House of Lords Reform

The debate is about whether a repeat election would challenge the primacy of the House of Commons and give Members of the other place a legitimacy that went beyond what the Chamber wanted to give them, and that was what the royal commission considered. That was the key reason Lord Wakeham and his colleagues proposed a single term, with a quarantine period at the end to deter anyone from using membership of the second Chamber as a platform to campaign to become a Member of Parliament. All three main parties are committed to a more substantial reform of the second Chamber. All of them want an elected element, and there is no reason why, tomorrow, we cannot agree on the basis for moving that reform forward. I urge those hon. Members who were not present today to read Hansard and to consider the many thoughtful contributions made today. I urge them to attend the debate tomorrow and make sure that they absorb the further points made then. We did not do ourselves credit the last time we attempted reform, although I accept that hon. Members who got the result that they wanted—that is, no change—were pleased with the end result. However, not even they took any comfort from the process, and the way in which it was undertaken, which was no credit to us. I put it no more strongly than that.