Member

Returning to the basic issue, we have to do that, because this House as reformed by this Bill will be a House with no adequate protections against the use of patronage. I may be a Cassandra—her prophesies were not believed, although they often turned out to be true—but in removing the shielding screen of the easily criticised hereditary peerage, it will lay bare the stark question of by what right those of us who sit here as life Peers do so? Who appoints us, to whom are we accountable and by what right should we stay? Those questions will inevitably be asked, and that is why we need the kind of protective reflection on improving the situation in this House that follows on from the Bill which has been adumbrated by the Minister and asked for by others.