House of Lords Bill [HL]

My Lords, my first duty is to compliment noble Lords on keeping to the stricture of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, about speaking for no more than six minutes. They have done it so wonderfully that I calculate that we three Front-Bench speakers have just over half an hour each to reply. On behalf of my colleagues I thank you all for your self-discipline. The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, both questioned the propriety of the case for reform being put by these Benches. I would claim that no Benches have a greater right to keep the flame of Lords reform alive than these ones. As my noble friend Lord Steel so rightly said in his extremely eloquent introduction, this Bill takes forward a pledge first made nearly 100 years ago by the then Liberal Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith. So, that is a little unfinished business. I assure the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, that there is no hidden agenda. Like so much with the Liberal Democrats, we say what we mean and we mean what we say. If we get the votes at the general election, we will deliver Lords reform. On that we are sure. It may be of interest to noble Lords to know that the 1910 reforms were finally carried when noble Lords gave up the fight on 10 August 1910. One wonders what it was that caused them to go home on that day. But that is the nature of the thing. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Steel for introducing the Bill. He has done a great deal of work backstage to get the kind of cross-party support for this measure that we have heard expressed today. I have to confess that I have changed my mind. I suspected that this measure was the work of what Harold Wilson once described as a tightly knit group of politically motivated men, a few of whom have contributed to the debate today; but, like Keynes, I change my mind as the circumstances change. The challenge of what the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, described as the reputational crisis facing this House dictates that we can no longer play this long. Despite the fact that we have the least heavy legislative programme since 1945 and there is ample time for a Lords reform Bill, the Labour and Conservative parties are not willing to bring forward a reform Bill. Indeed, the way in which the two parties have set out their commitments would put Lords reform occurring somewhere between 2014 and 2020. But given the reputational crisis referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, we will have to be more realistic and look at some of the real issues that could be addressed by this Bill and similar ones. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, that my commitment to Lords reform is as firm as ever, and I do not believe that the Bill will weaken the case for it. I have known the noble Lord for nearly 40 years, and I count him as a very dear and close friend. However, I cannot think of one major issue on which I agree with him. It just shows how friendship can triumph over even the greatest of adversities. The case for reform now is before us. The Bill’s key point, the statutory Appointments Commission, has been dealt with by my noble friend Lord Goodhart. As for hereditary by-elections, we on these Benches were no part of that, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said. I suspect that history will judge that the ever wily Cecil—the then Lord Cranborne—outsmarted that simple Scottish advocate, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, a decade ago. I think that we got help there from the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who said that the Bill is not the betrayal of the hereditaries that has been suggested. Retirement and non-attendance need to be addressed. My only problem, apart from the years themselves clocking up, is that I was always and still am in favour of a retirement age, but last night we had a party to celebrate the 80th birthdays of my noble friends Lord Avebury, Lord Taverne, Lord Rodgers and Lord Tordoff—four of the more active members of my flock. The day before, we had an ever perceptive question from 90 year-old Lord Ezra, and yesterday, in the foreign affairs debate, we had yet another contribution from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe. That makes the idea of a cut-off date a little difficult to justify.