Constitution

My Lords, I am grateful for the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, about the way in which I put forward the Statement. However, I have to say that having a ““modish appeal”” is not something I associate with my right honourable friend the Prime Minister; indeed, that is not how he would wish to be seen. He has considered very carefully where he believes we need to strengthen and move forward our democracy and he has put those issues in a Green Paper today, at the beginning of his premiership, for consideration in Parliament and in the country beyond. I began the Statement by saying that this is not about one Bill, one year, one Parliament. Indeed, my right honourable friend has laid out the beginnings of a process, which I hope noble Lords will embrace, but not in a way that suggests that all this is about legislation or the things that Parliament has to do; rather it is an entire process of looking at how we can strengthen our democracy through the engagement of our young people, supporting people at a local level, thinking about our institutions more carefully and considering how best we can deliver for the people of this country. I believe that is what we have done.