House of Lords Reform Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

No one doubts the commitment and pu...

rose—

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I should like to make a little progress.

The House of Lords is an institution that offers i...

In his preamble to the draft Bill, the Deputy Prime Minister wrote:

“The House of Lords per...

I think that it is both flawed in theory, because of its lack of democratic legitimacy, and flawe...

rose—

I shall make a little progress before giving way again.

Under our proposals, 80% of Members...

A moment ago, the Deputy Prime Minister said that one of the functions of the House of Lords was ...

All legislation, whether it originates here or in the other place, of course requires the support...

My intervention was prompted by the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement of the principle that those...

In answer to the hon. Gentleman, I would say that there is neither accountability nor legitimacy ...

rose—

I shall make a little more progress, if I may.

The Bill, by creating a more legitimate Hous...

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. The Blair Government were defeated four...

It will be able to discharge that considerable authority with greater legitimacy, and therefore i...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I shall make some more progress.

The third reason to support the Bill is simple practicalit...

rose—

I will give way in a minute, if I may make this point.

Right now, we have an upper Chamber ...

Order. I apologise for interrupting the Deputy Prime Minister. There is a permanent cacophony in ...

The point that I was making, then I shall give way, is that the status quo is unsustainable. The ...

If, for whatever reason, the Deputy Prime Minister is unsuccessful in getting the White Paper thr...

I am making the case for the Government’s Bill. I am not going to make predictions about a vote t...

rose—

I will give way shortly.

The first solution would bring the total down by a handful, potent...

I entirely agree with the Deputy Prime Minister that the people need to be part of the process an...

I think that a referendum is not justified in this instance, for the following reasons: first, un...

Has my right hon. Friend seen the Bill in the name of his right hon. Friend Lord Steel, the House...

Of course I have examined that Bill and discussed it with Lord Steel extensively. Any reasonable ...

rose—

I will make a little more headway, and then of course I will give way.

Democracy, better la...

Does the Deputy Prime Minister not see that there is a degree of inconsistency between his view t...

One of the Bill’s intentions is absolutely not to neuter the House of Commons, but to work in par...

Many of us who have sympathy with the need to reform the other place are still deeply concerned a...

I think that it is preferable to their being there, making the laws of the land and never being p...

rose—

If I could just make some progress—[Hon. Members: “Give way!”] Yes, of course I give way.

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend, but will he cease to quote Churchill on these matters...

Of course I will always refer to the views of Winston Churchill with a great deal of respect, but...

Will the Deputy Prime Minister cease also to say that the Labour party has supported reform of th...

If the Labour party’s views have evolved over the past 100 years, which in this matter, if not in...

Will the Deputy Prime Minister give way?

I shall make a little more progress, if I may.

In 2007, the Commons voted overwhelmingly fo...

rose—

rose—

I shall make a little more headway.

A Joint Committee of both Houses spent nine months cons...

The Deputy Prime Minister is making an articulate case for a position to which he holds with grea...

I know that the hon. Gentleman holds his views, although different from mine, with great sincerit...

Will the Deputy Prime Minister give way?

If I can make a little more progress, I will give way.

Of course, this does not mean that e...

The Deputy Prime Minister knows that I support reform and have done for a very long time, but the...

I would be intrigued if the hon. Gentleman could tell me—if not now, afterwards —exactly how many...

rose—

rose—

I will make a little more progress and then give way again.

First, let me take the myths in...

rose—

I will give way later.

The additional costs attached to running a reformed House of Lords—w...

How can the Deputy Prime Minister justify not holding a referendum on these proposals when a refe...

The reason is that the electoral system that votes Members to this House is a matter on which the...

rose—

rose—

rose—

I will make a little more progress and then give way again.

I have heard Lords reform prese...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

May I first deal with this important point? The hon. Lady has raised it with me personally on a n...

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. It happens that he has just hit on the very poin...

Following that logic, the commitment to a referendum on House of Lords reform should have been in...

It was in ours.

I know, but it was not in the manifestos of two of the three main parties.

The second point...

rose—

I will give way in a minute, if I may make progress on this point.

