Clegg ready for Commons reform update

Speaking at the Hay Festival in Mid Wales yesterday, Mr Clegg said he would detail some of the early developments in his "menu" to change the political system.

He told the audience his Commoms speech would cover "early progress on the big building blocks in the constitutional reform agenda which is extraordinarily ambitious.

"Reforming the House of Lords has been talked about for one hundred years and we are absolutely determined to do something about it this time.

"Looking at boundaries, looking at the electoral system through a referendum, regulating lobbying, looking at party funding. This is a huge, huge menu," he added.

Mr Clegg also told the audience there must be "a presumption of disclosure" with regards to the Chilcot Inquiry and its openness would be the key to determining its legitimacy.

He said: "The battle that needs to be fought is to make sure in the final Chilcot report the presumption is towards real, meaningful, thorough disclosure.

"The acid test for the Chilcot Inquiry for its legitimacy and cathartic value, for a country still trying to grapple to come to terms in the way that we did, is it needs to be fully open.

"I know for a fact they have sought to have access to far more documents that they thought and the challenge is to make sure there is real disclosure when they publish their findings.

"There needs to be a presumption of disclosure."

When asked if this was a view shared by his Tory colleagues, Mr Clegg said "I'm sure everybody agrees. This is not a game between politicians.

"What is really important is Chilcot does what it was supposed to do, which is make sure everyone understands how the decision was reached so that we can learn lessons and make sure we never again have a government hell-bent on going to war and able to bamboozle Parliament and the British people.

"That must never happen again," he said.