House of Lords Bill [HL]

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Steel, who has more experience in more Houses of Parliament than I, that I am rather regretful of the way in which he simply spurned my rather straightforward questions, as if I were operating some kind of device to get him to say something that he did not want to say. I have no idea what his analogy was about catching a fly. I have no desire to catch a fly. I would actually quite like to know what he thinks. I am rather depressed at the moment, because I am not sure whether I misled the House at Second Reading or not. I think that the noble Lord is in favour of an appointed House. I think that he was once in favour of an elected House and has changed his mind. It would be more open of him if he were to stand up and admit that, rather than playing this Liberal game of saying one thing in one place and another in another, assuming that nobody will ever put the two ends of the conversation together and decide that they are perhaps more confused than the rest of us. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Selsdon on moving very smartly this morning when he saw the manuscript amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and tabling his own. In doing so, I should make clear, if noble Lords have not yet had notice of this, that I wish to degroup my Amendments A1B and 32ZA. So quickly did my noble friend move that he got in front of me in the queue. Perhaps he realised that, although on this occasion I cannot support the specifics of his amendment, I support the principle of tabling it as that allows us to have a debate on an appointed House, which I know many of your Lordships keenly support. I listened very carefully to what my noble friend had to say, and, as I understand it, his amendment lays before the House, honestly and openly, the known and intended effect of the Bill put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, which is to create an all-appointed House. I shall not repeat the remarks that I made before we came into Committee on the declared belief of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, but it would have helped if he had been franker about that. After all, the second signatory to this amendment is my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon, who has always been straight about his views. He is clear—he has said this consistently since we started to debate the future of the House of Lords in 1998 and 1999—that he wants an all-appointed House. I expect he also knows that, over time, this Bill will create it, and therefore he certainly shares the sentiment of the amendment of my noble Lord Selsdon, which is that one of the purposes of the Bill is to create an all-appointed House. I suspect that the same must be true for the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton. He has lived a life of immense distinction in the public service and I do not see the smell of electoral battle bringing fire to those wise old eyes. Perhaps he will rise in a few moments and tell me that he has a passion for election—I await that with interest—but he, too, appears to agree with the purpose of the Bill, which was clarified by my noble friend Lord Selsdon. However, I am not quite so sure about the noble Baroness, Lady Jay.