House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill
Lord Blencathra
“Retirement from the House of Lords at 80A member of the House of Lords who reaches the age of 80 during a Session of Parliament ceases to be a member of the House of Lords at the end of that Session.”Member’s explanatory statement
Alongside other amendments in the name of Lord Blencathra, this amendment has been tabled to permit the House to vote on three options for a retirement age in ascending order. According to analysis of Library figures, this could remove 327 peers by 2029.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, this is one of those rare occasions when I can honestly look the Leader of the Lords in the eye and say, “I am not from the Government, but I am here to help you”. I can help the noble Baroness deliver on a manifesto promise.
The Labour Party manifesto said:
“Too many peers do not play a proper role in our democracy. Hereditary peers remain indefensible. And because appointments are for life, the second chamber of Parliament has become too big. The next Labour government will … remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords … and we will introduce a new participation requirement as well as strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced members can be removed”.
Noble Lords will note that I have also tabled amendments in the next groups that tackle those last two issues as well.
I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is not in his place at the moment, because I was going to say how much I enjoy the wonderful speeches he makes after hereditary elections when only two or three people have voted. He complained today that there were too many amendments—a wide range of amendments—that were not specifically related to hereditary Peers. The point is that the government manifesto promised six things in constitutional reform: the Lords is too big; hereditary Peers are indefensible; a mandatory retirement age of 80; a new participation requirement; and the removal of disgraced Peers. The one thing to be kicked further into the long grass was consultation on having national and regional balance.
On retirement ages, I have tabled three options for discussion: a retirement age of 80, 85 or 90. I shall speak to Amendments 16 and 18, and my noble friend Lord Hailsham will speak to Amendment 17. I do not necessarily believe that a retirement age is necessary, but if the Government believe what they said in their own manifesto—that the Lords is too large, even though only about 450 Peers regularly attend—then a retirement age at some appropriate age and the removal of inactive Peers is a far better way to reduce numbers than kicking out the hereditaries, who actually do attend and do work hard.
We can all guess why the Government are not taking forward the retirement age of 80, as in their manifesto. We all know that manifestos are written by 20-something whizz-kid spads, who bunged in getting rid of hereditaries as a Labour Party no-brainer and then, without any research, thought, “Let’s also get rid of the old fogeys over 80 and those who do little”. That was signed off, no doubt by the national executive, and it appeared in the manifesto. Then, after the election, I suspect that the Leader and her team looked at the numbers and said, “Oh my God, a retirement age of 80 means getting rid of about 327 Peers by 2029”. Further number crunching showed that it would include 94 Labour Peers but only 90 Conservative Peers. That was not what was intended, so the retirement at age 80 had to be dropped—and rightly so, since removing 327 Peers during one Parliament would be excessive, and among that number are many of our most able and active Peers.
Of course, the Government will not admit that they made a tactical blunder here, so they came up with the excuse that they will consult. Exactly whom will they consult on a retirement age for Peers? The Pensions Regulator? The Department for Work and Pensions? Age Concern? Martin Lewis? Saga Holidays? There is only one organisation with a legitimate opinion on this, and that is the Government. There is only one body of experts who know all about the potential retirement ages for Peers, and they are in this House, and some of them are sitting here tonight. Over the next hour, let us do the consultation for the Government, and we might just get a consensus on the way forward for Report.
Before Report, I suggest that noble Lords who have not yet seen it ask the Library for the Blencathra Excel spreadsheets, particularly the one entitled “Filter of House of Lords Members by Age and Attendance”. The brilliant Mr Tobin has, at my request, entered into it the names of every Peer from 2019 to December 2024, our party or Cross-Bench affiliations, our ages, our ages in 2029, and our attendance record in the last Parliament, which will be relevant for the next debate. I am aware that there are a few little errors in there: one of my noble friends says that she is not included, and another noble friend says that his age is wrong, but generally speaking the spreadsheet gives an indication of what the effect would be of removing Peers at the age of 80, 85 and 90. Given that it is an Excel spreadsheet, you can select any criterion. Just enter a possible retirement age from 50 to 100, and you get a list of names and numbers. The Library has circulated that Excel spreadsheet to Peers who have tabled amendments, but it will not do a mass mailshot to everyone, and I do not have the capacity or skill to do it for every Member of the Lords.
The spreadsheet is highly instructive, as well as giving endless hours of fun picking random retirement ages just to see who would then be retired. Naturally, I would deplore such behaviour. I think we would all agree that a retirement age of 80 is just not on, so what about 90? First, the figures I have put in the explanatory statements for the ages of 85 and 90 are quite wrong, and I apologise for misreading my Excel spreadsheets. The correct figure is that a retirement age of 90 by 2029 would remove or retire only 16 Peers, including nine who attend more than 50% of the time, and some of them are still active. I leave it to noble Lords to draw a conclusion, but I think we would be open to ridicule if we set a retirement age of 90, and it does not do much to reduce our numbers.
