Part of House of Lords Reform Bill – in the House of Commons at 4:19 pm on 9 July 2012.
The hon. Gentleman is right that the reforms, if carried through, will replace the House of Lords as we know it now. However, I will come to the semantics of the words “abolish” or “replace” in a moment.
It is fair to say that Labour would have liked to go much further. On occasion we tried to achieve much more, but we were held back. Our decision to proceed only with cross-party consensus acted as a restraint on the pace of reform. Proposals floated by Labour ran into fierce opposition. Despite healthy general election majorities, Labour did not seek to impose our wholesale reforms on a divided House of Commons. It is ironic that this has left us open to criticism by the Deputy Prime Minister—and, I hear, the Chancellor—for not doing enough during our years in government.
The House of Lords Reform Bill was first published on