Mark Harper is touring the broadcast studios at the moment making the case for the coalition’s Lords reform bill. Being Nick Clegg’s Conservative deputy is not an easy job. But there is something particularly disingenuous about one of the arguments that Harper is using.
Harper said On Sunday, as Conservative Home reported, that:
‘It’s been Conservative policy to have a mainly elected House of Lords since 1999. I stood on the last three elections on that manifesto and the Coalition Agreement does no more than ask both the Coalition parties to deliver what was in both of our manifestos’.
What this ignores is that in 2007, Harper voted against a fully elected Lords, an 80% elected Lords, and a 60 percent elected Lords.
This makes it a bit rich for Harper to call on Tory MPs to stand by this manifesto commitment. This is especially true as the Tory manifesto certainly wasn’t proposing electing Lords for one fifteen year term on a PR list system.
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