Britain has had a long tradition of gradually changing its constitutional arrangements, rather than going for an overnight revolution. It is a tradition that reflects the strength of our political establishment, but it is also a tradition that means that change generally happens slowly. It has taken us 101 years to reach this point in the House of Lords debate, but we now have a Bill before Parliament that is supported by the Government, along with commitments in the manifestos of the three main parties, to conclude the work that our predecessors began, with the Parliament Act 1911, in reforming the House of Lords.
I appreciate that I am probably in a very small minority on the Government Benches; nevertheless, I welcome the Bill. I acknowledge and accept that it is a compromise, but in many respects that is inevitable. There are probably 650 views of what a reformed House of Lords should look like, but at some point we just have to allow for compromise. The Bill therefore reflects the many attempts over the last 20 years to reform the House of Lords—both from this place and the other place—and it addresses what are, for me, the two key issues of reform: the principle of democratic legitimacy and the issue of practicality. As a simple matter of principle, I believe it right and proper to reform the House of Lords. The present arrangements are, in my view, indefensible. Lords membership at present is based on piety, patronage and privilege. A country that calls itself a democracy in the 21st century should not have a key part of its political system based on such criteria.