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Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, is he contending that the 92 hereditaries should be removed contrary to the Cranborne agreement, or is he not?

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am. The Cranborne agreement was clearly intended as a temporary expedient.

11.25 p.m.

Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I know that your Lordships will all agree that this has been a debate of the highest quality conducted in great good humour.

The Government will have to agree that their White Paper has not been greeted with unalloyed rapture. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that it received a very moderate "Hello".

The only ray of hope for the Government was underlined by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, in explaining that the sources of disagreement are diverse. They fall, broadly speaking, into three categories. First, those noble Lords who feel that the White Paper is not close enough to the wisdom of the committee of my noble friend Lord Wakeham; secondly, those who feel that there should be no elections at all; and, thirdly, those like many of the colleagues of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, in the Liberal group and some on my own Benches, who believe that we should have a predominantly elected House. That indicates to me that the policy we are now likely to see from the Government will be a ruthless policy of divide and rule. We shall see.

I do not intend to speak for very long. I just want to touch on two areas. First, I want to say something about the shape of your Lordships' House as proposed in the White Paper. Secondly, I want to say something about how we should proceed from this evening.

On the shape of the new Chamber, I am sceptical about the likely effectiveness of a hybrid House. Your Lordships should pay great attention to the speech of my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, who reminded us that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams, said earlier last year that he saw no difference between the legitimacy of an appointed Member and an elected Member. If that is so, what possible argument can there be for elections?

The fact is that if we have elected Members in your Lordships' House side by side with appointed Members, it will be clear that those elected Members will consider, rightly or wrongly, that they have greater legitimacy than the appointed Members. That is likely to destabilise the House. It was significant that, towards the end of his speech, the noble and learned Lord Chancellor, having, at the outset, suggested that this was the second and final stage of the recasting of your Lordships' House, went on to say that there would, perhaps, be another stage in five or 10 years' time. I suggest that if we have a hybrid solution to the

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shape of your Lordships' House, it is inevitable that it will not be the last solution; it is inevitable that your Lordships' House will move on to a different ratio of elected and appointed Members.

That point was well put by my noble friend Lord St John of Fawsley who said yesterday,

"Let us consider the question of an elected or an appointed chamber. There is something to be said for an elected chamber. There is something to be said for an appointed chamber. But for a partly elected, partly appointed chamber which carries within itself a mass of contradictions, there is nothing to be said whatsoever".—[Official Report, 9/1/02; col. 604.]

I wholly endorse that statement of my noble friend.

Secondly, in my submission there is no case for an elected House—by that I mean a wholly elected House, and so I have excluded any hybrid solution—unless there is a significant increase in the powers of your Lordships' House. I can see no argument on the basis of the powers that are contained in the White Paper, or indeed the powers proposed by my noble friend Lord Wakeham, for any elected element in your Lordships' House whatsoever.

On the other hand, if we were to have a wholly elected House, I see no conflict between a wholly elected House of Lords and a wholly elected other place, provided the relative balance of power between those two Houses is clearly stated and clearly understood. So, in other words, if your Lordships' House were to acquire such an increase in powers as to justify a wholly elected House, I would see no difficulty with that being consistent with the supremacy of another place.

I wholly agree with all those of your Lordships who have said that the term of office, whether an appointed term or an elected term, ought to be for a minimum period of 15 years with no chance of re-election or reselection. That point was put so well by a number of your Lordships. I particularly recall that, yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, said:

"It is precisely because they will not be re-elected that they can behave independently. Let us grasp the nettle and recognise that if they were not elected in the first place they might be even more independent".—[Official Report, 9/1/02; col. 580.]

And the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, said:

"To achieve independence on these Benches or within a political party, it is essential that the individuals in question have nothing to fear or to hope for from the powers that be, whether those powers are the Government, the party Whips or an appointed body containing party elements".—[Official Report, 9/1/02; col. 597.]

In that felicitous aphorism,

"nothing to fear or to hope",

the noble Viscount encapsulated the whole debate on the overriding importance of independence rather than accountability in the choice of Members of your Lordships' House, whether elected Peers, elected Members of your Lordships' House, elected senators or appointed senators.

I also wholly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, in what he said about the importance of retaining the power to reject secondary legislation. That is absolutely crucial. Indeed, I would go further and say that there is a very strong case—as I think was

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suggested by my noble friend Lord MacGregor—that there ought to be a power in your Lordships' House to amend delegated legislation.

