Lord Lucas (Con)

My Lords, I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, that we are extremely unlikely to see any further opportunity of Lords reform in the lifetime of this Government. It would be the first Government that had ever managed to achieve that in my 35 years in this House, and I do not see why the rules should have changed again, so it is really important that we get the discussion done now and move things forward a bit. I like the amendment in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, very much. It has the virtue of creating a big change at the end of a Parliament, just when you need a big change so that you can alter the balance of the House a bit and bring in Ministers. In my experience of this place, I think that 20 years is the right time; 15 years feels too short. It takes a good long while to embed yourself, and then one does have a decent, useful life after that, so 20 years feels better to me. I agree with the noble Viscount that we should go for a proper way of remunerating Members of this House. The sooner that pensionable, taxable remuneration comes in, the better. There is no excuse for the current system. I can comfort the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes: if she ever feels powerful in this place, she will be immensely lucky. We are like waves breaking on the rocks of the seashore. Most of the time, we just bounce off. Occasionally, we manage to shift a grain of sand, and very occasionally, somehow, we all come together and shuffle a rock down the slope and into the deep, as with the unlamented Schools Bill in the last Parliament, or as my noble friend Lady Owen has achieved with her ambitions in this Parliament.