House of Lords Reform

Let me be clear about this. As the right hon. Lady knows very well, we are not proposing that the parties should appoint 30 per cent. of the House but that the parties should be able to nominate people. There is a world of difference. Decisions will be made by the statutory appointments commission, which, as I spelled out in my speech, would have the same power in respect of political nominees as of non-political nominees in assessing their merits and their probity, and would have to select from a wider range of nominees than there were places in the Lords.