I am not surprised by th...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I will just deal with the issue of primacy. Although questions of primacy are important and must ...

If we may go back to myths for a second, one myth is that it is an important principle to the rig...

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the European Commission has no right to adopt legislation. If he app...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

If I may, I will make progress on the issue of primacy.

To ensure that there is a rock-soli...

The Deputy Prime Minister has referred on a number of occasions to the Joint Committee on which I...

I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman for his work on the Joint Committee. As I hope he knows...

rose—

I will give way in a moment, but I want to make a couple of points.

A separate but related ...

If this reform goes through, 189 will be people who never managed to become MPs.

What the hon. Gentleman misses is that the Bill will in fact make space in Parliament for a diffe...

Order. The right hon. Gentleman must be heard. All this noise just slows up the proceedings. A lo...

What we are doing is what the Joint Committee itself recommended. The Government not only accepte...

rose—

I am answering the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh).

The Lords should be a place for...

The Deputy Prime Minister has spoken a great deal about the Joint Committee and his respect for i...

I will not repeat the reasons why I believe a referendum would be unjustified, expensive and a hu...

rose—

May I just make this point? I have been very generous, and I will take more interventions in a mo...

Does my right hon. Friend not think that people watching this debate will be bemused? Back in 201...

I agree with my hon. Friend that, given all the other major challenges that our country faces—par...

The Deputy Prime Minister has referred repeatedly to democratic accountability. Why, then, does h...

Both coalition parties agreed in the coalition agreement that elections to the House of Lords sho...

Will the Deputy Prime Minister consider an amendment to the programme motion that I have tabled t...

I welcome the hon. Lady’s support, hoarsely delivered as it was—she has a cough. It is crucial to...

The Deputy Prime Minister spoke earlier of the need to reform the other place to make it fit for ...

We can have precisely that debate and a multitude of others on the detail of the Bill as long as ...

rose—

Many hon. Members want to make their views known, so I should like to conclude my remarks. I have...

I am pleased to be here to debate these important constitutional changes. I admit that while the ...

I have a simple question. The right hon. Gentleman says he needs more time to look at the Bill an...

I shall give the hon. Gentleman a simple answer: wait and hear!

Rather than working with us...

rose—

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can tell me.

Rather than the right hon. Gentleman asking me questions, I would like to ask him one. How will t...

I will answer the question myself. On the Third Reading of the Bill abolishing 90% of hereditary ...

The right hon. Gentleman talks about creating a consensus across the Chamber about Lords reform, ...

The hon. Gentleman is right that the reforms, if carried through, will replace the House of Lords...

The right hon. Gentleman’s manifesto at the last election stated:

“To begin the task of bui...

It very much is. Unlike the hon. Gentleman’s coalition partners, we keep our promises.

The right hon. Gentleman said that he required time to consider the Bill. How long does he requir...

We are in favour of reform. I will come to the issue of timing in a moment.

I note from his...

Having sat on the Joint Committee for eight months, I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentlema...

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She reminds us that there are still a number of major...

Will my right hon. Friend explain why it is good enough to have a referendum when we are electing...

I heard the Deputy Prime Minister desperately trying to answer that question, but on four or five...

Did my hon. Friend notice that in answering one of his colleagues earlier, the Deputy Prime Minis...

It is worse than that. The Joint Committee did not even examine the type of voting system that is...

Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the semi-open list system was exactly the system that ...

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm two things: first, that the Joint Committee stopped sitting in No...

rose—

The Bill—

He wanted me to respond, Mr Speaker.

The Bill recognises that conventions may evolve, and assumes this will happen of its own accord d...

The shadow Secretary of State is making a powerful speech. He refers to the Government’s Bill. Is...

It is not for me to get involved in private family grief.

It is simply not clear how any di...

I should appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s comments on the function of this apparent second H...

The hon. Lady raises one of the issues that need to be resolved.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

The hon. Gentleman has been very patient, so I will give way to him.

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his statesmanlike address. He seeks credi...

I am not sure whether I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. He seems to be suggesting that we ...

