Interim Report: Leader's Group on Members Leaving the House
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Lord Strathclyde
That this House takes note of the Interim Report from the Leader’s Group on Members leaving the House (HL Paper 48).
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, I am delighted to open this short debate today on the interim report of the Leader’s Group, which was chaired admirably by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral. The group was established in July with the terms of reference,
“to identify options for allowing members to leave the House of Lords permanently”.
The group has consulted widely and today’s debate provides a further opportunity for consultation. I look forward this afternoon to hearing the views of those noble Lords who will be speaking and I am sure that other noble Lords who read the official record will write in with their views.
We should begin by rehearsing the context of today’s debate. Over some time, there have been comments by a number of noble Lords that they would like to find a way to leave the House, although not usually to surrender their title at the same time. In every Session since 2007, such comments have distilled around the House of Lords Reform Bill, a Private Member’s Bill first introduced as far back as 2007 by my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood. We have the inestimable pleasure of the Bill’s resurrection once again this Session. Although my noble friend is not down to speak in today’s debate, we have only to wait until 3 December when the Second Reading of the Bill is scheduled.
Lord Steel of Aikwood
The noble Lord does not need to wait until 3 December. I remind him that, in the days before we were locked together in unholy matrimony, as Leader of the Opposition he opposed my Bill, which included primary legislation on this very subject that is now recommended by the Hunt committee. Can I look forward to his support the week after next?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I say again what a pity it is that we will not hear the noble Lord’s full speech this afternoon. The luxury of being in opposition was that I could make these decisions on my own. As a member of the Cabinet there is a process to undergo, but I shall let him know well before 3 December whether the Government will support his Bill on this occasion. That was the first point of context—the debates that we had on my noble friend’s Bill.
The second point of context is that a system of leaving the House has existed since 1958 under the leave of absence scheme. When the scheme was introduced, Lord Home predicted that some hundreds of Peers would avail themselves of it. I hear the same forecasts today. When I took my seat in 1986, there were 1,096 Peers with Writs and 133—12 per cent—had taken leave of absence. That figure rose to 169—more than 15 per cent—in 1987-88. Today, 738 Members are eligible to sit and just 19—2.5 per cent—have taken leave of absence. Clearly, the reported tide of desire to leave the place is not being reflected in the leave of absence scheme. One question that we are all interested to explore is: what is the mystery ingredient that would translate the mere 19 on leave of absence into the hundreds that some have hoped for? After all, average daily attendance here this Session is 424, which is well over 300 fewer than our total number.
The third important context is the coalition agreement, which announced that the Government will publish a draft Bill for reform of your Lordships’ House. The draft Bill will be published in the new year and will be scrutinised—no doubt in some detail—by a Joint Committee of both Houses. The draft Bill will include plans for transition. I can give an undertaking to the House that we will be looking to see whether the fruits that ultimately emerge from the Leader’s Group and from this debate will help point us in the right direction for transitional arrangements. I very much hope that they will.
My noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral and the other members of the Group are in the process of considering the options for reducing the current size of the House. Today’s debate gives noble Lords a further opportunity to add their views about what steps, if any, should be taken. The options fall into three broad categories, which are covered in the interim report. First, there are steps that could be taken by the House itself, without the need for legislation, to provide for retirement. While there may be some disadvantages to this approach, at least it could be done quickly. It would provide a means of retirement that many Members would like to see. The other two options would require legislation. One option would provide the legislative underpinning for permanent voluntary resignation. The other would involve an element of compulsion, which could involve, for example, Members being excluded on grounds of age or length of service or the holding of elections to determine which Members should remain in the House.
I should touch briefly on the subject of financial provision, simply in order to rule out any payment for retirement for the time being. In the current context it would simply not be understood by the British people.
Although the context is clear, today’s debate is not about wider reform. It is not even about the Government’s view on whether and how Members should be allowed, or made, to leave the House. Today’s debate is about consultation, about hearing the views of as many noble Lords as possible and about giving them the opportunity to respond to the options set out in the interim report. My noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral and I look forward very much to hearing those contributions.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, what a fascinating, good natured and good humoured debate this has been. Noble Lords have dealt with this extremely interesting subject that affects all of us with great sensitivity, which is what it requires. This is my opportunity to respond to it. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I will not give the Government’s view, any more than he gave the Opposition’s view, as this is still a consultative process and, clearly, we have not made up our minds on what we should do about retirement from this House or about a longer-term transition under a reform process. However, as I said earlier, a Bill will be published early in the new year, which will, no doubt, allow us the opportunity to examine these issues.
