Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Strathclyde Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, what the report says is:

“The Committee recommends that, in view of the significance of the constitutional change brought forward by an elected House of Lords, the Government should submit the decision to a referendum”.

That is pretty clear. The noble Lord is being rather pedantic on that point.

Time moves on. We have debated many other issues and I wanted to pick just three from our debates. First, on the question of representation, the noble Lords, Lord Trimble and Lord Dubs, made some excellent points that elected Lords will expect to represent their constituents and should be resourced to do so. That must be part of their accountability to the electorate. We cannot have a situation whereby elected Members of Parliament are discouraged from direct contact with their constituents and almost inhibited from helping them with constituency cases.

On hybridity, I sense strong concern in our debate. One can see why it would be attractive to retain an independent element in an elected House, but I suspect that the 20 per cent appointed Members would feel increasingly uncomfortable and isolated in a House dominated by elected politicians. If the votes of the appointed Members helped to thwart the views of a majority of elected Members, I doubt that they would last very long. I well remember when we were in government, particularly in the early days, that when we lost votes, we put out press notices which showed that it was because of the way that hereditary Peers had voted. The temptation for any political bloc to do that would be overwhelming. Hybridity is a nice idea. One understands why it is being put forward, but I sense that in two days of debate, the argument has fallen.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, let me be clear about what the noble Lord is saying. Is he saying that the Labour Party’s position is that it would not support a Bill unless it was for a 100 per cent elected second Chamber without the Cross-Benchers?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, we have always said that we would support a 100 per cent elected House.