House of Lords Bill [HL]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Steel, has presented an impeccable case for the Bill. I associate myself with his remarks about Sir Patrick Cormack, who is here, and the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. Since we put forward the idea about a year ago they have had an indispensable role in making such progress with it. I also thank my noble friend the Leader of the House for her courtesy. I will refer later to a letter that she circulated to every Member of the House last night. Finally, I thank my noble friend the Chief Whip for his long-standing advice on procedure and in particular for making provision for this full day’s debate today before the Summer Recess. I underline just one point made in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Steel: that the two main planks of the Bill meet not only the great consensus of this House but the consensus of the House of Commons as well. They were in the White Paper and I have heard no one oppose the broad principles. So something peculiar is going on in the doctrine enunciated in yesterday's mini-Statement: the doctrine of unripe time, the doctrine that the Bill could be incompatible with the final solution. We should address that point head on. Yesterday’s Statement refers to the role of the cross-party committee eight times in four pages. That is the group to give us guidance on democracy. The group needs to give us answers to some questions at this stage. I will come to the membership of the group in a moment. It has now lifted the veil on its secret talks for the first time—the first veil. By the way, I have not found any minutes in the Library. I ask my noble friend: is this the beginning of the dance of the seven veils, because the results would be of interest? In particular, may we see the minutes of the discussion that led to the conclusion that the Bill would be a hindrance to what will happen after the election? Was that point raised by the Convenor of the Cross-Benchers? He has a chance to explain that in his speech. Or are such members not really full members but merely ““useful members””, in the terminology that many Members of the House will recognise. What are those involved in opposing the Bill frightened of? For example, why does the statutory Appointments Commission have to wait until after the next general election? It is now very timely to engage the Labour Party and the Conservative Party apparatus in consideration, which would follow the Bill being enacted, of what is required to introduce greater transparency and buy-in by the political parties to these appointments. Or is buy-in by the Labour Party in that way the last thing that Jack Straw wants? The same applies to the 92. Is removal of the causus belli of the 92 something that the Government do not want? Finally, I ask my noble friend the Leader of the House to think again about the membership of the Joint Committee to include Members of this House from the Labour Party and the Conservative Party who are clearly at odds with their field marshal—overwhelmingly so. The other essential request is that the Steel Bill proposals should immediately be made part of the agenda for consideration, so that there will not be just a rubber stamp and an agenda that excludes those questions. I think that I speak for nearly the whole House in saying that we have always tried to be constructive, but there would otherwise be great resentment in the House.