House of Lords Bill [HL]

My noble friend may want an escape hatch at this point. We were being treated to fanciful speculations on his part, way detached from the great majority of his supporters in this House and roaming into the future. Then he was suddenly challenged by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, with his Gladstonian recollections, so there was a competition in fancifulness. Can we not address the substance of the amendments? My noble friend Lord Strathclyde agrees with my noble friend Lord Selsdon that we do not want an appointed House, so they have tabled and spoken to this amendment in order that the proposal may be rejected to avoid their fears being fulfilled. That objective coincides precisely with that of the noble Lord, Lord Steel. We do not seek an all-appointed House. We have all been debating this matter for years and years. The way that this House has developed and is developing even today is incrementally, with broad consent at each step, as it did when life Peers were invented; and as it did when, in a rather complicated way, the bulk of the hereditaries were removed. We have now reached the point when further steps can and should be taken on which there is almost universal agreement. The points set out in the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, have emerged from discussion in committee after committee. Each of them has been supported without difficulty. There is no passionate cry, even from my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, to maintain the pattern for entry of hereditaries to the House. There is no opposition to the proposal to enable Peers to retire. There is no opposition to the House being able to exclude Members. All that is consensual; it is an area where we can make real progress without committing ourselves one way or the other on the further future. We all agree that we do not want the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Selsdon. May we not proceed on that basis by carrying forward discussion on the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Steel?