Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I suppose that I ought to declare that my wife sits in the House of Lords, although my remarks are not directed at her. There might be a convention that the Prime Minister does not sit in the House of Lords, but—in answer to an obscure pub quiz question—it is less than 60 years since a Prime Minister did sit in the upper House. I wonder whether we ought to have the same provision as that proposed in amendment 94 for ourselves. Perhaps we should say that no one may be appointed to the House of Lords for five years after ceasing to be a Member of Parliament. That would result in a convention, of which I would approve, that, were a Speaker to resign the speakership during a Parliament, they could continue to serve their constituents until the next election and become eligible to go to the House of Lords thereafter. However, that is slightly beside the point that we are considering at the moment. I do not believe that permanent leave is desirable. I can think of one Member of the House of Lords who decided that he should not go on serving there and who took leave. Most of those in the House of Lords would like to have him back, however, and such people ought to be able to change their minds. On a separate issue, what would happen to Members of the House of Lords who ceased to be Members of the House of Lords, because their position had come to an end? That used to happen in the case of Law Lords and, certainly, of most bishops, unless they were appointed to the House of Lords as a life peer. Would a retired Law Lord be eligible to be elected to the House of Commons? Would a retired bishop who had had the seniority to get into the House of Lords be eligible to be elected to this House? That might be set down in statute, but I do not know the answer. We should perhaps consider these questions as though they applied to Members of the House of Commons going to the House of Lords as well as vice versa. There is a proper convention that we refer to the House of Lords as "the upper House" as well as "the other place". It is the upper House, but we ought not to think of this as one-way traffic. I believe that a five-year gap would be better than a 10-year gap, and if the Liberal amendment were pressed to a vote, I would support it.