Lord Blunkett (Lab)

My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lady Taylor on her skill, good humour and patience, not least with me, and I thank our fellow committee members. I actually found myself agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who will speak after me today; I was quite astonished on those occasions and have reflected on them since. Either he was wrong or I was right—one of the two. When I joined the committee, I accepted the terms of reference and therefore the remit, and I will speak in support of that today. The manifesto had two commitments in relation to the House of Lords. One was that there would be a rebalancing regionally of Members of the Lords across the regions and nations. Well, that went for a burton very quickly. The second was this ridiculous sentence, which was clearly discriminatory; I will come to that in a minute. As my noble friend said in opening the debate, the impact was to create a cliff edge of 257 Members going all at once. It was actually a greater number when we started our deliberations. The person who wrote the manifesto pledge clearly did not understand that we do not have fixed-term Parliaments —briefly we did, but no longer. Perhaps the person, reflecting on their social democratic commitments, might have understood that discrimination applies not just to gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity or disability but also to age. I believe that the manifesto commitment was a proxy for incapacity. I say to the noble Lord, Lord True: if we do not wish to adopt the proposals in this report, we need to take that issue very seriously and find ways of dealing with it. Things have changed over the years. Aficionados of PG Wodehouse will remember Lord Emsworth, the owner and overseer of Blandings Castle. This benign, endearing, dithering old fool was only 60. Now, as some of us come towards the age of 80, as the noble Lord, Lord True, has described, we like to think that we have our marbles. To paraphrase St Augustine, “I will retire, Lord, but not just yet”. The advantage of this report is that it provides some certainty. It provides a respect for those who have given their lives and commitment to the House. It allows the House to function appropriately and properly. It also avoids us clashing with the House of Commons. Those who remember Michael Foot and Enoch Powell scuppering previous massive proposals in relation to this House, or even the demise of the Clegg Bill just 15 years ago, will understand why we should try to avoid that like the plague. I do not pretend that I am happy with where we are or that we have had to make these proposals. We should, however, retain some influence over our own future and our reputation, a bulwark against ill thought-through constitutional changes and against those who have no clue what we do or the implications for our constitution—or, by the way, for the operation of the House of Commons. Massive reform of this place requires a complete change in the way in which the House of Commons operates. Reform and modernisation —yes; dislocating our constitution—no. This afternoon we should send a message to ourselves. Let us get our own act together. Let us make this House work better. Let us put aside the nonsense of discrimination, but let us understand that the House of Commons can deal a blow against us in time to come. It would inevitably mean the complete disruption of its own timetable and other priorities, but we have seen over recent years how even the stupidest suggestion can be adopted and pushed through by people who do not know better.