HC Deb 07 July 1999 vol 334 cc556-7W
Jackie Ballard

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office if he will list the women's organisations which have been consulted over proposed legislation by his Department during this session; and if their responses have been published. [87273]

Mr. Kilfoyle

The Government is committed to making sure that policies are inclusive and take full account of the needs and experience of all those affected by them. Guidelines on Policy Appraisals for Equal Treatment published in November 1998 commit policy makers to assessing how proposals affect different groups of people.

Application of guidance is the responsibility of individual Departments. Within this Department we are making use of consultation, research projects and desegregated statistics to identify the impact of policy upon women.

The only piece of legislation that this Department is responsible for in the current session is the House of Lords Bill.

Details of our consultation document "Reform of the House of Lords" were published in the Women's National Commission Briefing, which was issued to their 50 full and 33 associate members on 1 April 1999. Some requests for the document were received, but no further representations.

The present under-representation of certain elements of our society within the House of Lords is an issue that needs to be rectified. As a first, self-contained, step we intend to remove the rights of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. We are determined to remove the hereditary peers from the House of Lords because we simply do not accept, as a matter of principle, that in social, economic or, above all, by gender or ethnic origin the hereditary peers can reasonably be considered to be representative of the people of the country. Women are grossly under-represented in the House of Lords; they constitute just 2.5 per cent. of the hereditary peers.

The Royal Commission on the reform of the House of Lords will report back at the end of this year with recommendations for wide-ranging reform of the House of Lords. It will address the role that a fully reformed House should fulfil and it will consider how to bring the best possible range of representatives into the second chamber, whether by direct or indirect election, nomination or a combination of these methods.

A nominated, or partly nominated, chamber has the advantage of widening the possible range of representation. Gender, ethnicity, region, age—all these areas can be represented within a chamber that includes an element of nomination.