House of Lords Reform

Part of Orders of the Day – in the House of Commons at 5:09 pm on 7 March 2007.

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Photo of Jack Straw Jack Straw Chair, Modernisation of the House of Commons Committee, Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal 5:09, 7 March 2007

No, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me, because I was not really dissenting from him.

May I deal with the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the Liberal Democrat party, and explain why I advise all right hon. and hon. Friends, whatever side of the argument they are on, to vote against it? Under the final motion, we propose

"That this House is of the opinion that the remaining retained places for peers whose membership is based on the hereditary principle should be removed."

We can argue about what will happen once the hereditaries are removed, and the subject will come up in any Bill that is introduced. Some say that we should simply end the by-election system and allow the remaining hereditary peers to sit in the Lords as if they were life peers. I think that there is much merit in that suggestion, but I may be in the minority; others have more radical proposals. The issue will have to be sorted out in cross-party discussions in both this House and the other place. A debate on the subject will take place when the next stage of reform takes place.

The Opposition parties' amendment would add the following words to the end of the motion:

"once elected members have taken their places in a reformed House".

The Opposition parties are wrong to imply, as they do in their amendment—simply through inadvertence, I think—that that was no part of what my noble Friend Lord Irvine of Lairg set out in the House of Lords when he announced the agreement that led to retaining only 92 hereditary Lords. What he said is correctly set out in paragraphs 3.27 and 3.28 of the White Paper. The word "election" is not mentioned at all; the words that he used were

"until the second stage of House of Lords reform has taken place."

For the avoidance of doubt, I spoke to my noble Friend, the former Lord Chancellor, this morning, and he authorised me to say that the passage in the White Paper, at paragraphs 3.27 and 3.28, is a correct summary of the position. He went on to say, and I am authorised to repeat, that what was agreed in 1999 implied no guarantee of any particular stage 2. It was just a guarantee that there would be a legislative stage 2. Before the Front Benchers jump up, the reason for that is that the commitment was made even before the royal commission had reported, and still less before there had been White Papers, Public Administration Committee reports and so on.

We are not seeking to play a trick on hon. Members; we accept that the removal of the hereditaries should take place in the context of a Bill that reflects the views of this House, as expressed in the votes today, the views subsequently expressed by those in the other place, and any agreement that we can reach. As a matter of historical record, it is simply not the case that what was said in the other place was linked to the inclusion of elected Members in the House of Lords.