House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, I think that everyone will agree that this has been a very interesting debate. In fact, I have to say that, of all the debates on my Bill, this has been much the most interesting and constructive, because there has been much more agreement on the need for the measures that it proposes than has been exhibited in the past. I do not propose to refer to everybody’s speeches, because, for me, it is not a question of when I get home but whether I get home, and I am anxious to make a move as soon as possible. However, it was quite interesting that, out of the 25 speeches, we had only two which were opposed to the Bill. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, that I have much more sympathy with their arguments than they would suppose, because a perfectly good case can be made out for scrapping the House of Lords as it is and having instead a small senate, on the American pattern, which would then be a complement and a competitor to the House of Commons. But that would mean a rewriting of the conventions on a much larger scale even than we have been contemplating up till now. That circumstance would lead us ever closer towards a written constitution, which I am in favour of, and would mean, I suspect, a resumption of financial powers of that senate, which we do not have at the moment. However, that is a debate for another day. My Bill does not cut across such an eventuality if that is what were decided. The cheerful thing about this debate is that more and more Members have come round to the view that these provisions are necessary and that we would like to explore them further. The debate was greatly enhanced by two quite outstanding maiden speeches, from my noble friend Lord Lothian and the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. Strangely enough, they seemed to dovetail in their approach. My noble friend spoke very wisely about the principles of governance which should direct us, while the noble Lord was very instructive on the history and updating us to what he called a Chamber of ““respected revisers””, a very different view from that put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and my noble friend Lord Trefgarne. The question is how we update our composition and procedures to make that more a reality.