House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to be appointed to your Lordships’ House and to be given the opportunity to serve here. It is, perhaps, also a privilege to be speaker number 86 in this profoundly important debate, especially as I came into your Lordships’ House by filling in a form and applying to HOLAC. I think that my noble friend Lord Devon referred to us as HOLAC’s angels.

There can be no doubt that many of our noble colleagues who hold hereditary peerages have made great contributions over the years. I have always found them thoughtful and courteous and have valued their contributions, just as I have had the same experience with regard to other Members of your Lordships’ House. There is a great sense of duty and a desire to serve here right across the House.

Despite that, membership of the House of Lords by virtue of heredity is a reality which cannot continue to apply in a modern democracy. The concerns about how people become Members extend beyond those who come in by virtue of heredity. The process by which large party donors become Peers, and the appointment of party members and advisors without explanation are very questionable. I speak here of process, not individuals. There can be no doubt that the way in which appointments are made, the regularity with which your Lordships call for the reduction in the numbers of the House, and the equal regularity with which further appointments are made to the House, bring your Lordships’ House into disrepute.

The Labour Party has said that the House has become too big; yet, with respect, the size of the House has been determined by the two major parties. Since the beginning of 2023, 66 of our number have died, retired or ceased to be Members, but we have had 69 new Members. I do not think the numbers are actually the issue here, because we know that 45% of us attend on the days we are entitled to attend. We do not get paid unless we attend, which is very relevant. Moreover, many Members can be seen to attend on days when the business of the House engages their particular expertise. That gives the House the advantage of access to significant expertise, while not having to pay the salaries and allowances at the level that is applicable in the Commons. There are very few occasions when we cannot get a seat in your Lordship’ Chamber apart from during Questions.

Noble Lords are right to draw attention to the actual work of the Lords. The scrutiny and revising role of your Lordships’ House is fundamental to improving legislation and to drawing to government attention nuances and complexities affecting what is proposed in a particular measure. It does not always work. Last year’s passing of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act was a travesty that caused great trauma and distress, and huge sums have had to be spent successfully challenging it.

On how many occasions have your Lordships been faced with a Bill that has been passed by the Commons without any examination of the content of significant parts of the Bill in question? To call for an elected House in place of your Lordships’ House is under-standable. However, even a cursory examination of the proposal does not pass muster in the absence of root-and-branch reform of the House of Commons as well. For example, we have a convention, though that is all it is, that we do not reject but should only amend and improve a measure that has been passed in the Commons. Were the House to be elected, that convention would no longer apply and it is not inconceivable that an elected lower Chamber might have a very different composition from an elected upper Chamber, making the passage of legislation, on occasion, almost impossible. We have seen that in other jurisdictions.

As has been said, the way forward lies in putting the HOLAC appointments process on a statutory basis; requiring the justification of future appointments by reference to the need for greater diversity, including addressing the fact that only 30% of your Lordships’ House are women; and by reference to the need for particular expertise and experience. We will lose significant expertise and experience when our hereditary Peers leave us. There should be a cap on the size of the House. The simplest way to reduce our numbers significantly would be by legislating to enhance the arrangements to remove those who do not play an active role.

In concluding, I simply thank the many hereditary Peers whom I have come to know during my time here for all that they have done for this country.

Leaving the European Union

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am sure that the noble Lord will be delighted to know that the Attorney-General is leading on these matters. He is a great expert, and I have every confidence in him.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness referred to a number of statutory instruments which have been laid—400-plus. I draw the attention of the House, having just come from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, to the fact that only 150 or so have been scrutinised, let alone debated in your Lordships’ House. There is a huge amount of work left to do.

The second thing I want to ask the noble Baroness has to do with whether we crash out on 29 March, and time is so short that I am becoming increasingly fearful of this. The DVSA says on GOV.UK, “If the UK leaves without a deal, you might need ECMT permits to transport goods in the EU and EEA from 11 pm on 29 March 2019”. This is our transport industry trying to transport goods, and the supply chain and so forth across Europe. Social media is now running with the fact that people are applying for these ECMT licences and being refused. That will lead to economic instability of a greater nature in Northern Ireland because lorries transport goods across that border on a daily basis.

We know that economic instability leads to political instability and political instability leads to terrorism. We all have to support a process through which we get a backstop which is workable, which will not lead to a hard border and which is flexible. There is no sign that I have heard of how that will work. Can the Minister explain to us how it might work?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said, the Prime Minister has had conversations with President Juncker and she has seen the Taoiseach to talk about the changes that she believes will be needed to the backstop in order for that withdrawal agreement to get through the House of Commons. Those discussions are ongoing. I am afraid that I have not seen the specific issue that she raises on transport and social media, but I will make sure that the department is aware of it.

