Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I have a couple of minutes to reply on my amendment. The whole House should be indebted to the Minister for the patient way in which he sat through the whole of this afternoon and evening and responded generously to all the points that have been made. I shall first deal with the part of Part 5 that deals with retirement. I was a bit concerned by the wind-up speech from the Opposition Front Bench. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, made a slip of the tongue when she declared that Part 5 has no part in the Bill because, as the Minister said, that is totally contrary to what Mr Dominic Grieve said in the House of Commons on behalf of the Conservative Party, which appeared to be backed up by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, when he spoke at the beginning. I did not mention this in my opening speech, but I remind the House that in the Commons an amendment was tabled that provided that the retirement provision should include a reference to a five-year delay before any Member retiring from the Lords could stand for election to the Commons. That was one of the many amendments that were not reached; however, it was spoken to by Dominic Grieve and implicitly endorsed by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, and my noble friend Lord Goodhart. I hope that the Government will accept that amendment so that the Conservative Party will feel able to support the retirement provision. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, for whom I have enormous respect, that it really does not do to go back to the years when it was a largely hereditary House of 900 people who came in when they felt like it. The House has changed completely since then. We have all accepted appointments as life Peers. Under the Bill, we will be able to retire if we do not want to come any more, but basically we are expected to do a job of work. We expect to have some reasonable facilities in the Lords and to receive all the papers. All of that will continue for people who may want to retire and it is only right that that provision should be made. Secondly, on the question of hereditary by-elections, I have come to the conclusion that the noble Lord, Lord Denham, and I are both right. I am correct that the by-election provision was not in the Bill when the undertaking was given, but he may well be right that it was implicit in what was going to happen when the legislation went through. I do not know—I was not party to those discussions—but I do remember that at the time when the hereditary Peers were being retained there was a thought that they might all be given life peerages. If that had happened, of course, there would have been no by-elections. The Government are not removing the hereditary Peers but, as the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, and other hereditary Peers have said, we have now moved way beyond the time when it was considered necessary to keep the by-elections going. They are now in their 10th or 11th year and they really are not sustainable. For that reason, it is right that they should go. My last point is on the statutory Appointments Commission. The Minister gave me exactly the reply that I anticipated, word for word. The noble Lord, Lord Lea, was right to ask when we are going to see an elected Chamber; with the best will in the world, it will not be for many years. I noticed that every Member who spoke on the subject of the statutory commission supported it. We have had 100 per cent support for this provision and it is a great pity that it is not in the Bill. I now come to the question of whether we should have a vote on this. My noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury keeps passing me notes saying that if we press it to a vote we will win. I should point out to him, rather rudely, that just because he has not been here for four years there is no reason why I should provide him with exercise. To be realistic, the section on the Appointments Commission as drafted in the Bill presented by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and me, contained nine clauses. If this was a normal Bill going through to a normal Committee stage, I would be tempted to press the amendment to a Division. However, it will be in the wash-up—and we cannot seriously expect nine new clauses to be entered into the Bill in the course of wash-up. It would be pointless. We have made our point. The Government have heard what the House has said. It is quite clear that we wish to have a statutory Appointments Commission. I hope that in the next Parliament we will get one. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment to the Motion withdrawn. Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.