Debate on the Address

Russell Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

No.

I say to hon. Friends on the Conservative Benches who are not entirely persuaded about Lords reform that I understand that it is a lovely place, that they look lovely, some of them are lovely, and that it is part of our great, historic constitution and offers a job for life— I am not going there, but they might want to—so I understand why it touches a soft spot, but come on, guys: we have to move on. If the Tory party is to be the modern party that it wants to be and that the Prime Minister says it needs to be, it, too, must deliver. We can talk about the detail, the percentages and the length of the term of office, but we must end up with a second Chamber that is predominantly democratically elected.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned that the regional variations are significant. On the point his hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) made about the reduction in the number of constituencies, is the right hon. Gentleman telling the House this afternoon that what we are all seeing on social network websites is wrong and that there will be no frustration as a result of that reduction?

[Simon Hughes]

First, I am surrounded by colleagues who say that those who believe social network websites are in trouble. Secondly, most things on them are wrong. Thirdly, they are sometimes libellous. Seriously, I understand the general point the hon. Gentleman is making. I am not a member of the Government and so cannot speak for them, but I can speak for my colleagues here. What we want is a package of constitutional reform that has a fair constituency system. There is an argument about how many constituencies there should be—I was never in favour of the number going down quite as far as it has done, but there was an argument for making it smaller—and there is a strong argument for having equal numbers, but there is an equally strong argument for Lords reform. I hope that Labour will support us in delivering both, and we will be watching.