Orders of the Day — House of Lords Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 8:11 pm on 1 February 1999.

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Photo of Mr Nick Hawkins Mr Nick Hawkins Conservative, Surrey Heath 8:11, 1 February 1999

If the hon. Lady had been listening to what I said, she would know that I suggested that the hon. Member for Corby listened to the whole of my speech, as we are supposed to listen to one another in the Chamber, and then drew his conclusions. I ask the hon. Lady now to do the same.

I shall quote the words of a former Labour Cabinet Minister to answer some of the points made by the hon. Member for Corby when he poked fun at the upper Chamber. That distinguished former Minister said of the upper Chamber: We think of ourselves as the best here. We're far more intellectual, in fact we're altogether far better, than that lot down there. If you had an elected house, what would you end up with? Second-raters, people who couldn't get into the Commons, MEPs but worse. I am sure that the hon. Member for Corby will want to discuss that matter with Lord Longford because that is the answer to much of what he was saying.

The Leader of the House said in her opening remarks that this Prime Minister was the first voluntarily to give up part of his patronage. However, we appreciate that giving up the power to appoint Cross-Bench peers is yet another tiny sop, yet another bone tossed into the air. The real use of patronage to fill the upper House with Tony's cronies is in the underlying subtext, which says, "We are going to move towards parity in the upper Chamber." That is what academic commentators are concerned about.