Parliament: Elected House of Lords

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Grocott on securing this debate. We hold different views on whether we should have an elected or non-elected Chamber but I agree with one view that he expressed: if we had an elected Chamber, I would not wish to see a great change in the nature of the relationship between this House and the Commons, although there would be some change.

I believe that the key to that rests in two areas: first, the Parliament Act; and, secondly—my noble friend Lord Sewel pointed to this and it was also focused on by my noble friend Lord Wills—the conventions. The conventions need to be codified. In the 2002 Joint Committee on which the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, sat, we spent time talking about that but no progress was made. That Joint Committee was chaired by my noble friend Lord Cunningham, who subsequently chaired the committee that looked at the nature of the relationship, but again the question of codifying the conventions was not addressed. It was decided that, in the event of there being an elected Chamber, we might have to return to having codification of the conventions or changes to them.

On the last occasion that we had a debate on this matter, I asked the Benches opposite—and I particularly thank my noble friend Lord Grocott for giving me the chance to come back to this question—whether they had commenced work on codifying the conventions. I got no reply, so I ask the question again. If work has not started, I should like to know why not. I should also like to know whether they will make a start on it, because such a change is most certainly needed to ensure a proper relationship between the two Houses when we have elections.