Those of your Lordships who remember, for example, the Financial Services and Markets Act that went through your Lordships' House—certainly my noble friend Lord Saatchi remembers it as well as I do—containing 420 clauses, will know that it was still essentially a skeleton Bill. The delegated legislation, which is the part of the Act that now really counts, is still going through your Lordships' House and is effectively untouchable. I agree with those of your Lordships who say that the time has come for us to put it to the Government that we need the power to amend delegated legislation.

On the question of the size of the House, many of your Lordships suggested that the House ought to be significantly smaller. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, suggested the smallest number of Peers. I agree with the approach of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford, who suggested that it would be highly desirable for us to stick with the principle of a part-time House if we can. In yesterday's debate, he said:

"Your Lordships need me to be involved in my life in the wider church and community if my contribution here is to be of value".—[Official Report, 9/1/02; col. 586.]

I respectfully endorse that remark. What noble Lords do when they are not in the House is at least as important as what they do when in the House. For that reason, and because the committee work of the House is so important, I agree with the Government that your Lordships' House will require a much higher number of Members than many other upper Houses or second Chambers in other countries.

I share and endorse the views of all those noble Lords who condemned the closed-list system. It is an appalling system and I hope that, where it currently exists, it can be expunged from our constitution in future elections.

There are other matters to which I could refer but I am aware that time is passing and I want to move on to my final concerns, which are about where your Lordships' House should go from here. I share the anger and frustration of those noble Lords who are appalled by the fact that the Government have not put these matters to a Joint Committee of both Houses. My noble friend Lord Jopling was deeply upset—to say that he was outraged is perhaps putting it too strongly—by the fact that the normal conventions about constitutional matters have not been respected by the Government.

Moreover, as many noble Lords have said, the Government have effectively broken their word to the hereditary Peers who departed from this House. From the evidence that I have seen, a clear undertaking was given to the hereditary Peers in the course of the 1999 legislation that the second stage of reform in your Lordships' House would be put to a Joint Committee of both Houses. It appears that the Government have no such intention.

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Moreover, it is not just that the Government are wrong in that regard; they are also being stupid about it. We will never get a solution to this matter until there is consensus between another place and your Lordships' House and between all the political parties. There must be a forum in which those five different institutions can get together to decide on the best way ahead.

Finally and most importantly—this point was eloquently and effectively put by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams—I turn to the issue of powers before composition. It is irrational to decide what the future composition of your Lordships' House would be without knowing what functions and powers it will perform. The issue, as the noble Baroness rightly said, is not about the power of your Lordships' House as against the power of another place, but about the power of Parliament as against the executive. We know that Parliament has fallen a long way behind the executive. Your Lordships' House needs to get together with another place through the Joint Committee to decide just how much power has been lost, how big the gap is and the extent to which that gap must be made up.

There is also the crucial decision about which of the two Houses will make up that gap and how that will be done. The right honourable gentleman, the President of the Council and the Leader of the House of Commons, is confident that the House of Commons will quickly make up the ground that has been lost over the past 40 years. Perhaps we may then, after the meeting of the Joint Committee, say happily, "Well, we have enough power already". Therefore, according to my approach to this problem, we can remain a wholly appointed House.

However, if we reach the conclusion that another place will not increase its power over the executive, then a huge new constitutional burden will fall on the shoulders of your Lordships' House. In those circumstances, I do not see how it can be carried unless we have, excepting the Law Lords and the Bishops, a wholly elected House.

11.40 p.m.

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I listened carefully—indeed, exceptionally carefully—to the graceful way in which the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, developed his themes. In the background I could hear solemn sounds. They came from two sources: first, the rather dull sound of pennies dropping behind him; and, secondly, the gritting of clenched teeth in ashen faces. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships what was said by the official spokesman for the Official Opposition speaking as shadow Lord Chancellor:

"I see no value in a hybrid House".

He then went for temporal as well as spiritual support to the noble Lord, Lord St John of Fawsley, who earlier had trenchantly put his views on that topic to the same effect. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, said, as official spokesman for the Official Opposition:

"I wholly endorse those views".

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Let us pause for a moment to see where that takes us. It means either a wholly appointed or a wholly elected House. For the purposes of posterity and Hansard, the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, is nodding assent. How could he not? If we have a wholly elected House, that means no Bishops.

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