That leaves another of my suggested options, namely, retirement at 85. A retirement age of 85 would mean the retirement of 185 Peers, including some highly active Members, including 14 who attended more than 70% of our sittings in the last Parliament, and some who are Deputy Speakers. However, we have 25 who attended fewer than 50% of our sittings in the last Parliament, and 12 who attended fewer than 30% of the sittings. It is my opinion that a retirement age of 85 would be equitable and justifiable. It would still be the highest retirement age of any organisation in this country, except farmers and the self-employed. It would reduce our numbers somewhat, and if we coupled that with the removal of Peers who fail to attend at all or beneath a minimum number of attendances, we could make an even more substantial reduction. At least this retirement age of 85 would remove the jibe that we just carry on being Members for potentially 30 years longer than the state pension age or 20 years longer than judges. I believe that we can justify a retirement age 10 years later than that of a judge.
I do not intend to offer any firm solution here but to provoke debate with these probing amendments; however, I think we might just get a hint of consensus for Report. I see that other noble Lords have tabled similar amendments, some with different ages. My amendment suggests retirement at the end of the Session when a Peer hits the selected retirement age, but perhaps that is wrong and the end of the Parliament might be a better time, and certainly less harsh.
I have also tabled three other amendments which tweak my three options, in order to give more control and flexibility to the House. If any of the options were agreed to—retirement at 80, 85 or 90—our hands would be tied on the timing. We might want some more time to organise ourselves, and then to produce the retirement requirement when the House concluded that we were ready for it. These amendments are not essential, and noble Lords might think that that would give us an excuse not to do it. Well, that could happen, but I do not think the House would tolerate it.
Thus, I say to the Leader of the House: do not be afraid to support a retirement age that the House wants and votes for. Politically, the Government will get more opprobrium for kicking this into the long grass of meaningless consultation than for opting for a retirement age of, say, 85, instead of the manifesto promise of 80. By the time of the next election, the electorate will be making judgments on far more broken Labour promises than the promise of a retirement age of 80. I beg to move.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, in speaking to my amendment I will be very brief. My noble friend Lord Blencathra articulated a very powerful argument in favour of retirement with which I agree; I have suggested the age of 85 in my amendment. I wish to make three general points and two specific ones.
The general points are these. First, we do need to get the numbers in this House down, and retirement age is one way of doing it. Secondly, and coupled with that, is the need to refresh the membership; that too is important and points to a retirement age. The third point is a difficult one to dwell on too long. In a long political career, both at the Bar and in politics, I have seen an awful lot of people who reached the age of 85 who should have retired—both judges and Members of Parliament, and indeed Members of this House. We need to focus on that.
Turning to my two specific points, the first was touched on earlier in the debate: the fact that our expertise does decay. There was a time when I knew an awful lot about criminal law and practice. I have not practised as a criminal barrister since 2010, and I would hesitate to express any really informed view as to the practice and procedures in the criminal courts today. That is an example of one’s expertise decaying. Similarly—although not quite the same—as one gets older, one has to recognise that one’s expertise on many current subjects is not what the House would wish to have. For example, we are going to be regulating on artificial intelligence. If you ask me what I know about artificial intelligence, the answer is nothing. The same is true of social media too. I do not do social media at all, but we are asked to regulate it. The truth is, there does come a point in one’s life when one’s expertise is not such that the electorate would want us to regulate in any kind of detail.
Therefore, to be brief, I am in favour of a retirement age. We could argue sensibly whether it should be 75, 80, 85 or 90. I plonk at 85, but the truth is that we could properly go for any of those figures.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, I rise briefly to speak to Amendment 65 in my name, which is a further variation on the introduction of a retirement age. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, for adding his name. I would also like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who discussed this amendment with me, and who addressed the topic so wisely in his speech at Second Reading.
As with the other amendments in this group, Amendment 65 gives effect to the Labour Party manifesto commitment. However, contrary to the other retirement-age amendments, this one introduces important leeway for those who join your Lordships after the age of 70, as it provides that retirement is at 80 or the 10th anniversary of the Member’s introduction to the House, whichever is the later. This is an important distinction, as it does away with the arbitrary 80 year-old age limit. Having noted the number of recent appointments of Members over the age of 70, my amendment would permit such Members to enjoy at least a full decade of activity in your Lordships’ House, irrespective of the age at which they are appointed.
I should perhaps note in the spirit of full disclosure that I am not an octogenarian. Indeed, as a hereditary Peer in his late 40s, I will likely be removed from this House before I turn 50, let alone 80, so I have no dog in the fight. However, I have hugely appreciated the wise contributions of elder Peers and consider the sagacity of our membership to be one of the House’s most valuable features. I remember vividly a Cross-Bench discussion on the constitutional crisis arising from Boris Johnson’s ill-advised efforts to prorogue Parliament, during which a wise voice piped up, saying, “It wasn’t as bad as this during the Suez crisis”.
