Clegg faces 'battle royal' over Lords reform

Nick Clegg's claim that there was no support for an unelected House of Lords was met with howls of protest during a Commons debate yesterday which exposed splits within both Labour and the Conservatives on the issue.

Introducing the debate on plans to hold the first elections for the Lords in 2015 the deputy prime minister said: "Very few people seriously believe that the status quo—an unelected second Chamber—makes sense in a modern democracy."

The statement was met with a chorus of objections from the many MPs who are very much attached to the status quo. They were further riled by his later claim that "the truth is no one seriously supports the status quo".

The Lib Dem leader said he wanted to see a "steady, ordered and careful" transition to an elected Lords and noted his draft Bill and White Paper were built upon decades of previous reforms.

"We can preserve everything that is good about the other Chamber—expertise, independence and wisdom—but at the same time we can inject democracy into the mix and reform the Lords so that it is fit for modern times," he said.

But several Tory MPs stood to oppose his plans including Edward Leigh who warned that an elected second chamber would create legislative "gridlock" and called for an alliance of the "old left and the old right" to block the reforms.

"It will make it more and more difficult for those on the radical left or the radical right to come up with ideas that will actually get into legislation," he said.

He added: "I very much hope that as this debate proceeds to its final conclusion, there will be a blocking mechanism from the old left and the old right to throw this proposal into the dustbin of history, where I believe it belongs."

However to the surprise of some, his fellow Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, not known as a reformer, advocated a wholly elected House of Lords for precisely that reason.

He told MPs that he believed a lot of legislation that is passed was bad, and wanted to see what happens in the United States, where there is gridlock, replicated in Westminster and "the mad ideas of one politician who happens to be in office for a short time are gummed up".

And it was not just the Tory benches that were divided. Labour's shadow constitutional reform minister Chris Bryant came under fire from backbencher Sir Stuart Bell.

The Middlesbrough MP warned of a "battle royal" over the issue and said that Labour's front bench risked splitting the party if it committed its MPs to supporting an elected upper House.

He said: "If my hon. Friend is telling the House that the Labour party has a commitment that it does not have for a 100 per cent elected Senate, he will split the party. It is as simple as that."

While there was considerable opposition to the plans there were also many voices of support from all sides.

The newly elected Conservative MP for Crawley, Henry Smith, said it was an "anathema" that both Houses of Parliament should not both be democratically elected.

"The ultimate question in a democratic system is, 'Who appoints the representatives?', and the ultimate answer is that only the people should be empowered to do so," he said.

And in a rare backbench intervention David Miliband said he supported the plans and said the country would benefit from a "stronger, more assertive, more legitimate House of Lords".

The elder Miliband also warned Labour MPs against opposing the reforms simply so they could give Clegg a "kicking".

Yesterday's debate followed two days of scrutiny in the Lords itself, where peers lined up to savage the coalition's plans.

Clegg's draft bill will now be scrutinised by a joint committee of MPs and peers before legislation is introduced next year.

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