Lord Strathclyde (Con)

My Lords, on Second Reading of this Bill, many, many months ago now—indeed, more than a year ago—I said that this was a nasty little Bill. I thought that, over the next few months, it would be improved. Sadly, it is still a nasty little Bill. History will relate that this was a wasted opportunity. There is no substantial reform and no clear thought about the role of your Lordships’ House. It has all been for no purpose—no real reform and no promise of even a nod towards a democratic House, which many of us have wanted to see over many years. In fact, the Bill offers no improvement whatever in the governance of our country. It does, though, suit those, particularly on the other side of the House and in another place, who simply wanted to see a purge. Like my noble friend, Lord True, I wholly accept the mandate given at the last election to end the ability of hereditary Peers to sit in this House, but that did not give the Government an excuse simply to remove people who have served this House over many years simply by the whim and the shake of a manifesto. Expelling the hereditary Peers, who could not be replaced by a by-election, is vicious and unnecessary. I very much welcome the appointment of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on the Liberal Benches. We have heard nothing about the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate. Many of us who hold him in very high regard hope soon to do so. I welcome the compromise that has been done so that Members from the Conservative Party and the Cross Benches will still be able to serve, although I understand that some of the finer details of that still need to be done. I very much welcome, therefore, what the noble Baroness the Leader of the House said on that, but I hope, like many others have done tonight, that we will pause for a moment at this extraordinary moment when, after nearly 800 years in which hereditary Peers have served in this House, that process today comes to an end, if we pass this law, which assuredly we will do. They came here purely by chance—an accident of birth—to choose to serve and to do that duty. I regret that they have had little thanks for that tonight. In 1999, at the last Blairite purge, I called the then Bill a scar on the face of history. I am afraid to say that that scar has not healed, and I fear that, as a result of this Bill, it never will.