Just as hereditary Peers provide a length of institutional memory that spans centuries, so individual Members over the age of 80 provide an invaluable personal memory that spans decades. We abandon that at our peril in our rush for youth and the appearance of vigour. Amendment 65 permits us to temper the age-based guillotine, at least a little. On that basis, I recommend it to your Lordships.
The Earl of Dundee (Con)
My Lords, my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lord Hailsham eloquently compare 80, 85 and 90 as different options for a retirement age from this House. Within this grouping, and following my own amendment in favour of 90 as a retirement age, I would therefore also support Amendment 101D in the name of my noble friend Lord Blencathra, which calls for a resolution to enact this.
The argument is that, compared with the other options, a retirement age of 90 far better assists a transitional House, a reformed House and, not least, the present House itself.
Regarding the necessary transitional period between the present House and a reformed one, as your Lordships are aware, a short while ago the noble Lord, Lord Burns, produced a very useful report. One of its recommendations was that, in a given year, the collective total of life Peers who retire or die are replaced at 50%. This means that, in a natural way and over not too many years, current numbers of temporal Peers, at just under 800, will come down to 600.
Obviously, numbers would come down more quickly if life Peers were coerced to retire at either 80 or 85. Yet surely it would be much wiser not to enforce that. Instead, with a retirement age of 90, the transitional period can be expected to be over five years, with the advantage that some new Peers, when they first begin to serve for a fixed period of time, will do so alongside some existing life Peers, thereby becoming all the more able to develop and uphold the skills and democratic efficacy of this House as a revising Chamber.
Then, for a reformed House, there will be many excellent candidates who have just retired from their professional careers, yet who are still prepared to dedicate their time and considerable abilities here. If new Peers serve for 15 years—and I agree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham that they should—a retirement age of 90 thus enables a commencement age of up to 75.
Regarding the present House, research figures already on the face of this Bill give us the mathematics, as my noble friend Lord Blencathra has just reminded us. By 2029, while a retirement age of 80 would cull 327 life Peers, and that of 85 would cull 187 life Peers, a retirement age of 90 would remove 78 instead. Clearly, that is a much more balanced and acceptable figure. In any case, before reaching the age of 90, life Peers playing an active part here after the age of 80 should surely be left to decide for themselves when they will retire.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 86, which forms part of this group. The noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal was not in her place in the last debate when I pointed out that I had asked for this amendment—which was initially down to be debated on its own—to be grouped with these amendments so that we can deal with expeditiously in recognition of the points that she and other noble Lords have made.
I raised my concerns with an arbitrary age or time limit in our debate on the last group, so I will not address the merits of the other amendments that noble Lords have moved so far in this group, other than to ask one question. When I was reading my copy of the Daily Mirror this weekend, I saw that the Leader of the House had given an interview saying that she would like to move quite quickly on the matter of a retirement age, which was in the Labour manifesto. She said it might not even require legislation for that to be done. So, to echo the point raised by my noble friend Lord Blencathra a moment ago, if your Lordships’ House votes during the passage of the Bill for a retirement age that enjoys the support of most noble Lords in this House, will the Government keep it in the Bill and implement it so that they can act with the speed the noble Baroness says she would like to move on this?
My Amendment 86 would make it clear that a peerage can be conferred on anybody over the age of 16. I am sure that, when some noble Lords saw this on the Marshalled List, it caused a few raised eyebrows and they may have wondered whether the point was entirely serious. It is—I have tabled this amendment in order to probe the Government’s thinking in relation to their other manifesto commitment to lower to 16 the age of voting for elections to another place. Is it the Government’s intention also to lower to 16 the age at which somebody can stand for election to the House of Commons, or do they plan to give 16 and 17 year-olds the vote but not yet give them the opportunity to put themselves forward for election if they find that there is nobody on the ballot paper who meets their approval?
As noble Lords will know, for many years after the Representation of the People Act 1969, there was such a discrepancy. People could vote from the age of 18 but had to wait until 21 to stand for election. That was changed in time for the 2010 general election—I think the noble Baroness the Leader of the House was a Minister in the Cabinet Office—and the two ages were finally brought into line. I would be grateful if the Minister who is responding could say a bit more about the Government’s intention on the age for candidacy as well as for election.
Whatever the answer to that question, I have tabled this amendment to see the view of His Majesty’s Government on allowing 16 and 17 year-olds into your Lordships’ House to scrutinise the decisions that are made by a lower House which is to be elected and perhaps also partly filled by 16 and 17 year-olds. A bit of scepticism sometimes accompanies the arrival of a relatively younger Member of your Lordships’ House to these Benches, but we have seen in recent weeks and through the valiant work of my noble friend Lady Owen of Alderley Edge, supported by Peers of all ages from across your Lordships’ House to tackle the scourge of deepfake pornography, the benefits of having a multigenerational House, looking at issues that affect our fellow citizens of varying ages.
There is a barrier to having such a multigenerational House in our Standing Orders. Standing Order No. 2 says:
“No Lord under the age of one and twenty … shall be permitted to sit in the House”.
