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Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): I thank the Leader of the House for the generous notice that he gave me of his statement which, however, I can only characterise as Laurel and Hardy or perhaps Robin and Derry—"A fine mess you've got us into now". Or, if we wanted a one-word title for the statement, it would have to be "mañana". In April 1997, the Labour party published a manifesto.

It put forward a number of proposals to reform the House of Lords. Among those, it stated:

"This"—

the expulsion of all hereditary peers—

"will be the first stage in a process of reform to make the House of Lords more democratic and representative."

The 1997 manifesto went on:

"A committee of both Houses of Parliament will be appointed to undertake a wide-ranging review of possible further change and then to bring forward proposals for reform."

Things moved on, and Labour's 2001 general election manifesto announced:

"We are committed to completing House of Lords reform, including removal of the remaining hereditary peers, to make it more representative and democratic, while maintaining the House of Commons' traditional primacy. We have given our support to the report and conclusions of the Wakeham Commission, and will seek to implement them in the most effective way possible."

Then, in "Completing the Reform", the White Paper of November 2001, the Prime Minister wrote in his foreword:

"The Government is determined to proceed with this wider reform of the House of Lords. The Royal Commission offered an excellent way forward and the Government has a clear electoral mandate to undertake it. . . A reformed second chamber has an indispensable role to play, and this White Paper prepares the way for its introduction."

In other words, we have waited five years since the original Labour party manifesto pledge, one year since Labour's second manifesto pledge and six months since the Prime Minister's pledge of action. We now we have indefinite postponement.

Nevertheless, I welcome the establishment of the Joint Committee, not least because in January, in response to the consultation, my noble Friend Lord Strathclyde and I stated:

"We therefore call on the government . . . to establish a Joint Committee of both Houses to review further change, including the question of composition, and then bring forward proposals for reform."

My noble Friend said in another place in the debate on the Queen's Speech in June 2001:

"There are huge issues which need to be debated and resolved as we move to create a stronger House: for example, issues relating to the size of the House; what limits to set on that size; how long Peers should stay; how we all get here and so on."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 June 2001; Vol. 626, c. 51.]

We saw clearly some time ago that a joint parliamentary approach would be needed. We therefore welcome the statement from the Leader of the House,

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however belatedly it has been made. I pledge that we will play our full and positive part in the deliberations of the Joint Committee.

May I ask the Leader two rather obvious questions? First, he has outlined what he chooses to call phase 1, which will be a broad look at composition and powers. Will he give me some idea of the time scale for that? For example, will it go well into 2003? Then there is to be consultation of both Houses of Parliament, followed by phase 2, in which there will be detailed examination of the results of the parliamentary deliberations.

Does the Leader of the House envisage that we might run out of parliamentary time in this Parliament before anything further can be done, or can he give me an undertaking now, which will hold more water than the previous undertakings, that the Government believe that they will be in a position to bring forward proposals during this Parliament? It is important that we understand that at this stage of the process.

Secondly, speaking of the consultation of both Houses that is to be undertaken and which I welcome, and the Government's commitment to free votes on the matter, can the Leader tell me what he believes will happen if the two Houses find themselves in conflict? Supposing the House of Commons concluded that there should be a large element of elected Members in the new upper House, and that the House of Lords reached the opposite conclusion—that there should be a small element or no element at all of elected Members. How does the Leader imagine that that would be resolved? Will we go through the loop again? Will it be a "Groundhog Day" procedure, whereby we revisit the issue indefinitely for the rest of our parliamentary lifetime?

Having belatedly announced a Joint Committee, the Leader owes it to us to give a much clearer idea of what is in the Government's mind in terms of time scale and commitment, so that we are not led up yet another garden path to something that lies beyond, but we know not what. So I can only refer to what the Leader of the House said and quote his own words back to him:

"We must not allow a repeat of history in which reform has been delayed because those who wanted it could not agree and therefore left the field to those who opposed it."

Amen to that.

