Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I know what the noble viscount says, but I do not agree with him. I certainly want to see this Parliament be much more effective. I am one of those who believes that, despite the perverse constitution of the other place, its role and function are extremely important. As I look around this Chamber today, I see an overwhelming majority of colleagues who believe that we should not go to one Chamber of Parliament but that we should instead enhance and buttress an arrangement that will be an impediment and a frustration to arbitrary Government. That is what is most needed: we must diminish the opportunities that arise, under the House of Commons' majority system, for parliamentary dictatorship, with things being ill thought out and railroaded through. By-elections are the core of this clause, and reference has been made to the practice of the Scots and Irish peers, but I do not think that one can use the Scottish peerage to buttress the change proposed by the Government today. Up to the 1950s, the Scottish representative peers were elected for each parliamentary Session. They met in the Parliament House in Edinburgh, and had an election to determine who should come to this place. The Irish peerage is much more interesting. Under the Act of Union 1800, the Irish peers would elect their representative peers for life. When the Government of Ireland Act 1920 came into force, the existing peerage was allowed to wither on the vine. The last Irish representative peer was the fourth Earl of Kilmorey, who I think expired in 1957 or thereabouts. Colleagues in this House will recall Richard Needham, who became the fifth Earl of Kilmorey and did distinguished service here as a Northern Ireland Minister. Members of the Irish peerage could have argued that the change amounted to a reneging on the Act of Union and that the existing arrangement should have been in place in perpetuity. However, that arrangement was broken by the 1920 Act, when common sense prevailed and the existing Irish peers were allowed to wither on the vine. Alternatively, a person with a hereditary peerage who loses his right to sit in the other place can be nominated for a life peerage by his political party. That has happened, and I think that it is implicit in what the Justice Secretary is proposing. A great example is the late Earl of Longford. He did not sit in the House of Lords under that title, although we always knew him as the Earl of Longford by virtue of his Irish peerage. He was there as Baron Packenham, a title that was personal to him.