I see that that Standing Order was adopted on 22 May 1685, so, while it is relatively recent in the history of your Lordships’ House, it is a Standing Order of fairly long standing. Does the Minister think that this 17th century barrier should still be in place, given the Government’s wider commitment to give 16 and 17 year-olds the right to vote for and perhaps stand for election to the other House of Parliament?
Lord Dobbs (Con)
My Lords, I shall say a few words in support of the amendment in my name and that of the noble Earl, Lord Devon. I hope I shall be forgiven, and not accused of parliamentary shenanigans, if, like my noble friend Lord Blencathra, I quote from the Labour party manifesto—although not at the length he did. The words are quite important to our understanding of what is going on. The manifesto says that
“reform is long over-due and essential … The next Labour Government will therefore bring about an immediate modernisation by introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age”.
Same paragraph, same breath, same thought. There is a full stop between those two very important aspects of parliamentary reform, but that full stop seems to have been decisive in the Government’s approach to this matter. It appears that the Government have indeed come to a full stop on these issues. As much as I like the sound of that, it is not quite the point. How can a full stop be a justification for abandoning the ambitions for a comprehensive and properly considered set of reforms?
Why, if it was promised in the manifesto, have the Government suddenly had a change of heart? After all, a retirement Bill—or a retirement amendment, as we are discussing here—would in many ways be much simpler than the Bill that is in front of the Committee. But this Bill is, of course, not so much a breath of fresh air as a sigh of relief on the part of so many Members on the Opposition Benches.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
My Lords, almost everything in life has a retirement age. I put it to the Committee that having the age of 80 as an upper limit is what most people would expect as being a normal upper limit of something that was still credible.
The second issue is something that I raised both in my speech in November, in our House of Lords reform debate, and at Second Reading in December: the wisdom of imposing a retirement age on the current membership of the House retrospectively, as it were. That would probably produce a cliff edge, which would lead to what I termed an “organisational shock”. The loss of organisational power or human capital, in something which I think is adjudged by many to be performing well, would be a great shame and an unnecessary piece of self-harm. It takes some time to train up new Members. Indeed, it takes some time to find new Members, as HOLAC would be able to tell your Lordships. Accordingly, in the commercial environment, one would look for transitional arrangements and try to find some way of doing that.
The very pleasing Amendment 65, which was so well introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, proposes a simple set of transitional arrangements with two legs that would reduce that organisational shock enormously and allow the House to transition to an age limit of 80 without pain or any loss of our capability and effectiveness. The first leg would impose the age limit only on new Members. This was how, as I remarked in November and December, the judges of the higher courts in England and Wales did it about 35 years ago, as they were worried about the loss of institutional power at that time. They found that a number of judges in fact imposed a retirement age on themselves retrospectively, as it were. They could have gone on forever but chose to retire at the new retirement age. I would expect that to apply, as I said then, and still expect it today. The Cross Bench has a slightly higher average age at 73, so we have a number of people who are in this zone. I expect that would apply with us as well, so imposing it on the new is the first leg of this very clever amendment.
The second leg would give everyone who comes in a minimum of 10 years. Selfishly, from the Cross-Bench point of view, one of the things that we need is judges. We need to supply judges in various circumstances. We needed to supply two for the Holocaust Memorial Bill Committee recently and I have to supply others for other private Bills that are coming through. These are just some examples. Some of the judges we need come from the Supreme Court and they do not retire until they are 75. Only having five years of them, with it taking a couple of years to train them up because they are no longer Members of our House beforehand, would mean that it is better for everyone to have a minimum period. That feature of the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, is also to be commended to the Committee.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, as I intimated in the previous group, noble Lords who remain after the hereditaries have gone will come under increasing media pressure on the grounds that many are far too old and unelected. Even now, we often see colourful descriptions of noble Lord’s bios, especially when how they speak and vote is not to the particular medium’s liking.
In 2010, on my own initiative, I looked at a list of Peers in age order, expecting to find some age at which noble Lords became ineffective. I can assure the Committee that there is no such point, but over 33 years, what I have sadly seen time and again is Peers losing their mental faculties, alongside a relatively quick physical decline. Now that we have a system of retirement, there is not the moral drive to keep attending past the point of effectiveness, although a few do.
I think we can all agree that octogenarian Peers can be effective and add value. However, at 68, I am beginning to worry that I am out of touch and out of date with the things that I think, and I am experienced in, and that I am out of date with modern society. That is partially why I want to retire in the spring. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, made the point about social media. I do not use social media; I have not got the foggiest clue how to use it. Wisdom and experience are valuable to the House, and I frequently seek the counsel of very old Peers.
