Sir Ashley Fox

The House of Lords plays an important part in our legislative process. It revises legislation and, just occasionally, causes us in this House to think again. I support reform of the House of Lords, but I want that reform to lead to a better upper Chamber. This Bill does the opposite. In 1999, the Labour party sought to remove all hereditary peers from the House of Lords. To get its legislation through, it struck a compromise with the upper House. That compromise—the Weatherill amendment —enabled 92 hereditary peers to remain until the Government came forward with a comprehensive plan for House of Lords reform. The then Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, said that “a compromise in these terms would guarantee that stage two would take place, because the Government with their great popular majority and their manifesto pledge would not tolerate 10 per cent. of the hereditary peerage remaining for long. But the 10 per cent. will go only when stage two has taken place. So it is a guarantee that it will take place.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 30 March 1999; Vol. 599, c. 207.] Twenty-five years later, the House of Lords is unreformed. Despite winning majorities in 2001 and 2005, the last Labour Government did nothing to bring forward stage two of House of Lords reform.