Sir Edward Leigh

Well, here we are again. The House of Commons and the House of Lords love debating reform of the Lords—we have been doing it for over 120 years. But we have made a bit of progress: at least, after all this time, we seem finally to have killed off the idea that the House of Lords should be elected. That is a great step forward, and I congratulate the Minister on his wisdom in realising that that would just replicate the sort of system that they have in Washington and make it virtually impossible to have coherent government. I say well done; I think that we should give credit where it is due. The poor old Liberals have been dreaming about reform with elections for 100 years, but I am afraid that it is not going to happen. I will, though, take issue with the Minister for being a bit cruel about the Conservative party when he accused us of having been relentlessly negative for all these years. He seems to have forgotten that in the 1920s—we have heard about 1924—the Conservative party led the debate on making the House of Lords a genuine Parliament of the Commonwealth, and very innovative ideas were coming out of the Conservative party. He blames the Conservatives for endlessly blocking reform, but it was actually the unholy alliance of Michael Foot and Enoch Powell during the Wilson years that blocked the last real attempt at House of Lords reform.