Exiting the European Union

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I can certainly say to the noble Lord that in conversations over the weekend, the leaders that the Prime Minister spoke to indicated that they are open to discussions on a way to provide reassurance on the specific point of the Northern Ireland backstop.

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

My Lords, the Leader just told us that over the weekend, European leaders assured the Prime Minister that they are prepared to look at reassurances. Is she aware that the Irish Taoiseach, Mr Varadkar, said recently that,

“no statement of clarification can contradict what’s in”,

the withdrawal agreement? That does not look to me like a situation in which there can be further consideration.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I mentioned in an earlier response, the Prime Minister spoke to Mr Varadkar over the weekend. Discussions will continue but we are looking to talk to leaders, the European Commission and the Council to see whether we can provide further reassurance about that particular issue.

Syria: UK Military Action

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I listened very carefully to the Leader of the House, but I cannot agree with the Government. Syria is complex. We say Assad should no longer be leader. There is political turmoil, we have Daesh, a quarter of a million people at least have died and 11 million have been displaced. When I visited Jordan’s Camp Zaatari, I was told by the UN that it believed that jihadis were using it for R&R purposes. Around 80% of Syrians now live in poverty, and education, health and social welfare have all collapsed. This is not simple.

If we move to further develop our air strikes in Syria, that bombing must be supported on the ground. The forces of 70,000, about which so many noble Lords have spoken this afternoon, are from many factions and have different allegiances. We cannot expect coherence of response from them.

The current bombing campaign, in which we participate already through our drones—we are not doing nothing—has caused widespread destruction. We do not know the true extent of civilian casualties, but we do know that the level of Daesh attacks across the world has increased tenfold in the last year. The question therefore is whether further bombing is the best option. I do not believe it is.

The Leader of the House assured us that further military participation in Syria will not increase sympathy for Daesh in the UK. With great respect, I do not believe she is right. We know that the experience in conflicted countries across the world has been that of enhanced engagement by young men, and now young women, with the armed struggle, as they used to call it in Northern Ireland. Terrorism is not defeated by force of arms.

The call has gone out to people across the world to support Daesh in its struggle. The attack in Tunisia was just the kind of random, disparate activity for which Daesh is calling. The message seems to be, “Do what you can, where you can”. A couple of young men or women, some powerful guns—easily obtained in so many countries—and explosives, which are not difficult to acquire and utilise, and there you have the making of a very serious terrorist incident. Those involved in Paris lived in Europe most of their lives. The message to these people is that if you carry out these attacks, you do not do wrong, and there are those who will respond to that message.

The question is what we should do with our existing resources. We are currently spending £200 million a year. Do we say that we are doing enough of a military nature and that we need to do more—for example, to address the Vienna talks, to provide humanitarian support to refugees, to contribute to stabilisation, to fund intelligence activity and to fight radicalisation here? The Leader of the House told us that Daesh is spending £1.5 million a day. What more can be done to cut off the sources of that funding?

This is not a religious war, and we should ensure that it is never characterised as such. We have to tackle it in the most effective manner. We will not do that by expending our scarce resources on bombs; what we will do is prevent the use of those resources for other purposes, and by virtue of the deaths and injuries which will ensue, we will grow the very terrorism which we seek to curtail.

Pope Francis said:

“Everyone is aware that this war weighs in an increasingly unbearable way on the shoulders of the poor. We need to find a solution, which is never a violent one. Violence only creates new wounds ”.

Like other noble Lords, I am not a terrorist sympathiser, but I have been the victim of terrorists. I do not believe that this is a proportionate or effective response. I urge the Government to step back from enhanced military activity and to concentrate on peaceful ways forward.

Patrick Finucane

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I very much agree with what my noble friend said about the public inquiry. He has heard what the Prime Minister and I said on that question. My noble friend started by saying that this was an appalling crime. He is right. The key thing for us to remember—this is another thing he said—is that the accusation of state collusion sullies the memory of all those individuals who fought to defend democracy without having to go down this route. That is what makes this so appalling.

Of course I entirely agree with my noble friend that this is a lengthy report that has taken many months to compile. It builds on the work of previous investigations, including that of a distinguished Member of this House. There were a million pages of documents. This is the most comprehensive of comprehensive reports and it requires time to look at it.

