Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I said, not for any of the words of the verses, but for the chorus. That alone would make a good theme tune for Peter Mandelson. The answer was not to bring Lords Ministers into this place; the question was: why were there so many Cabinet Ministers in the Lords? The hon. Gentleman referred to the fact that there are limits in statute on the number of Cabinet Ministers, but we saw how the previous Government got round that. They went to the limit for Cabinet Ministers and then had a series of ministerial high chairs put around the Cabinet table, so that lots of other Ministers had rights of attendance at Cabinet, simply to ensure that more Members of the House of Commons were in the Cabinet room than would have been there otherwise. That is the sort of lazy, sloppy, self-serving thinking that seizes parties in government. They use and abuse, and bend and flex rules and limits in ways that suit themselves, which does nothing to enhance the reputation of politics in general or this House in particular. We have a choice this evening with new clause 7. If the Government are being straight and sincere, they should accept the spirit of the new clause. I know that we will need other provisions to ensure that one way round this is not suddenly to increase the number of Ministers in another place or whatever—but the full spirit of new clause 7 should be embraced. The Government tell us a lot about the big society. They are against big government out there, but they are all for big Government in here. New clause 7 really is the test for the Government. In particular, it is the test of whether they will allow their own Back Benchers to vote according to their conscience on how they want this House truly to operate under the banner of the new politics.