As for the Bill of my noble friend Lord Steel, which we are to debate on 3 December, the response that will be given from this Dispatch Box will not be my response but will reflect the carefully considered view of the Government on the merits of my noble friend’s case. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, questioned the need to have new Peers. Other speakers in the debate admirably made the case for needing new Peers. We need to freshen up our numbers from time to time and we will be doing that very soon. If the only motivation for doing that is to allow the Government to win more Divisions, we would not be giving the Labour Party any extra Members at all. I can confirm that the Labour Party is currently the largest party group in the House of Lords, and after the new Peers enter the House it will still be the largest single party in the House of Lords. Even the coalition is still a minority and will continue to be a minority in the House as a whole.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
The fact is that if one takes into account the, shall we kindly say, limited voting of the Cross Benches—
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I am afraid that is the case. If we take that into account, then the coalition Government have a practical majority in your Lordships' House. Over the years this House has developed a wonderful reputation as a revising Chamber. However, with the greatest respect, if the House is not able to cause the Government to think again, how on earth can it be a revising Chamber?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I assure the noble Lord that I have absolutely no doubt that in the rest of this long Session the Government will be defeated on many occasions, not least with the support of Members of my own party and, indeed, of the coalition. As the noble Lord rightly says, this is a revising Chamber and we have all been here for long enough to know that that is exactly what happens.
I said that this has been an interesting debate and it has. Perhaps one of the most entertaining speeches was that of my noble friend Lord Ferrers. Those who heard it were not surprised to hear a vintage speech. If we ever have an age limit, it should be a movable one which should always be set at a year older than the age of my noble friend. I noted that the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, jumped up and reminded my noble friend of his views on women Peers in the 1950s. As we would expect, he dealt with that in a very gentlemanly way. However, he ought to remind the noble Baroness that in the House of Commons the party that voted against the introduction of women Peers was the Labour Party. The noble Baroness has cause to be glad that her party lost that vote in the 1950s. My noble friend Lord Ferrers said that we should blame politicians for the state that we are in, but we are where we are and we must go on.
Lord Strathclyde
I was also grateful to my noble friend Lord Alderdice. I am not sure whether he is a good Peer because he is a psychiatrist, or whether he is a good psychiatrist because of all his experiences that he has built up in the House of Lords. Whichever it is, his contribution was extremely helpful and he accepted the case—as many who spoke did—that we need to reduce the size of this House. There is a problem we need to look at. If it was easy, we would have got to the solution a long time ago and I would not have needed to ask my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral to sort this out, but I must say that after today’s debate I am very glad that I did. He is going to have a bit more work to do.
In his interim report, my noble friend cleared out some of the undergrowth. The next stage is to perhaps prune up one or two options to take forward. There was some consensus on the fact that the House was too big, but there was not overwhelming consensus on anything else, although some Peers felt more strongly about some things than others. I thought it was useful that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn spoke, because he said that the age limit on the Bishops worked very well. There is a time limit for Bishops, which works well and there is a system of one in, one out. Our problem is that we want to get to a lower number overall before we start a system of one in, one out.
On the question of money, there was some support for financial provision, but one or two Peers were wholly opposed. The public mood—or perhaps the press mood—is not with us at the moment, but that may change over time. It depends on how long this process will take and the business case that could be made.
Apart from my noble friend Lord Hodgson, who spoke bravely on the subject, there was not much demand for compulsion through the arbitrary nature of an age limit. Likewise, I join many Peers who said that dealing with those who do not attend does not really deal with the more fundamental problem. I feel very strongly that there are some Peers who come to this House very occasionally, but make very eminent contributions which are worth a little more than those of some of our noble colleagues who like to speak every week on many different subjects. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Ferrers for introducing me to the concept of the chattering classes in the House of Lords. Of course he is right. We are in this post-election phase whereby in the House of Commons there is a clear change of numbers. In the House of Lords, there is also a clear change of numbers, but it is very often as a result of those who were in another place coming here. They bring with them some of their habits from another place and they are all very keen to demonstrate that they have a lot to say. Many on all sides of the House do that. We are in a period of assimilation, and I suspect that in the next six or 12 months we will find that the incidence of participation will reduce. I certainly hope so, if that does not sound too much like the usual channels speaking.
My noble friends Lord Astor, Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Tyler said, among other things, that we need to prepare for change and to do something, and some of them felt that the proposal that Peers should be elected out—the culling that the noble Lord from the Opposition mentioned—was a blunt instrument, which it is, of course. We have been through the process 11 years ago, it is well precedented and we have seen how it would work. But my noble friend Lord Waddington said that he would be wholly opposed to a party slate—a beauty parade with all the difficulties that that would bring in. What was interesting about the original hereditary Peers’ election was that many of them chose at that time to retire and not to stand in the election. There are those who believe that if we had a system of compulsory retirement through election which may be set at about 10 per cent or 15 per cent, quite a lot of Peers would be prepared to take that opportunity. I do not know, but perhaps that is something my noble friend could explore.
My noble friend Lord Kirkwood and the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, asked, in slightly different ways: why would anyone want to leave this House? The noble Lord, Lord Graham, said that he did not want to leave until he absolutely had to and had no choice in the matter, because by that time he would be dead—which would be a great sadness to us all, because I have known him for a great deal of time and I always enjoy what he says.
We have given my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral a problem and an opportunity. The problem is that there is not a great deal of clarity in what has come out of this afternoon. The opportunity is that everyone wishes for something to be done and for him to come up with a proposal. I am extremely grateful to him and his committee for the way that they have approached the subject with tremendous skill and sensitivity. We are always being urged to seek a consensus. He has certainly done so, I wish him well in his endeavours and I hope that he will be able to produce a final report relatively shortly.