House of Lords Reform

I hope that the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Bill Etherington) will forgive me if I do not go down the same route as him, as I do not agree with his point about 100 per cent. election. We could have an interesting debate about the future of the monarchy, but that would complicate the already extraordinarily complicated number of options before us. I agree, however, with the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams). We ought to bear in mind the fact that the British constitution is an extraordinarily complex organism that has developed over a long period. The notion that we can take one piece—the House of Lords—and reform it significantly without second and third-order effects on the rest of the constitution is a dangerous one to adopt. I should have thought that such effects were obvious from the Government’s constitutional reforms in Scotland and Wales, the abolition of the office of the Lord Chancellor, the creation of a supreme court and the Human Rights Act 1998. Individually, each seems to be a good idea, but they have left a trail of toxic waste with which we are grappling and with which we will have to deal in future, as those measures have left behind a number of issues that were not dealt with at the time. If we reform the House of Lords so that it is elected or substantially elected, a trail of toxic waste will come through Central Lobby into the Chamber, and we will have to deal with it for a long time to come. No one, not even someone as wise as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), can predict what the second and third-order effects will be. The House of Lords is exactly what we say we want. It is independent; some of its Members have significant expertise; it has limited power; it does not challenge the House of Commons; and all parties are represented, although none of them has a majority. It does almost everything that we want it to do, but it does not satisfy the test—apparently, it must do so—of whether or not it is democratic. We have a solution in search of problem. There is not a problem that has to be solved, but people have provided a solution—the second Chamber is a legislative body, although it does not have very much power, so it ought to be elected—and tried to impose it in circumstances in which it is neither necessary nor appropriate to do so.