It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy). I am sure he will accept that I do not agree with the entirety of his speech, but he made it in his usual moderate and thoughtful way.
The right hon. Gentleman leads me to my first point. It is often said that the House of Commons is at its best when it is discussing huge constitutional issues. I tend to differ with that view. I believe that we are at our very worst, because we look inwards on ourselves and talk about the effect of a change on this or that party or on us as a political class, instead of facing outwards and considering what the wider public care about.
I should start by stating my own position. Like the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) and several others, I am a unicameralist. There are examples both in the UK and abroad that show us how a unicameral legislative system can work effectively and efficiently.
The upper Chamber, the House of Lords, is historically anachronistic. Several Members have gone into great detail about that, but we need only to read primitive children’s history books to understand why it is the case. Even in its current state, there is an anomaly: it contains hereditary peers alongside those who are appointed. That is not a satisfactory way to structure a legislature.
I accept that, as has been said, there are Members of the House of Lords who bring to bear their knowledge and experience, which is often reflected in the quality of the debates that take place there. That in itself is not sufficient for it to continue in its present form, but it has to be said that that is the case.
I have to accept that there is not a majority in this House that agrees with me about the abolition of the House of Lords. On the basis that turkeys never vote for Christmas, there most certainly would not be such a majority in the other place. Nevertheless, reform runs logically counter to the views of anybody who, like me, believes in abolition.
It has been said repeatedly, not least by the Deputy Prime Minister, that all three parties—the two in the coalition and my own party—referred to reform of the House of Lords in their manifestos. That is true, but I doubt whether many right hon. and hon. Members put it in their election addresses. I can say with absolute certainty that it was not an issue that was discussed
in Knowsley at the last general election, or any other. Nevertheless, it was in all three parties’ manifestos, and I believe that we need to make some progress on it. However, this Bill is not the way to do that.
I will not go into great detail about all that is wrong with the Bill, because time forbids. However, the 15-year term offends any sense of accountability whatever. It is beyond my wildest imagination how anybody who is elected for a 15-year term, with a rule that they cannot stand again, can in any way be considered accountable.
As we know from the European elections, the partly closed, partly open regional list system hardly sets the world on fire. The turnout that those elections manage to attract is pitiful, and in my region, the north-west, there is the unintended consequence that members of the British National party end up getting elected.
I return to where I started. On such issues, we need not to look in on ourselves but to look out at what the wider public think. The only way that we can do justice to that aspiration, which I hope others share, is to have a referendum on the subject. If we are to change the second Chamber, we should do so on the basis that we have public support, not just the support of the political classes. I hope that at some point in the proceedings, if the Bill gets that far, we will have an opportunity to vote for an amendment stating that there should be a referendum on it.
7.55 pm