Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

First, that might have been a reasonable point if we were proposing to abolish all 90 hereditaries without putting anything else in place, but we are not. Secondly, when the noble Lord Irvine had to accept the amendment to the original proposal, which came later—the original deal was struck in May, but the amendment was made in October—he said:""The transitional House will be of short duration, but let us proceed on the hypothetical assumptions that it might last for more than two or three years"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 October 1999; Vol. 606, c. 169.]" and so on. They were not talking about a whole decade and no one anticipated that.