I take the right hon. Gentleman's point.

We must aspire to legitimacy and that means democracy. If that word is missing from future dispositions, White Papers and other indicators of Government intention--what will appear in the manifestos of the various parties on that subject is also a litmus test--we must regard the entire process as suspect. We can expect that the House of Lords, in whatever form it is devised, will lose popular support and ineluctably wither away as an effective part of our constitution. As someone who believes in the distribution of power, I believe that that would be a pity.