House of Lords Reform Bill

Ann Coffey Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The whole agenda of political and constitutional reform had a number of principal components as set out in the coalition agreement. Frankly, the way in which some of those measures were legislatively arranged is not really the point. The point is that it was clear that it was a broad agenda whose main components would be pursued by both parties in the coalition. For reasons that I will not rehearse again, that has proved not to be possible, so we have made an adjustment to that package. We will proceed with its other elements, and I hope we will have some success on party funding and make progress on recall and on regulating lobbying. Much more importantly, we will now have legislative time available to make progress on the economy, too.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

A powerful argument in favour of House of Lords reform was that, if the current level of patronage continues, the membership of the unelected Chamber will be more than 1,000 by 2015. I hear what the Deputy Prime Minister says about the limitations of the Steel Bill, but does he not think that there is some merit in bringing forward a proposal to cap the membership of the House of Lords at that of the House of Commons? At least that would be some progress.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

If one did that, one would hard-wire party political imbalance into the House of Lords, and that would not be acceptable without allowing the British people any say in its composition. There has clearly been a setback for people such as the hon. Lady, who believes in and has been articulate in her advocacy of democratic reform of the House of Lords. However, I do not think that it is the end of the story. The current trajectory of the House of Lords, even if the Lord Steel Bill were introduced, is impractical and unsustainable. I hope that, if not now, then in the next few years, we can return to the matter and both reduce the size of the House of Lords and make it more legitimate.