House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Lord Wakeham Excerpts

Friday 28th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wakeham (Con)]

My Lords, I fully support the Bill from my noble friend and I add my congratulations to those of other noble Lords. There is very little for me to say; I said most of what I wanted to say 14 years ago, in the royal commission report. It is interesting to note how many suggestions that came up around the Chamber today we had put into our report 14 years ago. The conclusion that was drawn in that report was also drawn by other Members of the House, which was that incremental reform is the only way we will do it. We quite deliberately put forward proposals that were a compromise. I do not believe that any one of us on the royal commission would have agreed with everything we said; instead we worked out something that we thought could be lived with by people who wanted elected Peers, those who did not want them, and so on. The compromise was not acceptable, so incremental reform is the only way for this House, and the Bill is a very good example of what needs to be done.

I will make only one point, on the question of whether a Member who leaves this House should be able to stand for the House of Commons. We discussed that in great detail, and my noble friend hit on that very important part in our report. We said that that should happen in a reformed House—with elected Members in this Chamber as well as in the other. That was the important point. As far as I was concerned, at the time in our deliberations, I wanted to make it for life. The lawyer said that that was impossible, as the Human Rights Act would make sure that that would be overturned anyway. I then tried to get 25 years and that was not acceptable. We ended up in our report with 10 years, and Nick Clegg put four years in his Bill. I have no worries whatsoever about the issue of Peers leaving this House under the unreformed arrangements now, although I would have worries if there were a substantial body of elected Peers in this House.

I wish the Bill all success; I need add nothing more.