House of Lords Bill [HL]

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Lea, has surprised a lot of people, but I am grateful to him for his kindness towards me. I turn to the amendment of my noble friend Lord Selsdon. The effect of the Bill before us is exactly as he said; it is to create an all-appointed House. It is fascinating how the views of some people who have come to this House have changed since 1997. I remember very well in government being chastised on more than one occasion by my Secretaries of State and other senior members of the Cabinet, some of who are up here now, for having lost Divisions. "Why can’t we win Divisions?", they had asked. "This is my legislation and the House of Lords, that unelected Chamber, is defeating my legislation. We are not doing the right thing from the Conservative Party point of view". There is another group of Peers who have come in since 1999 and who in the past had been great potential reformers of the House, seeing changing it as one of the great things that they could do when they got into it. Is it not fascinating how both those two groups of people have come together to support an appointed House as if, now that they are here, the House is infinitely better than it was pre-1997? That is why my noble friend Lord Selsdon has got his amendment absolutely right. Alas, I cannot support it because, being the second hereditary Peer speaking in this debate, I want an elected Chamber. I want the appointed Peers to go—I would be delighted to see you all go, as I would be delighted to see the hereditaries go. Let us have a fully elected Chamber. I wish the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, good speed with the proposals that have come before us, which in due course will come forth. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, intrigued me when he asked, "Why is it that the Government can only do one thing at a time?". It was not so long ago—in fact, it was the other day—when the noble Lord or another member of his party complained that the Government were introducing too much legislation. Well, perhaps it just suited the argument at the time for him to say that. I turn to Amendment A1 from the noble Lord, Lord Steel. I distrust the amendment; I am highly suspicious of it, because of its timing. In principle, I support having a purpose clause in a piece of legislation—but the timing of it. We have debated this Bill before, yet on the night before we are to debate it in Committee this amendment is tabled. A lot of the Members of the House would not have been aware of it. Why was not this done at Second Reading? Why was the noble Lord not more open with us? Why has he sneakily put it in as a starred amendment? It makes me extremely suspicious, and I find that as he is unable to reply to the questions put to him by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, I remain continually suspicious about his motives. I think he is one of those who are chameleons on this matter; he says with one voice that he wants an elected House but, now that he is here, he would be perfectly happy to remain in an appointed House. I turn to Amendment A1B and the House of Lords hereditary Peers by-elections. I cannot support that; I shall go into it in much more length when we get to my amendment, but it is a matter of supreme principle to me and loyalty to those of my friends and colleagues who were brutally removed in 1999. The noble Baroness, Lady Jay, rather surprised me when she said that she was now in favour of incremental reform; she certainly was not in favour of incremental reform in 1997, when she wielded the axe with devastating effect. If she had been more incremental then—