The problem is this: the maximum practical limit of the size of the House is about 800. I suspect that is part of the reason why the Government want to get rid of hereditary Peers, despite our experience. What matters is the number of active Peers, not the size of the House, but we also have too many active Peers. My theory is that, after a certain size, the effectiveness of each individual Peer is inversely proportional to the number of active Peers—so each Peer has fewer opportunities. For instance, in Parliaments before 2010, if I got fed up with what the Government were doing, I could roll into the Minute Room and say “Right, Oral Question; I want the next available slot”. They would laugh at me if I did that now; you have to go into a ballot. We never used to have to do that.
The problem is not the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of older Peers; the problem is bed-blocking. We should have Peers on both the political Benches and the Cross Benches who have succeeded in their chosen careers, bought and paid for their house, and secured a decent occupational pension—that is to say, appointment at about the age of 55 to 63. There is no shortage of really good-quality people in this situation. The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, talked about precisely that. We cannot have them because we have around 200 octogenarian Peers.
I am not saying that we should not have much younger Peers. I am saying that the older Peers are bed-blocking younger potential Peers. I think the solution is to make it clear to new appointments how long their term will be. How long that should be is another matter, but I think we should make it absolutely clear how long new Peers are expected to be here. I do not think it would be fair to retire older life Peers, as they would have believed that they would be here for life. We hereditary Peers have known that we were on borrowed time since 1911.
Lord Burns (CB)
My Lords, I want to make two comments on the figures of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. He has given us the figures on what the impact of various age limits would be; what he has not described, of course, is what the consequential effect in future years would be. My examination of these numbers suggests that the impact of an age limit is quite large to begin with, but after that the impact is really very small. I did an exercise of trying to look at the past and to judge, using one of these spreadsheets, what would have happened if we had had an age limit of 80 in the past. What would have been the effect on the size of the House and on what has happened through time?
The result is that the House would have been smaller, but if the same number of appointments had taken place, it would have still shown exactly the same upward trajectory over time. If we put in place an age limit of 80 that comes into effect in 2029, for the following few years only 20 or 30 people would fall into the bracket of hitting the age limit, which is not such a different figure from the number of retirees that we have in any case. So, I caution against thinking that this would solve the problems, in a sense, going forward over a longish period. There is no doubt that if one wants to bring down the size of the House quickly, an age limit is a very effective way of doing that. If one wants to make sure that one has a balanced profile going forward, so that leavers match new appointments, it will not help that much with regard to that.
That is why I also slightly take issue with the noble Baroness speaking for the Government when she said, just before dinner, that there is somehow a choice between term limits and age limits. To me, they have a very different purpose. An age limit is very effective in bringing down the size of the House, but it does not do very much to ease the challenge of keeping it down at that level. What term limits will do is create an onward larger flow of leavers at a time that we can predict in advance, which leaves scope for appointments and changes in the political balance in the House.
My other point is that, of course, if we are going to have an age limit, we do not have to choose between 80, 85 or 90 for ever. We could begin with an age limit of 85 and then, for the following Parliament, have an age limit of 80: we would get two bites at the process of bringing down the numbers. I support what my noble friend Lord Kinnoull says. I think the transition arrangements for this are just as important as they have been in the whole debate about hereditary Peers.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, I feel I am again swimming against the current, but I am very much against having an age limit in this House. I feel it would leave us poorer, thinner and more meagre. I am delighted that Ministers appear determined to break their manifesto commitment on the subject, and I urge them to take the same wise, measured and judicious attitude to the stuff on the other side of the full stop which my noble friend Lord Dobbs was mentioning earlier. We would be deprived of a great deal in this House without the wisdom of the full range of our Members. He is not here at the moment, so I hope it will not embarrass him in his absence if I say that the best speech I heard in tonight’s debate came from the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, with his erudition and his experience, explaining the role of the Crown prerogative in appointing Members of this House. Again, I hope that he will not think this in any way impertinent, but he would fall on the wrong side of my noble friend Lord Hailsham’s age limit, and I think we would all be the poorer for it.
My noble friend Lord Parkinson spoke about a multigenerational Chamber; I think there is a real importance in having a multigenerational polity. It is important in an age when elected politicians are becoming younger, the 24-hour news cycle and social media are more exhausting and elected politics becomes more of a young man’s game to have a space in our national discourse for people from every generation. It is kind of a variant, if you like, of Burke’s point about a nation being a partnership between the dead, the unborn and the living.
Viscount Goschen (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lords who tabled the amendments in this group have done the House a service in a number of different ways. Given that the 80 year-old retirement age was an important part of the Government’s manifesto, this debate gives us the opportunity to test their motivation for both bringing forward these measures and for not including them in the Bill.
The engagement we have had over the two days so far in Committee have been remarkably good-natured and constructive. They have been conducted in the right House of Lords spirit. An awful lot of what the Committee has been trying to get to the bottom of is around motivation: why measures have been brought forward and what their desired outcome is. You cannot test the efficacy of an outcome without understanding what the question is in the first place. I contend that the first day in Committee was really about whether the hereditary Peers performed better or worse than life Peers. There seemed to be a very broad consensus that there was a neutrality between the two groups.
