My hon. Friend is exactly right. As my noble Friend Lord Forsyth put it, what would be the point of electing these people if not to give them more power? Exactly the same thing as has happened in the US will happen here. I refer my colleagues and Members across the House to Lord Pannick’s brilliant memorandum on the issue, which has been published this afternoon. Lord Pannick is widely regarded as one of the most excellent lawyers and advocates of his generation, and is specifically expert in the Parliament Acts. He is also precisely the kind of person who would never be willing to stand for election to a new Senate. In his words:
“The Bill does not adequately address the central issue of constitutional concern: the fact that a House of Lords most of whose members will be elected will almost certainly be much more assertive than the unelected House of Lords and reluctant to give way.”
Lord Pannick states that the Parliament Acts
“only relate to the end of the legislative process, and not the day-to-day conventions which (at present) result in the Lords giving way to the Commons. Indeed, the Parliament Acts do not apply at all to Bills introduced in the House of Lords or to subordinate legislation.
The crucial question is this: should the Bill seek to regulate all these matters, or leave them to convention? If it leaves them to convention, then the result will be disputes between the two competing chambers. If it regulates these issues, then the result will be that relations between the chambers become justiciable in law, as they did over the Hunting Act, which went all the way to the Supreme Court.”