whether we want an elected House or not, whether we want people to come here as a result of a democratic election or to continue to be appointed. It is high time that people recognised that the time has come for a decision on these issues, not further discussion and then further discussion after that.

I think that the committee has produced a better Bill as a result of our deliberations. I think that that Bill is important constitutionally, indeed, it is important enough that it should be presented to the people in a referendum. That way, we will begin to make some real progress. I beg to move.