House of Lords (Alternative Second Chamber) Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 23rd October 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank your Lordships’ House for allowing me to speak in the gap. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on her Bill and on her powerful introductory speech. I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, as I represent another party that is severely underrepresented in your Lordships’ House.

As many have noted, this debate neatly follows on from yesterday’s, secured by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, on the question of a written constitution, in which the noble Lord, Lord Pack, and I were isolated in speaking in favour. I said then that I would put on hold a debate about the Lords, but I start today by noting a personal interest. In 2021, my Private Member’s Bill was the House of Lords (Elections and Reform) Bill. I had been in your Lordships’ House about as long as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, when I brought that Bill through, although I cannot take personal credit for it because it had previously been brought forward by my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. That went much further in setting out a prescription for a replacement House but, of course, being a PMB, it was really another way of starting the debate.

I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that public confidence is crucial to political legitimacy, and there is not public confidence in this House. That is not necessarily a comment on a lot of what we do—we do good work—but who makes the decision matters.

I want to correct the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, here: the party of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and my party make selection as democratic as possible. We are not appointed by patronage; we are democratically selected within our own parties. That is the best that we can do under the current system.

I am often of the view—and can be heard to say—that we need a world where everyone makes politics what they do, not something they have done to them. With that in mind, I particularly welcome the students from Edge Hill University who are here today and worked with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. I note that, as we speak, the student movement in Serbia may be about to win a general election on Sunday and take over from a regime that has been in power for 12 years—that would be a student-led movement taking over a country. It is a reflection of a world in which we are seeing political change happening very fast.

I want to pick up and disagree with some unusual points of agreement between the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Jackson, both of whom suggested that the other House is representative. That House has a massive majority for the Labour Party, which received the backing of 33% of the people who voted, or about 25% of eligible voters. We do not have a representative House. One argument often put for saying that we cannot have an elected House of Lords is that it would be a problem for it to contest with the Commons. I think it would be a huge advantage if we brought in an elected House of Lords, as the Commons voting system would have to be reformed to make it truly representative.

Both the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Jackson, said what we would inevitably get is a list system, but that is not true. There are many countries in Europe that have open list systems in which voters can choose individuals rather than having just the party list. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, said that what we do now is appropriate, but I say that is not true. The House ultimately gets to a point where it says, “We are the unelected House, so we cannot do something we think we should do”. I have seen the House stand up against that only once, during the passage of the internal market Bill, on a commercial issue. It did not stand up on the rights of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people, and it did not stand up on the Rwanda Act. This is an important Bill, and I urge your Lordships’ House to give it a Second Reading.