House of Lords Reform

In a debate in this place on 1 February 1999, I made it perfectly clear that I was in favour of unicameral legislature. If Members are interested, they can read columns 646 to 650 of the Official Report of that date. Things have moved on since then, however, and now I am considering how I should vote on the options. I have agonised over the question. I am a natural democrat so I want everything to be elected. However, I need to consider the question of the primacy of this House—a term that has been used umpteen times in today’s debate. I have news for right hon. and hon. Members: primacy has moved on. No longer does the House of Lords threaten the primacy of the House of Commons; the threat is from the overweening power of the Executive. That is what we should be debating. Unless we deal with that, discussion of the second Chamber is almost irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that at present the Executive increasingly control the House of Commons. We all know that after every Second Reading there is a programme motion. I have voted for most of the programme motions—after all, I cannot vote against my Government all the time, so I give them a little concession here and there. The fact is that Committee and Report stages in this House are tightly controlled. The House of Lords spends far more time considering legislation. How long do we debate a Bill on Report? The answer is a day, perhaps only for about six hours. At the end of that time, some amendments have not even been reached or debated, let alone voted on. They go to the House of Lords and, on occasions, Report can take as many as 11 days. That tells us an awful lot about what we need to do in the House of Commons.