House of Lords Reform

The hon. Gentleman may be right about that. I said at paragraph 22 of the Government’s response to the Cunningham 2 report ““Conventions of the UK Parliament””:"““The extent to which there needs to be additional steps to secure that””—" in other words, these conventions—"““would need to be addressed if there was any suggestion that the major parties did not support this approach in the context of a new House.””" But these things are perfectly possible. The crucial thing is that no one is arguing about the current practice of the powers of the two Chambers. There may be a debate about whether the conventions which in part underpin those powers—they are also in part underpinned by the resolutions of this House and by the Parliament Acts—are sufficient. I am very happy that we should have that debate. Indeed, I hope that we can because I hope that we can reach a result tomorrow night for the first time in 98 years.