House of Lords Reform: Elected Second Chamber

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am not sure on what evidence the noble Lord makes that final statement. He is quite right that in the Parliament before this there was a majority of 388 on Second Reading for the Bill that he referred to—partly, perhaps, because I wound up that debate. Sadly, it was not possible to progress with a programme Motion, partly because of some dissent in my own party—I would not call them rebel reactionaries, as I think the noble Lord did—but, had the Labour Party joined the Government in the Lobbies, that programme Motion would have been passed. So I think the responsibility needs to be shared.

The noble Lord was right to remind the House that there is some discontent in the other place about the role of your Lordships’ House. There was a debate last week in the other place on the abolition of your Lordships’ House and some disobliging remarks were made. It was the view of one Member of Parliament that,

“it is about time the Commons decided who is an appropriate Member of the second Chamber … Select Committees are the obvious bodies to interview them”.

Another said:

“My final point is that whatever money we save from the House of Lords should be given to MPs—not in pay but to run our offices”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/6/18; col. 13WH.]


But I do not believe that there is a public appetite for the abolition of the second Chamber.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I do not favour election, but does the Minister not agree that it might constitute a worthwhile advance if Members of this House were still to be appointed, possibly by an appointments commission, but greatly strengthened by a system of nominations from the different branches of civil society, such as the law, medicine, the arts, sport, education, the armed services, business, trade unions, the third sector, and so on?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I agree that all those professions and interests should be represented in your Lordships’ House and that the Cross Benches have a good representation of those interests. I think there is a quota of Peers allocated each year to HOLAC in order to appoint more Cross-Bench Peers. All this is against a background of the Prime Minister exercising restraint on political appointments. The recent Dissolution Honours List was the smallest since 1979—and here I warmly welcome my noble friend Lord Haselhurst.