I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s point, because it was a very good one. A large number of those who spoke in the House of Lords in the debates on the Health and Social Care Bill had a personal, commercial, financial interest in supporting it. I am not questioning any individual, Mr Deputy Speaker, but the system of having expertise in the other House that many people advocate. Often, someone arrives in the other House with a degree of expertise and ends up staying there for another 30 years, which means that their expertise becomes extremely out of date. Furthermore, someone may have phenomenal expertise in medicine, but absolutely no understanding of the armed forces, or vice versa. Appointing people to the House of Lords on the basis of expertise is, I believe, a mistake.
I say to those who say that we need evolution, not revolution, that we have had two revolutions—one of them glorious and one of them perhaps inglorious. It was on the basis of those revolutions that many of the advances that we have had came about. We have had elected peers before. The 16 Scottish representative peers from 1707 to 1963 were elected at every general election. Similarly, the Irish peers were elected for life. We have had a mixed and evolving system. We introduced life peers. In 1963, we allowed women who had a peerage in their own right, suo jure, to sit in the House of Lords. I do not believe that this is the dramatic change that people claim; it is part of the evolution, not a revolution.
There are problems with the Bill, the most important of which was referred to by the hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), who intervened on me but has now left the Chamber. It is the question of powers. I do not believe that the
original version or the present version of clause 2 on the respective powers of the two Houses will meet the day. There is a third way. I do not want the courts to be able to decide on a row between this House and the other House. The best way to proceed would be to have a concordat between the two Houses that forms part of our Standing Orders, which requires that there can be no change in our House without the agreement of the House of Lords and no change in the House of Lords without the agreement of the House of Commons. Perhaps, as one hon. Member suggested earlier, that should rely on a two-thirds majority.
I think that a 15-year term is far too long. Six or nine years might be better, but we can debate that. I will also support 100% election. I say to my Liberal Democrat—I hate to say this word—friends, that I have long campaigned on this matter and I think that there is more likelihood of getting the reform if we have a referendum and if we ensure that the Bill is debated properly, because we are going to have to use the Parliament Act.
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