I urge the Leader of the House to drop the daft idea of the 15-year term. He should consider the amendments that would prevent people elected to the other place from being allowed to serve as Ministers. If we are to have an elected other place, that provision would make it much more like the US Senate. People would serve in the upper House who were interested not in becoming Ministers but in holding the Executive to account.
Those are the sort of people whom we need. My good friend the late Eric Forth was interested in going to an elected place for precisely that reason. In many conversations he told me that he had no more interest in being a Minister, but that he wanted to hold the Executive to account.
House of Lords Reform
Proceeding contribution from
Edward Leigh
(Conservative)
in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 6 March 2007.
It occurred during Debate on House of Lords Reform.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
457 c1457
Session
2006-07
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2023-12-15 12:19:37 +0000
URI
http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_383695
In Indexing
http://indexing.parliament.uk/Content/Edit/1?uri=http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_383695
In Solr
https://search.parliament.uk/claw/solr/?id=http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_383695