On the question of Ministers’ knowledge, de Silva is very clear. He says there is:

“no evidence whatsoever to suggest that any Government Minister had foreknowledge of Patrick Finucane's murder ... nor that they were subsequently informed of any intelligence that any agency of the State had received about the threat to his life”.

There is no evidence at all that any Ministers had any knowledge at the time of Nelson’s targeting activity, or that they were encouraged or directed in any collusive activity with the UDA. That is a very strong statement.

[Baroness O'Loan]

My Lords, the de Silva report is profoundly disturbing with its statement that Sir Desmond is satisfied that Patrick Finucane was identified by a police officer for targeting, that he was targeted, that he was not warned of the risks to him—risks which existed in 1981, 1985 and 1989—despite the extent of the knowledge of the activities of these UDA men, and that the investigation into his murder was repeatedly obstructed—all examples of state collusion. The Prime Minister has rightly apologised yet again to his family for what the Prime Minister described as,

“shocking levels of state collusion”.

Mr Finucane was not involved in IRA activity. He was a lawyer carrying out his professional duties in profoundly difficult and dangerous circumstances. I am sure that Members of this House will again wish to express their sympathy to the Finucane family, just as I am sure that all those upright officers with integrity in the army, the police and the security services will wish to share their sympathy at the pain that the Finucane family must be experiencing again today.

But this was not an isolated situation. Investigation has shown that this pattern of activity was not unique to the UDA in west Belfast. The Prime Minister has stated, and the noble Lord has repeated, that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act has established a framework for the authorisation and conduct of agents. However, as Police Ombudsman I found as recently as 2003 that the Surveillance Commissioner was not being properly informed about UVF agents who were engaged in murders, attempted murders and other very serious crimes. Given the very small office of the Surveillance Commissioner, the pattern and nature of the investigations and inspections which are carried out by the Surveillance Commissioner, and particularly the resources available to the Surveillance Commissioner, is the Minister satisfied that there is adequate funding to enable the identification of any police failures in the handling and management of state agents?

This remains a profoundly important question. We have in Northern Ireland ongoing activities of republican paramilitaries, including the recent bomb in Derry. We have ongoing loyalist paramilitary activity. We have the current loyalist disturbances, which have caused huge distress and damage in Northern Ireland. And most recently we have had threats, not least death threats to a Member of the other place, Naomi Long, who serves constituents in East Belfast. This is a profoundly important matter for the future security of the United Kingdom. I thank the Government for what has been achieved thus far. Having read some of the report this morning, I will consider it further.

[Lord Strathclyde]

I am very grateful for what the noble Baroness has said. Again it demonstrates what my noble friend Lord King said about the very real tensions that brought about what happened during that dark and miserable period in Ulster. We are all part of a process of moving on from that. Let me deal with the nub of what the noble Baroness said about other cases. If there was collusion here, what else was going on? The Government will carefully consider the conclusions of the report to assess whether it impacts on any other cases. There have been public inquiries, as the noble Baroness knows, into a number of other cases where collusion was alleged. What we have tried to do here is demonstrate that we are prepared to leave no stone unturned in examining these cases and that, where there has been wrongdoing, the Government are prepared to apologise.

House of Lords: Working Practices

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O’Loan]

My Lords, the report is indeed a useful document and I am happy to endorse many of its recommendations, particularly those in relation to pre-legislative scrutiny, post-legislative scrutiny and the rescheduling of some of the work of the House. However, the House should continue to be self-regulating. It is one of the great strengths of the House that, for the most part, we can respectfully manage our business. When I have been engaged in Lord Speaker’s outreach, I have been very proud to point to the courtesy with which, for the most part, we manage our business. We do it for the most part without jeering, barracking, shouting or sneering, and there is something profoundly important about modelling the behaviour that we would ask of society. We can be very proud of ourselves when we can be respectful, listen and still have a proper debate.

Electronic recording of access to the Chamber and voting could save quite a lot of money. That is something that we should think of. It has seemed to me, in contemplating what we do here and how we do it, that we should consider not just our own perspective of our understanding of what would make us more effective, but also that of the public and those who provide services to them in the exercise of powers, duties and responsibilities created by Acts of Parliament and governmental action.

I want to address the simple issue of Written Questions. There is no question but that they serve a very useful function in allowing Members to hold the Executive to account and to participate in the forum for public debate and inquiry, which is such an important part of the work of the House. In raising this issue I fully acknowledge the importance of the Parliamentary Question in calling to account not only Government but those in public office, and of placing issues on the public agenda. I also welcome the use of PQs to inform decisions about, for example, calling for a Question for Short Debate. However, there is very little reference to the issue of Written Questions in the Companion or in the Leader’s Group report, and the Cabinet Office Guide to Parliamentary Work contains probably the most useful information.

