The Earl of Dundee (Con)

My Lords, no doubt there are two different ways of furthering a democratic mandate for the House of Lords. One is, as we have heard, through a directly elected House, maybe following a referendum on that principle, as advocated by my noble friend Lord Blencathra in Amendment 11B, and perhaps including a partially or fully directly elected House of 200 Peers with constituencies, as proposed by my noble friend Lord Brady of Altrincham in his Amendment 90D. The other solution is advocated in a later amendment, Amendment 75, to which the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, and my noble friend Lord Trenchard have already referred. This is through an electoral college, representative of all parts of the United Kingdom and responsible for indirectly electing two-thirds, or 400, political and temporal Members of a reformed House of 600, where one-third, or 200, Members are non-political Cross-Benchers directly appointed by a statutory appointments commission. It can be strongly argued that this is a much better formula for three reasons. First, it avoids conflict with another place, which direct elections to a reformed House of Lords would lead to, as my noble friend Lord Blencathra eloquently pointed out. Secondly, it is far more likely to preserve our current high standard of legislative and government scrutiny. Thus, thirdly, through this quality function, to which my noble friend Lord Tugendhat has just referred, it would thereby be better in preserving and improving democracy itself in the United Kingdom.