Does my hon. Friend feel as uncomfortable as I do when listening to the Liberal Democrats lecturi...

I am always uncomfortable when listening to Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament.

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

I will give way once more.

My right hon. Friend is making some very good points. I have been in the House for long enough to...

My hon. Friend highlights one of the problems of a list system. That is one of the reasons why we...

I was a little confused by the right hon. Gentleman’s criticism of the open list system. One of t...

The Minister is wrong to suggest that the Joint Committee had an opportunity to consider the syst...

The right hon. Gentleman asked whether the Joint Committee had considered the issue of open lists...

I thank the hon. Gentleman for helping me out by confirming that the clause was not considered by...

In answer to an intervention from the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), the ...

It is worrying that the Deputy Prime Minister has today decided to pull a rabbit out of the hat b...

The right hon. Gentleman has discussed the problem with having different types of peers in the ne...

The draft Bill advocated the Prime Minister having the power to appoint Ministers, who would be m...

I thank my right hon. Friend for making public the historic levels of indecision on the Liberal D...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: 15 years non-renewable hardly leads to accountability.

...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I need to make some progress; I have been speaking for quite a while.

What is the best way ...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I want to make some progress.

The fact is that, under these proposals, by 2015, let alone 2...

The right hon. Gentleman has not stinted from personal criticism of my right hon. Friend the Depu...

I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman is talking about his coalition partners. [Interrupti...

Order. Liberal Democrat Members should not be yelling at the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon....

indicated dissent.

Well, perhaps he thinks he is a statesman already, and he should behave accordingly. Let us hear ...

I have already told the House what the Deputy Leader of the House thought a few months before he ...

rose—

Let me refer to the manifesto on which the hon. Gentleman stood and won in 2010. In a section on ...

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. One problem is that when we debate importan...

On a number of occasions, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister have said that they will u...

My right hon. Friend has made a point in his effective speech of referring to the previous Govern...

I apologise for correcting my right hon. Friend, but in fact there were nine days of debate, not ...

Does my right hon. Friend understand that if he is not prepared to say how long a programme motio...

I thank the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee for his helpful words. It ...

rose—

I have already allowed the hon. Gentleman and others to intervene—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Of course...

Let me make it absolutely plain: we have tried to speak to the Opposition at all times during the...

It will be for others to draw what conclusions they want to from those crocodile tears.

As ...

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. It is indeed the case that since 2...

As somebody who was involved in the boundary changes Bill, I can say that that was not the case.<...

The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 made a substantial parliamentary chan...

It is worth reminding the House what happened: MPs from Wales did not get a chance to discuss the...

Does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that this is not just any Bill? The Bill brings about f...

I heard Lib Dem Members chuntering while the hon. Lady, who sits on the Political and Constitutio...

rose—

Order. The six-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches now applies.

4.57 pm

In the modern history of parliamentary reform, there have been a number of noble milestones: the ...

There are no hereditaries in Germany.

By all means, let us get rid of the hereditaries. That can be done extremely easily, by a very sm...

Is not the reason the Bill fails so miserably that it reflects an obsession with the form rather ...

My hon. Friend is right and he brings me to my next point, which is that if the Deputy Prime Mini...

I am greatly appreciating, as, I am sure, are all Members, the brilliance of my right hon. and le...

Yes, but what worries me is the prospect of ending up with a party list system which, as we know ...

rose—

I take no pleasure in not being able to support the Government and the coalition, in which I am a...

I regret to have to differ in this matter from my Front-Bench colleague, for whom I have the utmo...

rose—

I am very short of time.

I completely agree that further reform is both necessary and desir...

In 1970 I had the privilege of sitting on the steps of the throne in the other place to listen to...

If I understand the hon. Gentleman’s argument correctly, he is now saying that, because Members o...

Let me come to that point in a moment, because it is a critical part of the argument.

The s...

The hon. Gentleman is making a very interesting speech, but some people who support the Bill say ...

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. For my own part, I have been consisten...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I have given way twice, and that is it, so for the avoidance of doubt I will do so no more.