Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)

My noble friend Lord Caithness is right to point out that the effect of this Bill is to make your Lordships’ House a second Chamber almost entirely nominated by the Prime Minister. I say “almost” because his amendment refers only to the Lords temporal; as noble Lords know, the Lords spiritual come here by a different means. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has reminded us, a small number of Cross-Bench Peers have come in through nomination by the House of Lords Appointments Commission and what was at one time called the “people’s Peers” process. Having served as a political secretary to a former Prime Minister, my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead, I know that even those recommendations made by the independent commission are laid before the Prime Minister. It is at a time of the Prime Minister’s choosing—not the commission’s choosing—when those nominations are made. The rate and regularity with which those nominations can be made is often a cause of some consternation between the commission and the Government. When the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal stands up, she can perhaps say a little bit about that. I think that the noble and learned Baroness, indeed many of us, would be delighted if there were some commitments on codifying that process a bit more formally, or at least a commitment to the number or regularity—