House of Lords Reform (Draft Bill)

Viscount Thurso Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his modest progress. The plain fact is that an unelected Lords is an illegitimate Lords, and that weakens the Lords and weakens Parliament as a whole. An elected Lords is a strong Lords, and that strengthens Parliament as a whole. Does my right hon. Friend not find it faintly ridiculous that after 13 years of abject failure, the dinosaurs over there are only interested in feather-bedding the dinosaurs upstairs?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks, and I agree that the notion that somehow more democracy can weaken a legislature would strike most people outside this Chamber as an extraordinarily peculiar argument.