Member

How many of us, as new Members of the Commons, had a clue about the Lords’ powers and conventions? Newly elected Lords senators will not know, nor have any regard for, the conventions I have listed in my Amendment 11A. Let us imagine that we are one of these new male or female young Turk senators with an electorate and a majority twice the size of MPs’, and therefore with twice the moral authority to legislate. If our constituents write to us asking us to vote against the national insurance increase, we say, “We agree entirely, but we can’t vote on that because there’s a convention that we don’t vote on money Bills”. If they want us to amend or vote down a statutory instrument, again we say, “While we are not permitted to amend it, we could vote it down, but the Commons will not like it”. The last time that happened, my noble friend Lord Strathclyde was called in to write a report on the constitutional crisis that that created. That is another convention up with which elected senators will not put.