Speeches by Dowden.

“The risk is taking away something that has formed part of the fabric of our constitution. The role of those two officeholders has been essential to the role of the Crown, and preventing them from fully playing their part in the House of Lords may have unintended consequences that are deleterious to the interests of the…”

“I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman grows into a sturdy oak, like all the great oaks on the Benches behind me. There is a path to be followed to achieve that. Many people may well enter the House with pre-existing views, and that is of course the basis on which many of them were elected, but my argument is that we…”

“I doubt I have much chance of joining the next shadow Cabinet. This is my swansong rather than my audition. I have set out the reasons I oppose the Bill—it is rushed and we have not considered the wider consequences.”

“The Labour party was in power for 11 years after the 1999 changes. It completely failed to undertake this reform, and that was for a reason. We have a delicate and complex unwritten constitution of checks and balances, of principles and conventions, and when one starts to pick away at some of them, one realises the con…”

“I will give way in a moment. I shall prove my point. Before the election, Labour sources admitted that “we’re going to need to appoint a dozen peers on day one to do big junior ministerial jobs that the MPs shadowing them aren’t up to doing.” In 1999, Lord Strathclyde, the then shadow Leader of the Lords, presciently w…”

“The purpose of the 1999 compromise was to ensure that we did not remove hereditary peers without considering the wider consequences. That is precisely my concern with the approach being pursued by the Government. This meagre Bill is not motivated by considered and enlightened principle. Labour wants to remove the indep…”

“I will make some more progress and then I will give way. In 1999, the reforms recognised the challenge. In this July’s King’s Speech background brief, the Labour Government asserted that the continued presence of excepted peers is “by accident”. That is simply not true. In 1999, Labour’s Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, t…”

“I will make some progress, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will give way. We should not be surprised that the Labour Government have only introduced this short Bill because they have no clear plans for wider Lords reform. In 2022, the Prime Minister endorsed Gordon Brown’s plans for an assembly of the nations an…”

“The Paymaster General knows how much I respect conventions, but that is ultimately a matter for the other Chamber.”

“Well—”

“I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that the reforms were introduced in 1999. By my calculation, the Labour party was in power for another 11 years and did precisely nothing further. I will come to this point in a moment, but the reason the hereditaries remained in the House of Lords in 1999 was to ensure that all these…”

“I will give way first to the hon. Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) and then to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell).”

“I will make some progress and then I will give way. In 1999, Baroness Jay, the then Leader of the House of Lords, said that a partly reformed Lords with only excepted hereditaries remaining would be “more legitimate, because its members have earned their places” and would have more authority. That was termed the Jay do…”

“I am strongly of the view that we should consider all these things in the round. There is merit here—that is why we are proposing a reasoned amendment—but the risk of proceeding in a rushed fashion is that we come to regret it, as we have on many previous occasions.”

“I will make some progress and then I will give way. Instead of proceeding with caution, the Government have done precisely the opposite. The Bill has had no pre-legislative scrutiny, no Joint Committee and no cross-party engagement. Indeed, Labour Ministers have explicitly refused to consult on the removal of excepted …”

“I begin by welcoming the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to his position. I know that he will be supported by a brilliant team of civil servants who are truly dedicated to public service. As we saw in module 1 of the covid inquiry report last week, biological threats pose potentially catastrophic risks to our nati…”

“I welcome that answer and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words. An effective strategy must be underpinned by dedicated resources, which is why one of my final acts in the Cabinet Office was to announce that we would ringfence biological security spending across Government. Will he uphold that commitment,…”

“May I begin by welcoming the hon. Lady to her role and thanking her for advance sight of the statement? In that role I know she will be supported by a dedicated team of civil servants, who represent the very best of public service. I have no doubt that they will serve her as well as they did me. The hon. Lady will be a…”