House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, that is a significant point, although in the end the numbers count as well. The matter is one for Committee. I would also appreciate the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on Clause 1, which ensures that only the commission can make recommendations to the Crown for the appointment of new life Peers. Will he clarify whether, when it comes to party leaders’ appointments, he expects the commission to be able to choose from the nominees put forward by the party leaders, or whether it will simply accept the number of names on the list that it has asked for. I note that in Clause 9 the commission has to satisfy itself about the procedures to be followed by the party leaders. I have some reservations about what is essentially a quango, however august, having to look into the procedures of the political parties. I have concerns about the consequences, but that is more a matter for Committee than it is in terms of the principles of the Bill. I turn to the most important matter—the relationship between the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the committee on Lords reform chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister. I detected in the initial words of the noble Lord that he thinks that the Government's timetable might be slipping and he therefore argues that there is a strong case for passing his Bill in the interim. I suspect that the interim period could be anything from two to 200 years. Will the noble Baroness say what the current timetable is? When do the Government expect to bring forward a substantive Bill following pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Select Committee of both Houses? Does she believe that it is the Government’s intention to seek consensus with your Lordships' House after they publish a draft Bill or are they prepared to use the Parliament Acts? What is Her Majesty's Government’s intention on the transitional arrangements? Is she prepared to give a definitive definition of what ““grandfathering”” actually means? Finally, can she assure me that powers will be looked at by the Deputy Prime Minister’s group? I am pro-reform and have consistently voted for an elected House, but I am convinced that the powers of an elected Chamber will need to be codified. My noble friends Lord Brooke and Lord Wills made that point. I am convinced that the House’s current notional powers will have to be reduced if primacy is to be retained by the House of Commons. Under a mostly or wholly elected second Chamber, the current conventions will not hold for one moment because they are constraints voluntarily adopted by a House that understands itself to lack the legitimacy of election. It is abundantly clear that an elected House will not operate within those conventions. I believe that my party was also unrealistic on this matter, but simply to maintain that an elected House can live alongside the voluntary conventions we have is impractical and, in the end, it is dishonest about what an elected House will achieve in future. We will be interested in the Minister’s response to the noble Lord, Lord Steel. For our part, we wish the noble Lord well and look forward to debating this Bill in Committee on many Fridays to come.