House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I find it almost touching that the right hon. Gentleman thinks that his party has any credibility whatsoever left on political reform. Labour did not introduce democracy in the House of Lords during 13 years. An opportunity was delivered to the Labour party on a silver platter—[Interruption.] I am perfectly calm, but I am seeking to make myself heard, because I am not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman is listening. Given that the Labour party did not reform the bastion of privilege and patronage at the other end of the corridor—that it did nothing in 13 years to introduce democracy into the House of Lords—why on earth does he think that anyone believes that it will do so in the future?

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I find the Deputy Prime Minister’s apologia at best confusing and possibly disingenuous in that he will know that the coalition agreement did not specifically call for primary legislation on House of Lords reform but for a settled cross-party consensus to be reached. We tried to do that and could not, but that consensus could have been formed around the Bill put forward by Lord Steel of Aikwood. On that basis, why has the Deputy Prime Minister chosen to resile from a solemn agreement to support fair and democratic boundaries?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As far as I can remember, I have not sought to make any apology over the past 45 minutes. I feel that the Government have acted in good faith to try to generate cross-party support for a reasonable set of proposals drawing on a lot of work from other members of other parties over several years. It is a great pity that the hon. Gentleman and other colleagues felt that it was not possible to get behind that reasonable package of proposals with a timetable motion. The coalition agreement said that this Government were going to come forward with proposals to reform the House of Lords. We are not a think-tank. The Government do not talk about proposals just to float them idly in a newspaper article and then do nothing about them. If one is going to propose something as a Government, one proposes it with a view to actually doing something.