Barry Gardiner
Main Page: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent West)Department Debates - View all Barry Gardiner's debates with the Cabinet Office
(13 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberClearly, one of the features of the proposal we are including in the draft Bill—namely, 80% elected Members and 20% appointed by an independent statutory appointments body—is that those appointed Members would sit not as party representatives but as Cross Benchers.
May I suggest to the right hon. Member that he is confusing legitimacy with accountability? Although election before one takes office might give legitimacy, it certainly does not give accountability. Accountability comes from an election after one has done things over the 15 year period. Will he reflect on that?
I think the hon. Gentleman has some force to his argument, but one thing we were keen to preserve in the cross-party Committee was that any reform should be designed in a manner that would allow elected Members of any reformed House of Lords to retain a certain independence and even distance from party politics. A lengthy non-renewable term was seen as one way of delivering that, not only by the cross-party Committee that I chaired but by many other cross-party Committees that have considered the issue in the past.