House of Lords (Members’ Taxation Status) Bill [HL]

My Lords, my noble friend is right, there are still true believers—there is no faith so absurd as not to still attract true believers—but the truth of the proposition that I have advanced speaks for itself. In all probability we shall continue to be an appointed House, so why then do we need this Bill? We need it as a matter of legitimacy. I do not have any difficulty in saying that an appointed House can have legitimacy as a second Chamber to an elected House within a balanced Parliament. Precisely how that is achieved—how it is appointed and so on—is an important matter, but I have no difficulty with the proposition. But the advocates of election have difficulty with that proposition and they try to find examples whereby our legitimacy as a House can be questioned. The fact that people who no longer have, or choose not to have, much or anything to do with this country can pass legislation is indefensible in the way that legislation being effected by people who have expertise and knowledge of this country is defensible. Therefore, by simply buttressing the legitimacy of this House, a Bill such as the one proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, is desirable. I am disappointed that the Government have not enthusiastically embraced the Bill, put it through both Houses with full ministerial backing, and backed-up their own rhetoric, public and private, with action. The reason behind that—I have raised this issue in the House before—lies in the fact that there are people in the Government who grew up when Trotskyism was alive and well in this country and who are in an impossible position on the House of Lords. They want to keep this House, with all its absurdities—of which there are some—in place so that the contradictions in its being are emphasised, thereby advancing the case for electoral reform of the House. That is a position which is both indefensible and immoral. The simplest answer to the issue came from the Public Administration Committee chaired by Tony Wright—another of those who want to see this House elected—which stated: "““The introduction of a fully or largely elected second chamber would render the changes we propose obsolete. But that moment is some years off even at best””." If by common consent of both the reformers and the non-reformers it is, at best, some years off, surely we should do everything we can to get rid of some of the problems that exist with this House. This issue is one problem; the status of the Appointments Commission is another; and the issues covered by the Steel Bill are others. Get those out of the way and then we can get on with a true discussion as to what is the best nature of this House. I am not afraid to have that discussion. But to allow to continue these false obstacles to the way the House is, to defend them or to take no action to get rid of them, is both an immoral and indefensible way in which to proceed. I hope therefore that my noble friend the Minister—although I cannot now hope for his conversion to an appointed House—will announce at least that the Government have been converted to making a good House even better.