House of Lords Reform Bill

Richard Shepherd Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that one of the virtues of a reformed House of Lords would have been a voice in the second Chamber for the Scottish people as well as for the English and Welsh people and for all the nations and regions of the United Kingdom; we have spoken about that before. At the moment, that second Chamber has a very high preponderance of people from the south-east of England. There is chronic under-representation, not only from Scotland but from Wales and the north of England. That would all have been balanced by reform. I do not think that that point argues in favour of ripping up the United Kingdom altogether, but it does argue in favour of pushing for reform once again in the future.

[Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

The Deputy Prime Minister refers to his proposals as a simple matter of democracy. I wonder how he reconciles that with the greater principle of how it can be democratic to have a once-elected person who is never held accountable by an electorate.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We had extensive debates, in which the hon. Gentleman participated, when the Government set out our ideas in the draft Bill about the concept of a non-renewable term. I totally accept that there is an issue about legitimacy versus accountability. A non-renewable term improves legitimacy, but not standing for election again raises question marks about accountability. I would say two things. First, a 15-year term is better than an illegitimate life membership of the House of Lords. Secondly, we did not draw on something that this Government have suddenly invented; we drew on the work of countless cross-party committees in the past—the Cunningham work, the Wakeham work, and so on. Those all came up with the same conclusion—that if we were going to create a clear distinction between this House and a reformed upper House, and to make it absolutely clear that the legitimacy and accountability of this place was supreme, then the best way of doing that was, yes, to introduce democracy, but to do so on the basis of long, non-renewable terms.