House of Lords Reform Bill

David Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Thomas Docherty]

They were certainly not here for the tuition fees debate, and they were certainly not here to support the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport either, when that issue was discussed just a few weeks ago.

The hard reality is that this is a bad Bill. However, I intend to vote for it on Second Reading this evening, because I believe that the situation can be salvaged. There are some measures that I hope the very reasonable Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) will take back to his boss, the Deputy Prime Minister. One, for example, concerns those who may stand for election. The Government have said, quite reasonably, that no one can serve as a Member of Parliament and stand for the senate, or whatever it will be called—

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

The House of Lords.

[Thomas Docherty]

Sorry, the House of Lords. However, there is no such provision to stop Members of the senate/House of Lords standing for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly or, indeed, a local authority, or vice versa. That will lead, inevitably, to examples of what we have already seen in Scotland, where list MSPs have perched on the shoulders of constituency MSPs, cherry-picking casework and local issues. That will inevitably lead to a challenge to the authority of MSPs, Assembly Members and local authorities. I hope that the Government will reflect on that and make the appropriate changes when we reach the Committee stage, hopefully in the autumn.

The other thing that has been raised which genuinely needs to be addressed is the issue of Church of England bishops. I do not believe that the Church of England should sit in the House of Lords or the senate.