Mark Durkan
Main Page: Mark Durkan (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Foyle)Department Debates - View all Mark Durkan's debates with the Cabinet Office
(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman knows, in a House of Lords without any elections of any description whatever, no party has an overall majority in any event, so a balance of power in a reformed House of Lords is no different from the status quo.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
If, as the Deputy Prime Minister told us last week, the main role of a reformed House of Lords will be as a revising Chamber, why does he propose that people should be appointed under prime ministerial patronage as Ministers and Members of that House? Would it not be better if nobody could sit as a Minister in that House? Would not that properly differentiate the role of this Chamber from that one?
The Deputy Prime Minister
We looked at this very carefully and proposed, on balance, that a very small number of appointees should be Lords only for the time that they hold ministerial office. We need to ensure that Ministers are held to account in either this Chamber or the other place. We therefore felt it right to suggest that the Prime Minister retains a prerogative for a very small number of positions, so that for the limited time that those appointees are Ministers, they are accountable to the reformed House of Lords.