Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I have waited all night to make a small contribution to this debate, so I am glad to have the chance to do it. However, I am somewhat confused. I agreed with the amendment put down by my noble friend Lord Knight, but I did not agree with his arguments. As far as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is concerned, I did not agree with his amendment, but I agreed with his arguments. So I am finding that somewhat confusing. But let me see if I can disentangle it. It is important to debate this matter, because any reform of the House of Commons calls into question the relationship between the two Houses. Clearly, making as dramatic a change as the Government are proposing in this Bill to the House of Commons will call into question the way in which the two Houses can coexist sensibly once the reform has been introduced and proposed. So it is not unreasonable for my noble friend Lord Knight to put forward his amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is concerned that this will kick the whole thing into the long grass. I am bound to say that House of Lords reform has been in the long grass for a long time anyway. I always argued for elections consistently before I was in this House and I still do. But I do not interpret the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Knight as one which necessarily kicks it into the long grass. We can talk about the details, but I do not think that he needs to do that. Having said that the relationship between the two Houses is crucial and that, therefore, any reformed House will have to be looked at in terms of how it relates to the Commons, it is right that we should debate it as regards this Bill. I look forward to the Government’s proposals on Lords reform. They will be in the form of a draft. I hope that we can have them soon in order that we can discuss them and consider them. In the mean time, I want to deal with some of the issues that my noble friend Lord Knight brought into play. I thought that everything was fine when he talked about elections, but I worried a bit about one-third, one-third, one-third, giving a 15-year mandate—non-renewable—because the benefit of an election is accountability. If one is not accountable there is not much point in being elected, as I see it. The worst argument about the Billy Bragg proposals or the mandate is that it gives the political parties a complete stranglehold of the membership of this House. If after every election the membership is adjusted or changed to reflect the popular votes for the Commons, the parties can get rid of all the people who are dissidents or not sycophantic, so not many of us will be left.