Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)

My Lords, I entirely agree, and that is why it is such a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. He is right in identifying the crossroads: either we deal with our primary legislative procedure and make it more effective and efficient—in that I have great sympathy with any Government who want to get on with things—or we find a procedure for dealing with important instruments that subjects them to scrutiny on the Floor of the House, where they can be amended. We are doing far too much in the way of important changes to the law by statutory instrument, rather than by work on the Floor of the House through a proper Bill. But, if you decide that you cannot do anything about the primary legislative procedure, you cannot leave the secondary legislative procedure alone. The hereditary Peers Bill is a very good example of why, if you do not take an opportunity to reform one thing, you end up with something much worse. I urge the Government to look very seriously at this Bill. I cannot agree with the proposal that Clause 2 should not stand part of the Bill. There is quite an important issue at stake. It is impossible, in our present procedure, to get the legislation drafted perfectly when it has not been scrutinised by someone outside it. That is an impossibility. Lawyers will always find things wrong. Although the Minister says that her legislation is perfect, I am afraid I disagree: it is not. It is a little far-fetched to think that, because we have a new Government, the whole machinery of government that drafts all this wakes up in the morning completely transformed. That is not the case. Therefore, there is a need to correct. What is important here, then, is making sure that we are doing this in the right way. Although I am a great believer in conventions, which is what governs the current position—and what is happening on the other side of the Atlantic shows the importance of convention to the operation of our constitution—if we are altering law, the mechanism for altering it, to accord with the rule of law, has to be under a statutory power; we cannot leave it to convention. Therefore, although some people may raise their eyebrows at this clause, I do not see how you can leave that to convention; you must make it a lawful power under legislation. So I regret to say that I cannot support the proposal of the noble Baroness to amend the Bill in this way.