Parliament (Participation of Members of the House of Commons) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I accept the noble Lord’s modification and I shall come to it in a moment. I was very glad to have the support of my noble friend Lord Wakeham, particularly because he is a former Chief Whip. Former Chief Whips have antennae; they know when things are moving and something has to be addressed. So I am encouraged by the presence of my noble Lord friend, who was one of our most astute Chief Whips. He knows that this question has got to be answered one way or another. He said that the problem will not go away, a point touched upon by several noble Lords today. A number of noble Lords have said that my Bill would create a constitutional crisis—but we are heading towards a constitutional crisis. Let us think forward to the next election, when most people believe there could be a hung Parliament. If that hung Parliament was led by a Labour Government with a small majority in the other House and they depended on Scottish and Welsh MPs to carry very controversial legislation, does not the Lord Chancellor consider that that would constitute a constitutional crisis? I think it would. Suppose a Labour Government brought in legislation and said, for example, ““We are going to stop immediately the sale of all council Houses””—something, as it were, on the left—and they carried it with Welsh and Scottish MPs, what would English MPs think of that? And not only Conservative MPs. The noble and learned Lord said there is no support, but many Labour MPs agree with me—for instance, Alan Williams, the Father of the House; Tony Wright—