The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)
My Lords, it is very good to see the old House back. I fear that one thing that might not change is that from this Dispatch Box I am not necessarily able to give the noble Baroness opposite the delightful response that she might wish.
I thought it was an interesting short debate, and it is right that we debate these topics. The only speech to which I took exception, which I am sad about, because it was by a noble Lord I greatly respect, was by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, who talked about scandal and corruption. There was a sub-theme that was taken up by one or two others who spoke. It serves none of us to present an image of this House or any political party as imbued and filled with scandal, corruption and fixing of the kind which the noble Lord implied. It helps no one. I could say that those in glass houses should not throw bricks, but I am not going to go back over ancient history that does not help any of us.
I thank my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth for the spirit and intelligence with which, as ever, he put forward his arguments. He spoke with the authority of, as he described it, the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. I always feel, when that great pressure group is mentioned, that I should go to the House of Lords Library after the debate and look out for the minutes of this extremely powerful group that seeks to influence the composition of Parliament and the avowed list of its members. Those matters may well be available in your Lordships’ House, but given that we have heard from a spokesman for that group, I think that many in the House would like to know more about it.
I thank my noble friend for this opportunity to discuss the important work of the House of Lords Appointments Commission; it is important work. As many of us will recall, the commission was set up in 2000 after a period in which—I am sorry to remind the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, of this—there had been, shall I say, considerable comment on the nature of appointments to your Lordships’ House. It is an independent, advisory, non-departmental public body and its purpose, as noble Lords well know, is to recommend non-party-political appointments to this place as well as to advise on all House of Lords appointments for propriety. I think it would be fairly acknowledged by noble Lords on all sides of the House that this is a job that the commission does well and has done well. In doing that job, it is treated with all due respect—full respect—by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, as it was by preceding Prime Ministers.
The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, made a point that is important in an appointed House. As he knows, if we have a non-elected House and there is an elected House, the public decide the balance between the parties. However, the balance of political strength in the House is obviously always an issue for discussion and consideration; my noble friend Lord Balfe made a similar point. I remind the House of what was said by my noble friends on this side: a commanding majority was given to my right honourable friend Mr Johnson in the last election. Despite what was said, it is a travesty to say that the Conservative Party is in a position to dominate your Lordships’ House. I respectfully refer noble Lords to the three Divisions that have already taken place today and the others that I suspect will take place after dinner. The fact is that, numerically, the Conservative Party is 130 short of a majority; of course, it is far more than that in mathematical terms because the appointment of more Peers would increase the number.
The background is that, at the end of the period of the struggles over Brexit, this House fell away from one of its duties, which is to pay due respect to the opinion of the public. We lived through a period in that zombie Parliament in which the House of Commons and some Members of your Lordships’ House made it difficult for the Government to be carried on. One of the fundamental principles of our Parliament is that a Government must be able to get their business. That does not mean that they must win every vote—the Government do not ask to win every vote; they wish to listen to the points of view put forward by your Lordships’ House, and indeed always do—but, at the end of the day, the Government must be able to get their business. That is the background to this debate; I will come back to it a little later.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, made an interesting point, which was taken up by others, including my noble friend Lady Fookes. He asked whether it was necessary that everyone who wishes to have a peerage, or who is felt worthy of having one, needs to be a Member of your Lordships’ House. That is an idea that I have heard mooted before. It is not something on which I am going to comment in this debate, but I will simply say that I thought the noble Lord made an interesting point.
The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, complained about the representation of Cross-Bench Peers in the House. Setting aside the category of non-affiliated Peers, about which many of us with different points of view may have opinions, Cross-Bench Peers currently account for 23% of the composition of your Lordships’ House. Almost any proposition for reform that has come forward in the time that I have been following your Lordships’ House has said that somewhere between 20% and 25% is probably about right for the independent Cross-Bench element.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
I would like to clarify that I made no such complaint, and no such complaint was intended.
Lord True (Con)
I am grateful that it was not intended. What I heard was a complaint that not enough Cross-Bench Peers were being appointed, and I think Hansard will show that the noble Lord made that point. One of the considerations regarding who is to be appointed is the overall balance in the House, a point that has been made from every perspective in this debate. To me it is perfectly legitimate, in the light of the noble Lord’s complaints about the number of appointments, to point out the current level of composition of Cross-Bench Peers.
The commission has two main functions, which are to nominate and recommend individuals for appointment as non-party-political life Peers and to vet nominations for life Peers, including those nominated by the political parties, in order to ensure high standards of propriety. I repeat that I believe it does this well. I am not going to follow any personal attacks on any Member of your Lordships’ House. I believe in the traditional principles of this House that all noble Lords stand on their honour and behave honourably, and I believe that those who are sent here and will serve here will demonstrate that they can aspire to and deliver those high standards.
It is worth noting that the conclusions reached by the House of Lords advisory committee regarding nominations are advisory. That is the gravamen of this debate although, as far as I can hear, no one who was arguing for a statutory commission said that it should be more than advisory. Everyone concedes—including even my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth; it is in his Bill, as I read it—that the Prime Minister should be able, in exceptional circumstances, to ignore and appoint outside the advice of the appointments commission. The conclusions reached by the commission are considered by any Prime Minister, alongside other wider factors, on a case-by-case basis. Ultimately, it is for the Prime Minister to recommend which individuals should be appointed to the House of Lords. As my noble friend Lady Noakes pointed out—firmly, I accept—it is the constitutional position in this country, as was also implied in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, about the disfavour into which David Lloyd George fell, that ultimately there is accountability for a Prime Minister in the way in which he uses that power.
I do not wish to pick an argument with my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth on opinion polls, but while he was speaking I looked up the 2017 poll to which he referred. In it, when people were asked which were the most important factors in determining how legitimate the House of Lords was as a Chamber of Parliament, the first, with 37%, was the view that the House should make decisions in accordance with public opinion, while the second was that the House should consider legislation carefully. My noble friend Lady Noakes alluded to one of the problems with those who have been appointed by the House of Lords Appointments Commission. This is no criticism of the commission; it is a fact. When it came to the first big vote in 2017 on seeking to obstruct Brexit, the Cross-Benchers who had been appointed by the House of Lords Appointments Commission between 2001 and 2015 were split five to one against the Government, a few months after a 52% to 48% referendum.
On the advice of the Prime Minister, the sovereign, who is the fount of all honour, formally confers all peerages, and I believe that should continue to be the case. The House of Lords Appointments Commission has an important advisory role, but it is advice. That is the situation that was created by a Labour Government and operated by them for 10 years, by the coalition for five and by a Conservative Government for six.
The Government have no plans to change the role or remit of the Appointments Commission. The organisation’s legal status does not affect its remit. It will continue to advise on appointments in the same way that it does now. I can assure the House that the Prime Minister will continue to place great weight on the commission’s careful and considered advice. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, made a courageous point, which is never welcome to your Lordships’ House, but I do not think it is specifically germane to the question of my noble friend Lord Norton.
To sum up, the Government consider that the House of Lords Appointments Commission performs an important role in advising the Prime Minister on appointments. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton. The Prime Minister continues to place great weight on this advice, and the Government have no plans to place the commission on a statutory footing.