Lord Hacking (Lab)

My Lords, it is great fun following the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie. I stand before your Lordships as a very rare species: I am a hereditary Labour Peer. There are only four of us altogether, and I am a bit more rare because I am the only Labour hereditary Peer speaking in this debate. More than that, I have more experience than other noble Lords, except for the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, who has enormous experience in House of Lords reform. Indeed, shortly before I joined this House, in the first Wilson Government, there was a serious attempt to reform the House of Lords. It was defeated by an unholy alliance between Michael Foot on one side and Enoch Powell on the other. I then experienced the 1999 Lords Bill—but I had better be careful because at the height of the debates I came into the House with an enormous black eye. The rumour was that I had been duffed by an angry hereditary Peer for disloyalty towards other hereditary Peers. It has always been my position that, as we are the mother of Parliaments worldwide, we should not have in our membership those who have got here by accident of birth, including myself. Clearly all of us hereditary Peers must go, whatever fine contribution we are making. My noble friend the Privy Seal has invited us to provide comment about reform. My answer to that is twofold. First, there should be in place a House commission with full, unrestricted powers for the choice of new Members. Secondly, we should be an appointed House, not an elected one. The basic problem with an elected House—I know I am disagreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Newby—is that there will be two elected Houses in Parliament, and that is a constitutional problem. In the legislation there may be great attempts to fetter the electoral powers of this House but we will still be an elected Chamber, and there will still be a serious risk of a constitutional clash between the two Houses of Parliament. That will bring about the inevitable problems that, as our constitution is structured, we will be ill-equipped to handle. The United States of America has two Houses, each of electoral power, but there is a President in the United States of America who can try to find a solution between them. We have a constitutional monarch, and we do not want to bring a constitutional monarch into a constitutional crisis. That brings me to the end of my speech. Having rather a reputation of going over time, I hope my Whips will note that I have gone under time.