House of Lords Reform

I certainly do not accept that. Let me spell out that our proposal is not for the current system in use for the European parliamentary elections. In that closed list system, in practice, voters have to vote for all members of a party's list if they vote for one. Under the partially or semi-open list system, that is not the case. Voters may, if they wish, vote for a list or they may allocate their vote to a specific individual candidate. The result is that voters can influence which candidates are elected as well as which party. In other words, they can ““break the list””. To those people, such as the hon. Gentleman, who claim that this system is no better than appointment by party leaders, I say that there is a world of difference. There is as much voter discretion under this system as under the first-past-the-post system, where in each constituency it is the party that selects the candidate, not the voter. The semi-open list system is our current preference, but if the House can come to a conclusion on composition, I am certainly ready and willing to consider alternatives to it. The votes tomorrow night are on the resolutions on the Order Paper—no more and no less. The White Paper is there to inform the debate and to provide the context for it. But there is no resolution to seek endorsement of the White Paper, and, in any event, we ultimately will give effect to the wishes of the House by legislation, not by a White Paper.