House of Lords Bill [HL]

My Lords, by whichever path one comes into this House, one is immediately made aware of the importance of this institution in our parliamentary democracy. What concentrates the mind even more when one comes into this House is when one is asked to explain either to individuals or to groups exactly how this institution works. It is my view that, together with the other pillars of our democracy—the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers—we need to be very wary of something that has not happened but which has been mentioned by other noble Lords, and that is hasty change. The composition of this House has taken rather too much pride of place over the powers and functions which govern our proceedings. It is the powers and functions of this House—they are immensely subtle and effective, particularly in our relationship with the other Chamber—which need to be secured and safeguarded. We had a smooth and effective change from an hereditary House. I thoroughly approved of that, although the methods used to do it were somewhat questionable; I would have preferred something between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of the House to have been chosen from hereditary Peers sitting as life Peers, but that was not the case. Having 92 hereditary Peers who are re-elected in by-elections is a ludicrous situation, and is admirably dealt with in my noble friend’s Bill. Now, Parliament must come to a consensus without being hustled along by the Executive. The most important thing to bear in mind is the power we have in Parliament to hold the Executive to account. That is paramount and something that I always stress when asked—rarely, these days—to talk to schools and other gatherings. There is no reason why we should not continue to do that in a reformed House. The composition of the Chamber, so long as the Members are reasonably intelligent, committed to coming here and independent, matters less. Such Members are likely to make a good job within our powers and functions. The Bill gets us out of a position of quite undesirable delay. It rather reminds me of when I was in the Army. I used to get stuck in a thing called a scout car which would slip into something called a forced neutral so that it could move neither forward nor backward. Luckily we do not have to go backwards, but it is desirable that we move forwards. My noble friend’s Bill takes us forward in a sensible way until a completed reform is put before us in whatever turns out to be an acceptable way. Our views on that are clear, and anyone can find out how we feel by looking at the voting lists on the White Paper that we debated some months ago. I am grateful to my noble friend for this sensible Bill. It gives us optimism for the future that we will finally arrive at a solution, and I hope that it will be before 2014.