UK Parliament / Open data

House of Lords Reform

Proceeding contribution from Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 6 March 2007. It occurred during Debate on House of Lords Reform.
No, as I want to make progress. The Leader of the House has made a thoughtful and serious attempt to bring to the House proposals that represent the greatest degree of consensus. I compliment him on that, and am grateful. I pay tribute to him, and to Lord Falconer who preceded him and who shared the task with him. I also pay tribute to those in the Labour party—and the Leader of the House is one—who realise that they must move on from 2003. It is good news that the Conservative party has also moved on in recent years, and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead and the new Conservative leader have both been influential in that respect. The progressive forces in the Conservative party have moved the party towards support for a predominantly elected second Chamber—[Interruption.] Redoubts of the old positions remain, but that is why there is now the chance of achieving consensus among all three major parties. I hope that we can build on that consensus, and send a clear message to the other end of the building. If we are clear about what we want in terms of the primacy of the Commons, the Lords must understand that it is our view that must prevail. The hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland) circulated a letter signed by 20 Labour MPs to all colleagues. It advocated keeping the status quo, more or less, and its first argument was basically, ““If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”” I accept that the Lords does a good job, but it is mere invention to suggest that it would do a less good job if it were predominantly elected.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
457 c1421 
Session
2006-07
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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