My Lords, I oppose the amendment. The word “idiosyncrasies”, which was just used, springs to mind rather powerfully. Earlier this week, we paid tribute rightly to the late Lord Ivor Richard, who I knew as a member of the Cabinet in 1997. The compromise that was reached in 1999 has been referred to, the Wetherill amendment included. It was intended to ensure that progress could be made on a modest way of modernising this second Chamber. Today, we are trying to take a very modest step in that direction as well.
I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Grocott. When I heard him speak at Second Reading, I thought it was a masterpiece in forensic analysis and humour—humour, because the situation he was addressing sadly
leads to us believing that we have to put aside something that, outside this House, is seen as a complete anachronism. I have heard many forensic speeches in my time from my own side—from John Smith and Robin Cook included, who I counted as friends—and I think they would have been proud to have heard my noble friend’s speech and the case that he has made.
I want to be timorous today, in an unusual fashion. I would like to persuade the Conservative Benches and the Government that it is in their best interest to take this very modest step. We have the Burns recommendations and the restoration and renewal of the House, leading to the decanting of both Houses of Parliament, both Houses having voted for it. A combination of these measures requires us to take steps now which will then lead to a logical and rational balancing of the political and non-political interests in this House.
It is not just about those who are nominated by the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition or the Liberal Democrat party; it is also about the balance with the Cross Benches and the Bishops’ Benches. Unless we get it right on the anomaly of having by-elections for hereditary Peers, and unless we move now—I am opposing the amendment so that we can make progress—it will make it extraordinarily difficult to maintain that balance as we move towards implementing the Burns committee recommendations, which I hope we will rapidly do, combined with the prospect of decanting. When this House decants, there will be Members who logically choose that moment to retire, and there will be people who choose to leave in advance of it. In the lead up to the decant, if not handled very carefully, that will completely distort the balance of the different parties and Cross-Bench Peers in the House.
To continue the by-elections in that run-up period, and during the implementation of Burns, we would distort the balance between the nominated, those who go through the commission and those who are elected by this bizarre medieval process, which retains only one section—those who are here because their grandfathers or great-grandfathers or great-great-grandfathers were in favour with the monarch or managed to get their hands on sufficient property and land.