House of Lords (Amendment) Bill [HL]

My Lords, the wisdom and propriety of a Private Member’s Bill being used to effect the final and full reform of this House, which we were promised in 1999 would eventually happen, are very questionable. This is a grave constitutional matter, and as such I think it is quite wrong thatit should be resolved by a Private Member's Bill, particularly one having its Second Reading on a Friday afternoon, when most noble Lords have gone home for the weekend. It should be resolved only by a government Bill, introduced in prime time, the contents of which should have been arrived at by all-party consensus. If it is not done in such a manner, what guarantee will anyone have that it will be accepted by the Government, the opposition parties and the country as stage 2 of the reform which was started in 1999? For that reason alone I am totally opposed to the Bill. Even Part 1, which could have created an Appointments Commission truly independent of Prime Ministerial patronage, signally fails to do so. Far too much power is vested in the House of Commons, which has no idea at all of the qualities necessary for a Member of this House, and apparently this House is to have no say at all. That is only one small fault; I can assure your Lordships that there are plenty of others. As far as I am concerned, and I am wearing my hat as a hereditary Peer, Part 2 is not acceptable. The 92 hereditary Peers are supposed to remain here, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, explained, until the completion of stage 2 of House of Lords reform, which started in 1999. That was stated on 11 May 1999 at the Dispatch Box by the then Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, who said: "““I make it absolutely plain that stage two reform will take place, and when it does the hereditary Peers who remain, if the Weatherill amendment passes, will cease to be Members of this House””." Later in the same column, he said: "““The 10 per cent will go when stage two has taken place,and their presence is a guarantee that stage two will take place””.—[Official Report, 11/5/1999; col. 1092.]" That was confirmed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, on 13 March this year: "““The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, reminds us that we agreed to the keeping of the hereditaries until stage 2 was in place … We agreed that in the White Paper and stand by it””.—[Official Report, 13/03/07; col. 722.]" What guarantee have we that, if this Bill were to receive Royal Assent, the Government, or anyone else, would be satisfied that the reforms embodied in it constituted stage 2? Absolutely none. In that case we, the hereditary Peers, would no longer be here as such, to be a thorn in the Government's flesh, a sort of politically incorrect gadfly to torment them by our very existence, an existence they had a manifesto commitment to terminate. Much is continually said about the ludicrousness of the Peers' elections, and I cannot deny that; but the principal thing that is ludicrous about them is that the electorate is made up only of hereditary Peers, so that in the case of Labour and Liberal Democrat elections you have two or three Peers voting for many more candidates. That would be simply remedied by making the electorate all the Peers in the relevant party, which, with hindsight, is what I now believe it should always have been. Other matters could also be tweaked and improved. But when stage 2 really has been enacted and comes into force, the 92 should go because that was the agreement. If all or any of them are offered life baronies by the Government, it will be up to them as individuals whether to accept them. I have said before, and I say again, that for any of us hereditary Peers to be party to abolishing the elections sticks in my gullet. It is tantamount to saying to our erstwhile colleagues, who were so meanly and cavalierly sacked in 1999 and whose only hope of either getting back themselves or of their heirs’ doing so is to be elected, ““I'm alright Jack, and you can go to the devil””. Turning to another part of the Bill, it is a pity to be so sanctimonious about Peers who have served jail sentences sitting in this House. They have paid their forfeit and should be allowed back into the game. I can think of one, the late Lord Kagan, who was born Lithuanian, whose knowledge of what we used to call the ““Russian steamroller”” and its ways was invaluable in debates about defence, although he was very diffident and it took a lot of persuasion to make him speak.