Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I take notice of your earlier injunction, Sir Alan, to focus on the clause, but, like most people here I am disappointed that in the 11 years for which we have had a Labour Government we have not moved faster on this and brought forward a democratically elected upper House. My dream was that I might one day be the first of the new and offer myself as a candidate for an elected upper House. I do not think that that will happen, but we do need to move this on. I welcome the measures that the Justice Secretary is introducing by bringing this Bill to the House and, at least on the margins, altering the present arrangements. I also look forward to draft proposals that will be enacted in the next Parliament if Labour is returned to office. I welcome that. The principal Opposition spokesperson, the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), may suggest from the Dispatch Box that because undertakings were given by Lord Irvine to Lord Cranborne, I am somehow committed to them, but I must say that that is not so. There may well have been agreements between so-called Privy Counsellors, but those of us who are nature's privy counsellors, to paraphrase Tony Hancock, think that such agreements have to be abrogated sometimes.