We then, therefore, had to get to the bottom of why the Government are bringing forward that set of measures. We got on to a deep discussion of the Grocott proposals and why they were right then and wrong now, and how the only person who does not believe in the Grocott proposals is the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and so I look forward to his intervention on this group. We were talking of dogs in fights, and I think he has got one in this group as well in terms of his distinguished vintage.
We are all very clear that age has got very little to do with how well Peers perform in the House. We are Peers: we are equals, and that is how we are treated. We do not look at someone in their late 80s as any different to a Peer who might be in their 40s. I had the good fortune to come here a very long time ago; I have been here for 37 years, and I am still 12 years under the average I believe. I have seen it over a considerable period of time.
However, the Minister needs to tell us in her response to this group why the Government originally brought forward the age limit. Was it to reduce the numbers of the House? I think we all agree that is a valid direction of travel. Or is it because the Government felt that those over 80 gave a contribution of less quality than others?
I think we need to know why the Government brought it forward and what their current view is. Of all the speeches I have heard over the last two days in Committee, the most powerful and moving was that given by the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, who cautioned the Committee that if we are to amend the constitution to change the make-up of this House, we need to do so for the right reasons, for logical reasons, with the right motivation and with a desire to improve this House, and not for any other reason. I look forward to the Government’s response.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I should begin by saying that the reason I am speaking to this group rather than my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire is not simply that he has a conflict of interest, which he would have to declare. My noble friend has his 84th birthday this coming Wednesday. He intends to spend it as he has spent today, which shows that he has a great sense of fun.
This group of amendments, the previous group and the next two groups are all about how to reduce numbers and make sure that people who are in the House of Lords play a full and proper part. To state the blindingly obvious, there is one way to deal with this, which is to make sure that the House of Lords is elected—but I think we may have discussed that previously.
As for a retirement age, I think I am right in saying that every profession has a retirement age. In your Lordships’ House, we see the Bishops retiring at 70.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, that is actually not right. The self-employed, for example members of the Bar, do not have a retirement age, and nor indeed do solicitors.
Lord Newby (LD)
It is always very dangerous to make a general comment in your Lordships’ House. But judges have a retirement age of 75.
We know that bishops aged more than 70, and indeed judges aged more than 75, in many cases have undiminished mental powers and are able to play a very considerable part in whatever it is they continue to do. But there is a reason for retirement ages, which is that exceptions do not prove a rule. We know here that many Members of your Lordships’ House stay on well beyond a point at which it would be in their best interests to retire. We, the usual channels, have no levers in order to help them leave at a point when, objectively, it would be in their and the House’s best interest. My Chief Whip and I had a signal success last week in persuading someone in their mid-90s to retire, but it was slightly touch and go—and that, frankly, is not acceptable in my view.
If we are to have a retirement age, the question is: what should it be? The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said that 80 was clearly too young. He prefers 85; the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, prefers 90. We often talk about the dissonance between the ways in which the House of Lords and the outside world view things. I can think of no case where there is a greater dissonance than in the view of a reasonable retirement age.
I am afraid that I find it very difficult to accept the idea that 80 is far too young. The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, made a suggestion about how we might persuade Peers to retire without having a set retirement age: by having a retirement age that applies only to new Peers, in the expectation that many existing Peers who are over that age, whatever it is, would retire on the basis that that is what the judges did. In my experience, the problem is that people who most should retire are often the ones who are most reluctant to retire. I am afraid to say to the noble Earl, because it is a very attractive proposition in other ways, that I do not think that it would work, and I certainly do not think it would work to the extent that we would want it to.
This debate has shown that there is absolutely no consensus in your Lordships’ House about what a retirement age should be. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, who said on a previous group that this subject should not be part of the consideration of the Bill. The Government say that they will bring forward a consultation and proposals on it and I believe that it is very important that the impetus for this change, particularly the exact retirement age, should not come from your Lordships’ House. If ever there was a case of turkeys and Christmas, it is Members of the House of Lords determining when they should retire. Therefore, it is incumbent on the Government to come forward with their own proposals—I would be very happy if they were in line with their manifesto commitment—but I do not think an amendment passed by your Lordships on a Bill that is, in essence, about the hereditaries is a sensible way to deal with it.
Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, first, I apologise if my voice fails—although many noble Lords may appreciate that eventuality.
I begin by addressing the amendments moved by my noble friends Lord Blencathra, Lord Hailsham, Lord Dundee, Lord Parkinson and Lord Dobbs and the noble Earl, Lord Devon. However, I divide them into two categories: the issue of a retirement age and the issue of term limits. I will not address the latter in the context of this debate, but I will address the former, because it is one of the Government’s manifesto commitments. They expressly said that.
Here we are, almost at 10 pm, debating whether it is appropriate for us to have a retirement age of 90 years, 85 years or perhaps even younger. The general public would regard such a debate as quite surreal. The question posed by my noble friend Lord Goschen is very much on point. It is incumbent on the Government now to step up and explain why they put the issue of a retirement age into their recent manifesto. It was not done on the spur of the moment; these things are thought out, debated and considered. Yet we struggle to identify the raison d’être for that manifesto commitment; it simply floats in the air.
