House of Lords Bill [HL]

The noble Lord raises an important point. My reading of the Bill and the advice that I have received is that it leaves to the commission the final responsibility for making those appointments. Clearly, when we come to debate this later, we all have to look at that very carefully, because I want to draw a distinction. I have said already that the Government support the principle of a statutory Appointments Commission. We made that clear in the White Paper. I have said that we are considering very carefully the outcome of our debates on this matter. However, there is a fundamental difference between the statutory Appointments Commission discussed in the White Paper and the noble Lord’s proposals. In the White Paper, based on an 80 per cent elected House, the strong consensus was that the Appointments Commission should not make political appointments—that the political Members of the future House would come through the electoral process. The statutory Appointments Commission that the Government support would be focused on non-political appointments. Secondly, at the moment the commission plays no part in assessing the suitability of those who are nominated by the political parties; that is a matter for the parties themselves. Its role is simply to advise the Prime Minister on whether it has any concerns about the propriety of a nominee. My reading of the Bill is that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, is taking us much further forward. In the end, it is for the commission to make the political appointments. This is not a pedantic point; this is a matter of substance which, when we come to Committee, we will need to look at very carefully.