Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

It is a difference and I am grateful for the elucidation but I do not accept that it diminishes the status of the second Chamber. More generally, almost every Member who has spoken in favour of the amendments has made broadly the same point, which has then been amplified into a great frolicking fantasy by the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) about Members switching endlessly between the two Houses. This is a serious point; we certainly do not want to see the sort of situation to which he referred, in which one House is used as an antechamber for the other. These two Houses have discrete and important functions and should be treated with equal dignity and respect. He is right to draw attention to any such risk but I simply do not believe that that will happen. Most Members come to the appointed and partially hereditary Chamber at the end of a long and distinguished career in public service. I believe that the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) suggested in an intervention that the average age for someone's doing so is the late 60s. That is the position so, with all due respect, I must say that it is fanciful to think that there will be many, if any, Members of the other place who will use these provisions to resign and stand for election in this place. The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that he said that the debate has latched on absolutely to the main issues. To a large extent that is true, but he has missed out the most fundamental issue and the most fundamental guarantee. [Interruption.] I am glad to see that the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan), who has suddenly turned up to hear—