My Lords, before the noble Lord the Leader of the House sits down, may I ask him a question not about who did what when, or whose fault this is, but about the Joint Committee report? A little earlier he said that the Joint Committee supported a mainly elected House of Lords. However, he omitted to say—I will quote from what the Joint Committee actually said—that it agreed that the reformed second Chamber of legislature,
“should have an electoral mandate, provided it has commensurate powers”.
The noble Lord might acknowledge that this is not just about an elected second Chamber. The phrase,
“provided it has commensurate powers”,
is a very important one. I hope he will acknowledge that that is what the Joint Committee said, as opposed to what he omitted to say.