My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I should draw your Lordships’ attention to the membership set down in the Motion. The Committee of Selection proposed 11 nominations for the Joint Committee, as set out in its third report of this Session. Regrettably, one of the members nominated is no longer able to take up his position on the Joint Committee. The Motion therefore proposes an alternative member to complete the committee’s complement of 11 members. The Committee of Selection has been consulted and has raised no objections. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Commons message of 30 April be considered and that a committee of eleven Lords members be appointed to join with the committee appointed by the Commons to consider and report on the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill presented to both Houses on 25 March (Cm 7342-II) and that the committee should report on the draft Bill by 17 July 2008;

That the following members be appointed to the committee:

Lord Armstrong of Ilminster

Lord Campbell of Alloway

Lord Fraser of Carmyllie

Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen

Lord Hart of Chilton

Lord Maclennan of Rogart

Lord Morgan

Lord Norton of Louth

Lord Plant of Highfield

Lord Tyler

Lord Williamson of Horton;

That the committee have power to agree with the committee appointed by the Commons in the appointment of a chairman;

That the committee have power to appoint specialist advisers;

That the committee have power to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom;

That the committee have leave to report from time to time;

That the reports of the committee from time to time shall be printed, regardless of any adjournment of the House;

That the evidence taken by the committee shall, if the committee so wishes, be published; and

That the committee meet with the committee appointed by the Commons today at 4 pm in the Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House.—(The Chairman of Committees.)

My Lords, it is appropriate on this Motion to pay tribute to the former chairman of the predecessor committee, Lord Holme of Cheltenham. I have been asked to do this because for 12 years during my time as leader of the Liberal Party, he was my closest, most senior and trusty adviser. We miss him very much.

He was a great servant of this House. In fact, very few people have made such a wide variety of contributions to public service: the list includes the Independent Television Commission, the Broadcasting Standards Commission, the Hansard Society, Charter 88, the Green Alliance, Greenwich University, Middlesex Polytechnic, Nuffield College, Oxford and the English College in Prague. The list could go on and on. Yet his remarkable contribution to public life was married to a very successful business career. After being my adviser for 12 years, he continued in that role with my noble friend Lord Ashdown. The fact that he survived 20 years of the two of us was testimony to the sheer stamina of Richard Holme. Stamina was part of his characteristic. He used to get up very early and before he came to my office, he would have read all the newspapers. He was pretty useless after 10 pm, but first thing in the morning he was brilliant. Therefore, he was more suited to my noble friend than to me.

Lord Holme fought five elections in his attempt to enter the House of Commons, coming closest at Cheltenham. When I first met him he was fighting a by-election in East Grinstead, just immediately before I was to fight my by-election, which was why I went to help him, and we became close personal friends. What united us? It was a view which he held very strongly that there was no point in beavering away in the Liberal Party alternating between six MPs and 12 MPs, depending on whether it was a good or a bad election, but that one should gather allies and work across party on a range of issues.

That was put into effect during the Lib-Lab agreement with Mr Callaghan’s Government in 1977-78 and, most notably, after the formation of the SDP, with the coming together of the two parties in the alliance. I clearly remember how that happened. Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams, as they were then known, were with me and Richard Holme at the Königswinter conference just after the SDP had been launched. We had a convivial lunch out of doors and, discussing how the two parties might co-operate together, Richard was determined we go further. He seized a paper napkin and wrote down the heads of agreement, which became known as the Königswinter Compact and was, in fact, the beginning of the alliance between the SDP and the Liberals and hence of the Liberal Democrat Party as we know it today. I remember, as he put the paper napkin into his pocket, Shirley rather sweetly saying to him, “Richard, does this mean I have to embrace proportional representation?”. He said, “Well, it is not obligatory but it would help awfully”. And so she did.

To end on a personal note, I remember particularly the help he used to give me every summer, coming up to my house as we discussed the leader’s speech for the annual conference. We had a convivial weekend walking in the hills, discussing current politics. Few people know that he spent some years in his publishing career in the United States and he campaigned very strongly for the Democratic Party. When I go this summer to Denver for the Democratic Convention, it will be my sixth Democratic Convention but the first without Richard. It will not be the same.

On Question, Motion agreed to, and a message was sent to the Commons.