Very often a Parliamentary Question is asked as the result of a genuine desire to secure information. That is entirely proper, and the public bodies that I have known and in which I have served have been fully respectful of and responsive to questions asked by noble Lords. However, there is no process to address the issue of the use of the Parliamentary Question process in what I would describe as an unnecessary manner. In the wider public domain there is perhaps a tendency to judge us by the number of Questions that we ask, but that does not reflect the work of the House when you contemplate the content of this report.

The report states that the House should make the best use of all available resources. It would be good if we could consider the resources not only of the House but of those others to whom Parliamentary Questions are directed. HM Treasury estimates the cost of dealing with a Parliamentary Question at £154 but that does not reflect the cost to the organisations outside Parliament and Government. Some 9,000 Parliamentary Questions are asked each year, and my guess is that we are talking well over £2.5 million for answering them. We could argue that that is a proper use of public funds, and in many cases it is, but there are occasions on which one asks oneself why the questioner is not capable of looking up the answer or, in appropriate cases, asking the very helpful Library and research staff here to find it. For example, I was asked in a Parliamentary Question who my accounting officer was, and I was asked under what law I operated as police ombudsman. I have also known of organisations being repeatedly asked the same question in different forms. It happens sometimes to such an extent that one begins to wonder what the purpose of the question is. Why is so much money and resource being used to provide the answer to questions that could easily be answered by the questioner? It can be simple to approach the organisation concerned and ask the question. We also now have extensive freedom of information laws that enable one to get access to information. I wonder whether it would be possible for the House to consider the inclusion of further guidance on the use of the Written Question process in order to avoid a situation in which public money might be wasted. I think it is a matter of both integrity and probity. At a time of economic and financial difficulties, it is important that as a House we are seen to act properly in the exercise of our powers and the use of our resources.

I want to address briefly the consequences of the change of method of paying Peers allowances on the working practices of the House. We recently moved to a single payment, consequential upon the difficulties resulting from previous abuses of the expenses system. It is not impossible that we have not quite got it right. By paying a single sum of £300 a day to all Members, we have created a degree of inequity. Those Members who must pay for accommodation while in London inevitably have less money to procure research assistants and so on to enable them to fulfil their parliamentary duties than Members who live in London. In an era in which we seek to establish wider membership of the House than existed hitherto, the current situation will not facilitate that.

I want to consider the issue of debates which stretch over more than a day. The House of Lords reform debate was one such example. I wanted to speak in that debate, and I put my name down, but as the timetable was not available at the time, I had other appointments on Thursday morning in Northern Ireland. Many other people have said they had a similar experience. I sat through much of the debate on the first day and on the second day I would have been happy to sit all day. I had to leave at 6 pm to get the last flight back. The debate finished at 10 pm that night so I could not speak. You could say there were sufficient speeches anyway to deal with all the issues, but I did want to speak. Our convention that we must be present at the beginning and the end meant that I had to withdraw. It is not a unique situation. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham averted to this also.

There is a solution to the problem, which would be in appropriate cases to split the issues encompassed by a topic into two separate days’ debate, inviting contributions on particular elements of the issue on a particular day, and allowing for any additional conclusions at the end of the second day. I have no doubt that noble Lords would always wish to be here and to participate throughout, but circumstances do not always permit. For those who live a considerable distance away, such flexibility would enable greater participation. I welcome the report and the increased efficiency and effectiveness to which it will inevitably lead.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

That is why the House has to decide, and I am not sure that there is an alternative solution. You either push power to the chair or you do not. Perhaps more assertiveness from me and the government Dispatch Box may help and encourage. Noble Lords might like a firm smack of authority from the Dispatch Box. I accept that there is a difficulty and a problem. When I first came to the House, Members would regularly give way.

[Baroness O'Loan]

My Lords, I wonder whether it might be helpful to have clarification as to the way in which at Question Time the right to ask supplementary questions moves around the House. Is the order Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem and Cross-Bench, or Conservative, Labour, Cross-Bench et cetera? That would be helpful to the House.

[Lord Strathclyde]

The noble Baroness is right; it is an art and not a science. Since I have been doing it, it looks a lot easier from the other side of the House than it does from here. It slightly depends on who is speaking. When I first came here, Peers would give way to Peers who they believed were more senior to them or had more authority or more knowledge. There is much less of that now and a certain order is quite hard to impose.