Comments have already been made about other professions and pursuits and the issue of retirement, but, clearly, no one has ever contemplated an official retirement age of 90. That is why I wonder about the terms of this debate at all. In banking and finance, one would generally expect retirement at 55. Why? Because those organisations want to refresh themselves. In the judiciary, until recently the retirement age was 70; it is now 75. That is not because of the belief that judges who reach the age of 75 are no longer capable of interpreting and applying the law—many are, some are not and some never were.
Be that as it may, there is a further, more important issue. It is the issue of public confidence. If you walk into a court to have a serious issue determined in a court of law and discover that the judge is 92 years of age, you would rightly have reservations about his ability to determine a complex issue. It is no different for those who do not interpret and apply the law but purport to make it. The issue is not whether Lord Mackay of Clashfern was able to contribute to the proceedings of this House into his 90s, or whether the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is still able to do so—I do not doubt that for a moment. But there is a very real issue of public confidence. That is also married to an issue about the numbers in this House, and how we deal with that issue.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, before I begin, it would be remiss of me not to wish the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, a happy birthday. But, as I will probably still be here on Wednesday, I will do it on Wednesday.
What is clear from this short debate on retirement age and the minimum age of participation is that there is a broad consensus on the need for change. What that change specifically should be is clearly still a matter for debate, as we have seen this evening. So let me move on to the specifics of the amendments at hand and try to reassure and answer noble Lords.
These amendments raise important questions on the issue of retirement age that warrant further discussion. The Government are keen to maintain an ongoing dialogue with the House about how best to implement our other manifesto commitments on reforming the House, including the issue of retirement age. I look forward to continuing the conversations with your Lordships, building on the discussions my noble friend the Leader has already had.
As was so eloquently articulated by several noble Lords this evening, especially the noble Lord, Lord Burns, the Government agree with the general direction of these amendments, which is to reduce the size of your Lordships’ House. As peerages are for life— and I am aware that when I say that, that may have slightly different connotations, given my age and what that means—the House has become too big. These amendments show the range of possible retirement ages that could be implemented. The Government, as set out in our manifesto, believe that a mandatory retirement age of 80, at the end of the relevant Parliament, strikes the right balance between setting the limit too high, thus reducing the impact on numbers, or too low, which would have a disruptive effect on your Lordships’ House at the end of the Parliament. In fact, during the last Parliament the retirement age was 81.3, in line with some of the conversations your Lordships have had this evening.
However, this Bill is not the right vehicle to make such a change. This is a focused Bill with a sole purpose: to deliver the Government’s manifesto commitment to bring about immediate reform by removing the right of the remaining hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the Chamber, a principle that was agreed when the 1999 Act was passed. This Bill is completing the work of that Act. It is right that we take time to best consider how we implement the other manifesto commitments, including our commitment to introduce a retirement age, engaging with your Lordships.
Amendments 101C, 101D and 101H include the provision to alter the commencement of the Bill. I note that the noble Lord has replicated this draft in his Amendments 101E, 101F and 101G, which we will debate at a future date. The effect of these amendments would be that the remaining hereditary Peers would be removed from your Lordships’ House at Royal Assent, rather than at the end of the Session in which the Bill is passed, as it currently provides for. Given that the noble Lord previously eloquently listed the individual records of service of hereditary Peers, aided by his now famous spreadsheets, I am somewhat surprised that seemingly, he now wants them to leave sooner.
The noble Lord also wishes the commencement of his other amendments on retirement age to be subject to a further resolution of the House. This means that, were the noble Lord successful in making his amendments, their commencement would be delayed further and perhaps indefinitely. The timing of the implementation of the Bill follows the approach set out in the 1999 Act, which is for it to come into force at the end of the parliamentary Session in which it is passed. This is a sensible approach which strikes the right balance between delivering an immediate reform, as set out in our manifesto, and meeting the desire to minimise any disruption to the work of the House, which could arise if hereditary Peers were to depart during a parliamentary Session.
Finally, Amendment 86, tabled by noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, seeks to lower the minimum age of membership of your Lordships’ House from 21 to 16. I thank the noble Lord for the explanatory statement which accompanies his amendment. The Government were elected on a manifesto promising to give 16 and 17 year-olds the right to vote in all UK elections, strengthening our democracy and increasing the engagement of young people. This is about fostering long-lasting engagement with our democracy and building the foundations for their participation in our electoral processes, and it will be a major change to the electoral franchise, with implications for the wider electorate. However, this commitment does not extend to lowering the age at which an individual can hold elected office at a national or local level, or other positions such as police and crime commissioners. The Government do not plan to change the minimum age eligibility criteria for elected office, nor for membership of your Lordships’ House. As I have said before, this Bill is solely focused on removing the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I thank the Minister for her clear answer. There is a further discrepancy, in that the age at which someone can become a Member of your Lordships’ House is 21, but to stand for election to another place it is 18. Does the Minister think that this discrepancy should continue, or should the two Houses be equal in that regard?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I was just going to touch on that point. As the noble Lord mentioned during his contribution, as always, the content of our Standing Orders is a matter for your Lordships’ House.
