Lord Bellingham (Con)

My Lords, it is a huge privilege to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, who made some very compelling points. I want to pick up on three points and make a suggestion. First, on this Chamber being overcrowded and everyone being completely under pressure wherever they go, I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Hannan. I come from the other place, where—as the Leader of the House will know only too well—in a Division, there can be up to 600 MPs voting. Even on a really busy Division here, there are never more than about 450, 470 or so. Frankly, when I was an MP, I often had difficulty finding a place in the Library or in the tea room. We do not have that problem here. The idea that that this House is ridiculously overcrowded is a non-starter. It is not the case. I absolutely agree with what the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, mentioned. When those Members turn up here from time to time—but make a huge impact—the House is captivated by what they say. It would be a great shame to lose them by some rule around 10% or 20%. Would it not be better if the House looked at Section 85 of the Local Government Act 1972, which states that if a councillor fails to attend for a period of six months without due cause they can be disqualified? Would that not cover some of our colleagues who never turn up? If that rule was in place, would that not make them turn up? That would be better way of going about it than looking at 10% or 20%. One of the reasons why the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, tabled these amendments was to show—and he made it clear enough—that there are many life Peers who hardly ever turn up and may have a lot to offer but do not take their role very seriously; whereas I am told by the Library that if we applied the 20% rule to hereditary Peers, only two hereditaries would be covered by that. All the other hereditaries have an attendance of more than 20%. None has an attendance of less than 10%. Their attendance record is quite excellent and impressive. Could the Minister comment on that point? As the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, pointed out, we are going to be debating this in Committee for more than four days. We may progress, but, rightly, a lot of different subjects have been covered. We will then have a long time on Report and at Third Reading. Surely there is a compromise that can be found. The Government already know they are going to get rid of the elections. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, that it is very sad that the elections will mean that we will have no more hereditary Peers, but we have conceded that that will happen. If it is about numbers, then surely a deal can be done. Many of the hereditary Peers on our side—there are 40 or so left—have said that they are going to retire anyway. Some of the life Peers, well into their late 80s and early 90s, on our side have said that they would retire. Before you get too far, you find that figure of 40. Surely, we can have a compromise here. It would save everyone a huge amount of time, effort and money.