House of Lords Bill [HL]

My Lords, I echo the noble Baroness and I hope that the Minister, if his brief currently states the usual claptrap about the White Paper representing an agreed position among all three major parties and pressing ahead with a joint commitment in all party manifestos at the next election, will have the good sense, if not to tear it up, to lose it quietly and find a form of words that indicates that he will go back to his colleagues and say, "Chaps, we’ve got to think again". This place is now overwhelmingly in favour of the Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, has eloquently introduced. The number of serious conversions among those whose views are genuinely held in favour of wholesale election was notable. They recognise that this Bill is urgent and can be dealt with now. The case for postponing anything until we have a major reform would essentially kick the issue into the long grass and nothing will happen for a very long time. If we are honest, the current White Paper is even vaguer than previous White Papers on Lords reform. That says nothing about its possible implementation. With the greatest respect to the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, and without falling into the trap that the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, laid for me, a majority of Conservative MPs in the other place voted against election. I might also add that a majority of Labour MPs voted against 80 per cent election. We must therefore look to—what was it?—the 33:1 chance of the Lib Dems winning the general election if there is to be a majority in the other place in favour of election. It is this Bill or nothing for a very long time, and that is not acceptable. In a year when we are celebrating Darwin’s anniversary, the evolutionary approach has found more favour than ever before, and I echo what my noble friend Lord Grocott said. It is noticeable that with the exception of some hereditaries arguing about the 1999 Act, there has been no objection in principle to any of the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Steel. I should point out that the deal on the 1999 provisions was that the 92 hereditaries who remained would simply go at the end of the second period; I presume that would mean that those who succeeded them by by-election would in fact, under the noble Lord’s provisions, remain in this Chamber as long as their maker wishes them to. The Bill is considerably more generous to the hereditaries than the 1999 Act. I would not go as far as my noble friend Lord Lipsey went in imputing base motives to those in the Government who oppose the Bill, but one cannot resist the conclusion that people who wish for a radically different House will find it easier to convince people, if the goad of hereditary by-elections remains in place, to whip up support against the House of Lords. It would be plumbing new depths in political cynicism if you deliberately inhibited progress in this House towards an improved House simply to gain another objective later on at some point. I should counsel the Government very much against abandoning that course, and they should adopt the Bill.