House of Lords: Reform

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 9:44 pm on 13 March 2007.

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Photo of Lord Falconer of Thoroton Lord Falconer of Thoroton Secretary of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor 9:44, 13 March 2007

My Lords, noble Lords must form a view on whether people think it would be worth voting representatives to a House such as this that did valuable work such as we do. I think that they would be interested in electing people to a House like this.

The next step is for this House to cast its votes tomorrow. The noble Lord, Lord Cunningham of Felling, asked the Government to listen carefully and take very serious note of the views of this House. We will. Once we have the views of this House, as my right honourable friend the Leader of the House of Commons has said, the cross-party group will be reconvened to discuss the next steps. The point has been very powerfully made by my noble friend Lady Symons of Vernham Dean and the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, that the cross-party group does not necessarily represent the views of the parties as a whole. I cannot give an answer now, but we need to consider what the noble Baroness has said, and I hope that we can give an answer fairly soon.

There has been much to provide encouragement in the past two days' debate for those who wish to find consensus. As my noble friend Lord Whitty said, we must build on the work done by the Cunningham committee in setting out the conventions to see how they would apply and how they would need to be modified for a wholly or largely elected body.

There are various other issues that I do not intend to deal with, because it is getting late and I have been speaking for 26 marvellous moments. In his opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said that this was not the end of a process but the beginning. That is right. Over the coming weeks and months we will work with our colleagues in the other parties to listen to the views of both Houses, to build on the work that we have already done, to consider this important issue further and to try to establish a clear way forward on reform of this House.

The noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, whose excellent report is the key reference work for much of this debate, said that the Government were right to try to seek consensus. I hope that all noble Lords will agree that, whatever the result of tomorrow's votes, we would be right to try to continue to do so. It is for this House to make its voice heard when it votes tomorrow; but when it has done so, then taking those views together with those of the Commons expressed last week, we will have to try to take this issue forward. We will respect the views of the other place and this House in seeking to take this opportunity for reform and improvement. I believe that there is an opportunity here for progress. It is the responsibility of us all to seize it.