House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

2nd reading
Friday 3rd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

That is a question of public appointment, as we know, and there is some controversy about public appointments—but we have approaches to them. Making the committee on public appointments also a statutory body is perhaps also something that we need to do when we have a Prime Minister who is not, in the terms of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, a “good chap”.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, we already have an Appointments Commission for the Cross Benches.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I thank the noble Earl. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, that we should then move towards a partially elected House, at least, or perhaps even an indirectly elected House. That is the direction of travel in which we need to go.

We all know that the second Chamber does valuable work. I say to the Minister: yesterday, I was checking how long the House of Commons had spent scrutinising the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill. It was just under two hours for Committee, Report and Third Reading. We ought to give that a little more scrutiny, and that is what this House is here for and does very well, as we all know.

My plea to the Minister is: I hope that he will imitate the example of the noble Lord, Lord Young, and do his best to stretch his brief. We all know that it will say that the Government are opposed to piecemeal reform, the time is not ripe and this needs further consideration. It is clear that this debate has been quite different from that of some years ago. Even in this House, the mood is changing. We will come towards taking this step within the next five to 10 years, and perhaps he might even suggest that it could be in the next Conservative manifesto. Therefore, I look forward to what the Minister will say, and I hope that he will give us a little encouragement at the very least—as far as his brief will allow it—and that we take this forward.