Mr. Cook: The House will recall that, in the last sentence of my statement, I invited hon. Members in all parts of the House to respond as parliamentarians and not as party politicians. The right hon. Gentleman's opening observations fell some way short of that invitation and of the response of the Conservative party in the House of Lords. This afternoon, its Lords spokesman welcomed the statement as an "historic statement" that was "clearly welcome" and a "statesmanlike step". I fear that before right hon. Gentleman speaks about conflict between the two Houses, he should consider the conflict between the Conservative Front Benches in this Chamber and the other place.

The right hon. Gentleman recounted some of the history. Of course, that includes 18 years when his party was in power but never made a proposal for a single elected Member of the second Chamber. It also includes four years in which the Conservatives opposed every

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single proposal that we made for reform of the second Chamber. Indeed, he said at the Dispatch Box that he had no difficulty in defending the hereditary principle for the second Chamber.

Mr. Forth: Correct.

Mr. Cook: He makes that comment, but now he wants us to believe that he is committed to ensuring that 80 per cent. of Members of the second Chamber are elected—a point for which I observe he does not have unanimous support on his Back Benches.

As recently as in the past two weeks, the Conservative party announced in a joint statement made with the Liberal Democrats that a Joint Committee is clearly "the best way forward".

Mr. Forth: No.

Mr. Cook: The statement was signed by his leader in the House of Lords. I do not expect to be thanked for agreeing to what had been called for, but neither do I expect to be savaged for doing so.

The timetable will be primarily in the hands of the members of the Joint Committee, as it should be. There is nothing new to be said about composition. I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman, I and others in the House try to find something new to say about it, but the task is very challenging. I see no reason why a Joint Committee that was appointed now could not quickly move to a decision on the options on which the House should vote.

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I want to see legislation in this Parliament. I believe that what I have spelt out provides us with a route map to secure that objective.

On conflict between the two Houses, the first step is to try to find a way forward and to avoid such conflict. In the event of a disagreement in the vote, it will in the first instance be for the Joint Committee to consider the implications. I am inclined to tell the right hon. Gentleman that I anticipate far less conflict between the Labour Benches in this Chamber and in the House of Lords than I envisage between the Conservative Benches in the Commons and those in the Lords. I remind him that he has a long way to go before he will get Conservative peers to agree to Conservative party policy of 80 per cent. of Members of the House of Lords being elected. In the two days of debate on reform in January, more than half the Tory peers who spoke wanted no elected peers at all. In those circumstances, it is not we who should be worrying about conflict with the House of Lords, but the Conservative party.

Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall): It would be churlish not to congratulate the Leader of the House on his victory in Cabinet against the odds, although I refuse to identify who the odds are. My hon. Friends and I genuinely congratulate him and believe that he is right in saying—he has done so on a number of occasions since the publication of the Select Committee report—that there is a centre of gravity for reform. We believe that it is possible rapidly to make progress in the Joint Committee. I remind him that the suggestion of a Joint Committee goes back to the discussions between his party and mine

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before the 1997 election, to which the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) referred. The idea is not new; it is just rather late in coming.

Will the Leader of the House give us a more precise indication of what timetable the Government would like? Does he recognise that this is already the longest-running Whitehall farce in more than 90 years, and that it is time we wrote the final act? Does he accept that there should be a sunset clause? The Joint Committee should be given a limited life, then disbanded if it is not making progress.

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, once the two Houses have had a free vote on phase 1, it should be possible to put a draft Bill before the Joint Committee so as to make as much progress as possible on a consensual basis?

The right hon. Gentleman said that he intends to try to achieve the reforms in time for the next general election. Will he take this opportunity to dispel the mischievous rumour that the Government believe that it is impossible to take both legislation on House of Lords reform and an anti-hunting Bill through both Houses? That could be a major problem.

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that even if the Joint Committee is permitted to consider transitional arrangements—he says that it will be—it will be extremely important to prevent a hiatus, because otherwise Parliament's job of scrutinising the work of the Government could fall by the wayside?

Finally, there is a dilemma in having a small and manageable Joint Committee and having one that is truly representative. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that it must be of sufficient size to enable parties that are split down the middle—the Conservative party in the other place—to be fully represented?

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