Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)

My Lords, I will respond from these Benches to these three amendments, which all seek to hold the Government to their manifesto commitment to deliver “immediate”—that was the word used—reform of the House of Lords. I mentioned that commitment in my Second Reading speech on this Bill. I can be brief this evening as the essential points have been made by, in particular, the three noble Lords who tabled these amendments. We have heard much of the Government’s plans, and there has been much talk in these debates of the importance of punctuation in the Government’s manifesto, but the central point on these amendments is this: the Government ought to give the Committee reassurance that the wider reform will come and, importantly, that it will come soon. When the House of Lords Reform Act 1999 was passed, the Government claimed that the compromise as to some hereditary Peers remaining in your Lordships’ House would act as an encouragement to the Government to complete their reform of the House. However, we are now more than two decades on and still the Government have not brought forward to this House—as opposed to a few sentences in a manifesto—anything approaching proper reform. The obvious question is: why? The Government often say that, if we seek to change everything, we run the risk of changing nothing, but the truth is, as we all know, that legislative time is precious. In SW1, the most valuable commodity is parliamentary time on the Floor of a House. We have seen Governments fail to deliver second-stage reform before, so why would it be different this time? As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, rightly pointed out, the noises off—if we can call them that—are not encouraging at all. Therefore, I completely understand the concerns of the noble Baroness and noble Lords who have brought these amendments. We should reasonably expect the Government to give the Committee a much clearer sense of when, in their already busy legislative timetable, they intend to bring forward the next stage of reform. This House, on this issue, is very much once bitten, twice shy. I look forward to hearing from the Leader of the House on this important issue. I hope that she can be more definite than saying, “At some time in this Parliament”.