House of Lords Reform (Draft Bill)

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As I said, in the draft Bill we have proposed one system—the single transferable vote—primarily because it seems to be the system that gives the fullest individual mandate to elected Members rather than casting them in a party political light. It is the individual independence of spirit in the other place that everyone agrees should be preserved, but there are alternatives. In the White Paper—I know that Opposition Members feel particularly strongly about this—there is the alternative of a party list system, which we have said is available to us, as explained in the White Paper. If that is where the debate takes us, we are very open to those alternatives.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Does the Deputy Prime Minister share the views of his hon. Friend the Liberal Democrat president, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), that Members elected in a different Chamber by STV will have greater legitimacy than Members of this House? Does he still believe that Members elected in another Chamber will be banned from then standing for election to this Chamber, and is that concordant with the Human Rights Act 1998?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We have looked into the latter point and it is consistent with the Human Rights Act. The draft Bill envisages—this enjoyed cross-party support on the Committee I chaired—that someone from the other place would not be able to stand for election to this place unless they had completed a cooling-off period of one term. Clearly, we do not want to transform the other place into a sort of launch pad for people’s careers in this place. The reverse, however, would not be the case.