Bearing all this in mind, I respectfully ask that noble Lords do not press their amendments.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, we always say, “This has been an interesting debate”, and when I put down these amendments I expected it to be a fascinating debate, which it was. The Government always complain that this is a narrowly focused Bill, so why on earth are we talking about these other issues? It is because it was in the Labour Party manifesto. It is a narrowly drawn Bill only because, politically, they decided to make it a narrowly drawn Bill. It does not have to be that narrowly drawn.
My noble friend Lord Hailsham, in supporting my amendment that colleagues should retire at 85, made the valid point that we experience decay and that we are now getting a bit out of date on the things that we were expert in a few years ago. I like the idea from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, of retirement at 80 years old or after 10 years of service, whichever is the later. That is an interesting idea and it would permit Peers aged over 70 to get a 10-year term in here. My noble friend Lord Dundee supported an age of 90. He made a good case, but I am afraid we would not convince those on the outside that it was a serious measure to retire at 90.
My noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay made an intriguing point about reducing the age to 16, to match the age at which people may become MPs. God help us if we have MPs aged 16. I am glad I will not be in the House of Commons if that ever happens.
My noble friend Lord Dobbs supported the noble Earl, Lord Devon. I liked his “full stop” quote; will I have to pay him royalties if I ever use it again, him being a great novelist? The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, in supporting the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, said that 80 is still very high for most organisations and that people retired a lot earlier than that, but I liked the point he made about transitional arrangements and allowing new Members to come in.
My noble friend Lord Attlee said that what matters is having active Peers, and that many over the age of 85 are highly active. I agree. I am privileged to serve on the Council of Europe. While I was in Georgia observing its elections a few months ago in my wheelchair, and going through a mob who were trying to ruffle us up and sabotage our vehicle, I felt quite active for a 72 year-old, as I did on a committee where the noble Lords, Lord Griffiths and Lord Foulkes, were considerably older than me—I believe they are in their 80s. They are also highly active Members. I accept that you can be over the age of 80, 85 or 90 and still be active here.
The noble Lord, Lord Burns, made an intriguing point that if we had a retirement age of 85 it would reduce numbers considerably in the first fell swoop, but it would have a diminishing effect afterwards. That will be the case if we continue stuffing in new Peers. He suggested that we could lower the age at a future time. I suggest he looks at my Amendment 32, which we will come to later, which makes that case. It sets up a procedure whereby if we decide that the age is wrong, we can tweak it with a statutory instrument rather than further primary legislation.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Hannan that it is the quality that matters, not the age, but the Government want to reduce the size of the Lords and they have chosen to throw out the hereditaries. I merely suggest in my amendments that a better way to do that would be to have a retirement age. I agree with my noble friend Lord Goschen that Peers of all ages make a valuable contribution. He asked the legitimate question, which my noble and learned friend Lord Keen also asked: will the Government explain why they have adopted this age of 80 as retirement?
I too will wish the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, well if he is here on Wednesday. I am not sure whether he drinks, but I will happily buy him a glass of champagne to celebrate a marvellous birthday. But the noble Lord, Lord Newby, made a good point that it might be in the interest of some Members to retire. Occasionally we see colleagues come into this House and I always say, “I hope my Chief Whip will tell me to get out at once if I get that far gone and poor”.
My noble and learned friend Lord Keen made the valid point that the age of 90 is a bit too late. It is a public confidence thing. Yes, some colleagues perform well in their 90s, but it is not credible to the outside public that we have people making legislation which affect their daily lives at that age.
The Minister said that more discussion is necessary before action. When will we get that action? When will we get the consultation paper on reducing the age limit to 80 or 85? We need it, but we get the feeling it has been kicked into the long grass.
I end as I began. The Government say that this is a very narrowly focused Bill, but it does not have to be. They are trying to reject the amendments that we have suggested, and the others to come, because they do not fit into the mode of getting rid of hereditary Peers. The Bill could easily be extended in a few little areas to include the issues we have discussed in Committee.
Before Report, I hope we can get some traction on two issues: retirement at 85, which some of us have suggested; and the suggestions by the noble Earls, Lord Devon and Lord Kinnoull, for transitional arrangements of about 80 and a 10-year time limit for new Lords coming in, and the suggestions by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, that we can tweak the age down, perhaps starting at 85 and a few years later lowering it to 80—I think there could be traction in that.
I hope that noble Lords will get together with better brains than mine and decide what we want to run with on Report to try to get something that may get the support of a majority of Members in this House. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment 16.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, it is a convenient point to conclude our proceedings today, so I move that the House be now resumed.