Baroness Andrews (Lab)

My Lords, in the interests of institutional memory, I will add a footnote to that. I was very surprised to see the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, as I know his passion for democracy in this House and the way he has pursued it in the Delegated Powers Committee. His explanation was more than welcome. It occurs to me that in the historical palimpsest that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, offered, the one thing he omitted was the report from the Joint Committee of both Houses in 2011-12 on the coalition Bill. Had the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, served on that Joint Committee, it would have taken two weeks rather than 18 months to write our report. We would have had infinitely more fun and would have come to conclusions that were infinitely crisper and more persuasive. In that report, we took exhaustive evidence from the authors of the Bill, from Ministers, from all the usual suspects and beyond, and—I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, takes some comfort from this—we came to exactly the same conclusions as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has about the dysfunctional relationship that would be set up automatically with the House of Commons. As we worked through our list of Ministers giving evidence, it became perfectly clear that none of them had asked themselves those questions about the implications it would have for the House of Commons, its legitimacy, its effectiveness and its relationship with the House of Lords. They had not considered whether there would be constituents who had competing notions of what was right or what would happen if we had different parties in command in the two Houses. It was an exhaustive review and there were differences of opinion—the chair was Lord Richard—but it was conclusive in its recommendations: the House of Commons must think again about the Bill it had been presented. It was the last time that either House looked at this issue in depth with any sophistication. My point is simply—just as the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra and Lord Strathclyde, have said—that this is a constitutional issue of massive significance. It can hardly be dealt with through an amendment to such a narrow Bill on such a narrow point and where, frankly, these amendments have no place anyway. We should be addressing the substance of the Bill. Since the issue has been raised, however, we are right to remember that we had worked out our proper views on the implications of this subject separately in 2012. I wonder what happened to that Bill: why was it ever withdrawn? Unfortunately, the Prime Minister at the time is not in his place; otherwise, we might have been able to get an answer after all these years.