House of Lords Bill [HL]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on introducing the Bill, which is the product of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. I declare an interest as one of its founder members, and I pay my own tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who has worked tirelessly within that group to achieve the cross-party consensus that we see in the Chamber today. It is on the subject of consensus that I want to concentrate, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard of Northwold. One of the most welcome features of Gordon Brown's first few days as Prime Minister has been his stated wish to achieve consensus where possible. I shall give an example. Your Lordships may have seen that, at Prime Minister's Questions nine days ago, he announced the effective abandonment of the super casino policy. He did so in these words: "““It is true to say that this is an issue on which no consensus is found within the two Houses of Parliament””.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/7/07; col. 1438.]" That grants complete legitimacy to the vote by this Chamber to reject the casino order on 28 March. If it is appropriate for government policy to be affected on casinos by consensus, surely on something as fundamental as the future of this House consensus is also desirable. In earlier debates on House of Lords reform, a number of my noble friends speaking from the Front Bench talked about the desirability of proceeding by agreement. The House has made absolutely clear, by huge majorities, what it feels about the composition of this place. The vote for an all-appointed House was carried by 361 to 121 votes on 14 March. That is the Back-Bench view of this House, and it would be an outrage if it were not represented on the new cross-party talks, about which the Leader wrote to us last night. That vote did not say that there should be no change. There is still unfinished business so far as the 1999 reforms are concerned, and the Bill provides an excellent basis for completing that stage of reform. In particular, by removing heredity as a criterion for membership, it implements successive Labour Party general election manifestos. The most recent of those, in 2005, said: "““Labour believes that a reformed Upper Chamber must be effective, legitimate and more representative without challenging the primacy of the House of Commons””." This House's effectiveness is not in question and has not been criticised. As we have heard from other speakers, legitimacy can come in a number of ways, of which election is but one. The statutory appointments commission proposed in the Bill would certainly confer legitimacy. It would in addition be able to ensure that the third aim in the manifesto—a more representative House—could be fulfilled, as the commission would be able to choose Members from all parts of the United Kingdom, achieve an equal balance between men and women, ensure that ethnic minorities are properly represented, guarantee places for people with disabilities, and so on. The Bill is of course not the last word on House of Lords reform, but it is an excellent first step that we must go for. It is one that I believed that the Government were going to support until very recently, and I was very disappointed to learn yesterday that they appear to have changed their mind. I hope that we can persuade them to change their mind back.