Member

I am obviously extremely pleased to have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I was grateful for his description of the history of this proposal. My only criticism is that he did not go back far enough: he forgot to refer to the cogent arguments made by the radicals in favour of an elected House of Lords in 1836; however, I will forgive him. He was the first noble Lord to raise the possibility of indirectly elected Members of a reformed House of Lords. My problem with that is, if they come via an intermediate elected body such as the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or local councils, they are members of those bodies, in which case they will not have time to do this job as well; or they are appointed by those bodies, in which case we will be in the same position that we are in now—political patronage deciding the composition of your Lordships’ House, which is not a good idea.