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Sir Nicholas Lyell (North-East Bedfordshire): The hon. Gentleman is focusing on an important point. He suggests that few Members of the other place would not be among those to be made life peers after the change proposed by the Bill. However, if he considers the list of Members of the House of Lords--Conservative, Labour and Cross-Bencher--who play a role in Committee or in debate that is significant because it relates to their own area of expertise, he will find that that amounts to about 200 hereditary Members of the upper House. Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that that many are likely to be created life peers? Does he not recognise that the contribution of all those who are not created life peers will be lost?

Mr. Hancock: The right hon. and learned Gentleman defends the indefensible, as did the hon. Member for South Staffordshire, who failed miserably to convince the Committee. There is no credibility in that argument. If the political system in this place and the other place cannot come up with the right calibre of person who has the relevant expertise and commitment to the job in the period between the first stage being agreed and implemented and the second stage being seen through, that does no credit to the colleagues of the right hon. and learned Gentleman or to any of the other parties.

I am sure that those Members who are selected to continue to serve will be selected from those who have the relevant expertise. However, we cannot always have everyone whom we want, and my mind goes back to the point made by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Twigg). Like him, I was somewhat bewildered. I sensed that the hon. Member for South Staffordshire would move on to what happens in this place. I was a Member in the 1980s when I lost my seat by a couple of hundred votes. I was very disappointed. I believed that, during my three years here, I had put together a certain amount of expertise. I would have welcomed the opportunity to be allowed back to say so. However, I rightly accepted that I had to go on to do other things. The expertise that I put together was as much a loss to

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the House as it was to the constituents who ceased to have me as their Member of Parliament. Nevertheless, we must live with that. That is the harsh reality of political life.

Mr. Wells: The hon. Gentleman's constituents decided that.

Mr. Hancock: The hon. Gentleman says that from a sedentary position but the fact is that the electorate has put me back. The same constituents have re-elected me. The fact that they gave me a 10-year sabbatical might have been for my benefit, to enable me to gain even more expertise to do a better job in the House of Commons. The process certainly led me to believe that the system works. It is a deliverable system. However, I did not like being denied the opportunity to come to this place.

Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield): Is it not the position that the hon. Gentleman was sent to the House originally to represent a constituency? He lost the power to represent that constituency by the will of the electors and was removed. However, that is not the situation that pertains in the other place. All those who are there are asked to attend to represent themselves because of a purported status, whether it be hereditary or because of a particular expertise. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman's arguments do not work.

Mr. Hancock: That is a very good point. There is this thing about representation. I was convinced that the hon. Member for South Staffordshire, who is very good with words, had used the wrong word when he talked about hereditary peers representing people. They have not been representing anyone. It appears that they were not representing a party on most occasions. They were simply representing themselves.

We surely do not believe that there are experts outside this place and the House of Lords who could not help us in some way. Time and again, we find a way to enable that expertise to be used in Select Committees. They happens whenever they meet. They bring outside expertise into the House. They offer experts outside the opportunity to share their expertise with Members of this place and the House of Lords. Having done so, they move on, or return to their role in life outside Parliament.

If we are talking about representation, let us soon have a place that is wholly representative so that the people can feel that they elect Members of this place and of the second Chamber. I am bitterly disappointed that we are going through a staging process, and that is why I hope that the Committee will defeat the amendment.

My mind returns to when the hon. Member for South Staffordshire talked about--

Sir Patrick Cormack: We shall go through the staging process, as the hon. Gentleman calls it, with or without the amendment. We shall not go straight to stage 2. It was always the Conservative party's argument that the Government should decide what it wanted to replace the House of Lords with, should tell the House of Commons and should then get on with it. They have not done that and so we must go through the interim stage. There is no alternative.

Mr. Hancock: I accept that entirely. However, I am disappointed that we must go through a staging process.

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I would have much preferred the big bang. I supported the view that was expressed by many hon. Members on Second Reading, and I certainly shared their disappointment. It was not beyond the wit of the House or that of the Government to produce proposals to achieve what we had in mind. I am sure that the overwhelming majority of the British people would have supported that move. However, according to some hon. Members, having to have a staged process is not a reason to deprive Members of the House of Lords, who will not be able to vote, of the opportunity to participate in debates.

Mr. Wells: Is not the hon. Gentleman overlooking a very important point? The amendment is an attempt to improve the interim House which may, like many things in British life, be far from temporary or interim. It may be almost permanent and last 50, 60 or 70 years. Therefore, it is important to have the quality in the interim House to carry us through, if needs be.

5 pm

Mr. Hancock: I hope that the hon. Gentleman's suggestion does not come to fruition. I rather like the glint in the eye of the Leader of the House, which suggests that 50 years might be a tad of an exaggeration for the staging process. Most of us hope that we will resolve those issues in the lifetime of this Parliament and that, certainly by the start of the next Parliament, we will be well on our way to having two democratic, truly representative Houses representing the people of this country. Anything short of that will, in my opinion, be seen as failure. If we are to have a staging process, we have to make the best of what we have.

Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): Does my hon. Friend find slightly offensive, as I do, the imputation from certain Conservative Members that quality is a synonym for hereditary peers and that quality can be achieved only by accident of birth? I reject that notion entirely--it is quite unfounded. I suspect that the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) would not welcome any person off the street on to his Select Committee, to leaven the discussion and to provide that independence. Why does he apply that principle to hereditary Members of the House of Lords?

Mr. Hancock: I could not agree more with my hon. Friend's intervention; it says a lot in respect of the presentation that we have heard on Second Reading and in Committee. Anyone outside the House who read the amendments would think that some sort of surreal pantomime was taking place here--

The Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office (Mr. Paddy Tipping): One is taking place.

Mr. Hancock: Yes, and others might argue that we are beyond satire today. What some hon. Members are trying to perpetuate is unbelievable and script writers outside the House would have been hard pushed to come up with the sort of amendment that we are considering. It represents mind-bogglingly cynical contempt for what the overwhelming majority of the British people want. They want change.

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I want to deal with the second amendment and the suggestion that some demon lurking behind a large Government majority would try to prolong--

Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because I want him to elaborate a little on the point that he made a moment ago as if it were uncontentious. He said that the overwhelming majority of the British people want change in this area. What is the basis for that assertion and what evidence does he have? As far as I am aware, the latest opinion poll evidence shows that reform of the House of Lords hardly appears at all on people's list of priorities.

Mr. Hancock: I agree entirely that reform of the House of Lords does not feature high on people's agenda, but when they are asked specifically whether they want change, the overwhelming majority say yes. I am elected to this place to represent people's views. I look at my mailbag, and people are not reluctant to tell me what to vote for and what to vote against. I have not received a single letter suggesting that I should vote against the changes that we are considering, but I have received letters from people who welcome them.

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