House of Lords Bill [HL]

Unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, I have always supported an appointed House. I feel rather guilty about not having contributed to the Bill before now, but I have been very much led by my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth and all the work that he has done. I pay enormous tribute to him for that work. He has done a fantastic job in putting forward the case for an appointed House and in pointing out the very serious dangers of an elected one. Having said that, I originally went along with the idea that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, should put forward a Bill on this. At the time—this concept emerged a very long time ago—we were seriously beleaguered. Members on both Front Benches stated that they believed in an elected House and that this was an important thing to have. We then reached the point at which Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, and there was a serious worry that he might want to make some left-wing gesture and start talking about legislation to reform our House with an elected element. Of course, things have changed since then, and quite dramatically. I argue that Mr Gordon Brown must be incredibly in favour of an appointed House. He has filled our House with a whole mass of people: so-called experts from all walks of life. The noble Lord, Lord Myners, was here only a moment ago; sadly, he has just left the Chamber. We would not have his presence and all the wisdom that he brings from the City, if it were not for the fact that he could be appointed to this House. Clearly, Mr Gordon Brown has been converted into believing in an appointed House. I have always had my doubts about my Front Bench on this issue, which I think says one thing and probably believes another. But the last thing I want to do is impute that it is in any way not being straightforward. There are dangers in bringing this Bill forward for the simple reason that it raises these issues all over again. Let us suppose that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, succeeds and gets this Bill into the other place. The chances of it not being amended seem very small and it could be amended in a way that we would all find extremely uncomfortable. I do not support this Bill in principle. In particular, I have started to change my mind on abolishing the election of hereditaries. We are an incredibly old House. The one advantage of electing hereditaries is that it brings younger people into this House, which mainly benefits these Benches. It would be a great pity to abolish electing hereditaries and the average age would go up even further than at present. Those are my reservations. I apologise to the House for taking so long to state my position, but that is where I now stand.