With the coalition, there has been broad agreement that we do not have a Conservative Peer followed by a Liberal Democrat Peer. Whoever is next—the Cross-Benches or the Labour Party—rather depends on the question. It all goes wrong when a right reverend Prelate speaks but that is not what I meant. It really all goes wrong when another Peer, such as a UKIP Peer, speaks, which upsets the smooth flow. I am not offering any solutions. There is tougher authority either from the Dispatch Box or from the Woolsack. You cannot have both.

On the usual channels, I felt that there was again a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of this House. That might be borne of the fact that many Members come here from another place, where the Executive are powerful and have a majority. The Executive in this House have no majority. Therefore, the usual channels, in my long experience as being a part of them, work very much in the interests of the Back-Benchers. They try to put the Back-Benchers’ interests first because the usual channels know that at any stage something can be rolled over by the Back-Benchers. That is how it works.

I believe that there needs to be more clarity about how the usual channels operate. Huge advantages and privileges are given to Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, and I understand why that should be. I will discuss with the noble Baroness ways in which we should clarify how the usual channels work, what part the Convenor, the Liberal Democrats and the Back-Benchers and so on play, and what role the Private Secretary to the Leader and the government Chief Whip play in managing the business. It is a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, but once you understand how it all interlocks it is much simpler than many people believe. I am going to ask the clerks for a list of new Peers who have not been on an induction course and who therefore do not understand how the House works, yet have very strong views on how the House should be reviewed. I shall write to them to encourage them to go to an induction course.

I have completely lost my place in my speech as a result of all that, so I will move on swiftly by saying that this has been a wide-ranging and timely debate. I have probably given the impression that I am less keen on some of these proposals than I gave at the beginning. I have picked out some of the more difficult ones. This has been an immensely useful exercise, in part because my noble friend Lord Goodlad has found the kitchen sink of procedure and process in the House of Lords. He has put it all out and there is something for everyone. I thank noble Lords for their different strands of opinion. There is now a great deal of work for the Procedure Committee, the Liaison Committee and the other committees to do, but it is right that we should do it. I hope that we will have an early opportunity to have a report back with a substantial number of these recommendations on which the House can take a view and therefore see that real progress has been made. I beg to move.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is trying to be helpful to the Committee. His analysis that it is difficult for us to debate anything in the Bill that relates to police and crime commissioners until a way forward has been determined is helpful. Clearly, Clause 2 does not contain anything at the moment about police and crime commissioners and there are a number of other clauses in the first part of the Bill, including Clauses 3 and 4, that do not relate to police and crime commissioners. So we could with due determination proceed with the Bill with those bits that are not affected by the decision that the Committee took earlier on.

However, there is one further difficulty and I would be grateful for the Leader of the House’s guidance on this point. We were told that the target for tonight was the group beginning Amendment 15. I suspect that a number of noble Lords worked on the basis that government targets on such matters are rarely achieved let alone surpassed. They might have wished to speak about amendments or issues subsequent to Amendment 15 but have left and would not be particularly happy if we were to proceed beyond that point without notice. Speaking for myself, I am always happy to talk on those matters that I have put down. However, it is unfair on those Members of the Committee who may have left on the assumption that the Government’s target—they are, as I said, rarely exceeded—was to reach the group beginning Amendment 15.

This process is enormously unhelpful, although I am sure that she can speak for herself, to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. She has an amendment about transitional arrangements. There is a useful debate to be had about transitional arrangements—whether it should be for a year, which I think is the substance of her argument, or whether it should be for a shorter period and how it operates. But it is difficult to understand how we can debate a transitional arrangement when we do not know what transition we are making and from what state to what state. If, for example, a very simple matter were being proposed, a transitional arrangement of a year might seem excessive. However, if a more complicated change were proposed, a transitional arrangement of a year might seem appropriate.

We are in a difficult position and the Government Front Bench has put the noble Baroness in a very difficult position by encouraging her to move her amendment when we do not know what that transition will be. If, for example, the Committee were to decide that this is all getting silly and that we should stop, I would be sorry that the substance of debating transitional arrangements should then be lost. But I do not see how the Committee can debate transitional arrangements when we are not even in a position to judge what state we are in transition from and to what future state we are aiming.

The government Front Bench must help the House and find a way out of this terribly difficult impasse. I appreciate that they might have one or two slightly bigger consequences of today's vote on their minds, but we are in a difficult situation tonight. It would be better for us to have some proper time for reflection and for the Government to have time for reflection so that they can let us know how to proceed.

[Baroness O'Loan]

My Lords, I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, just said. With my limited experience of the House, I think that we are debating a police and crime panel which is defined in the legislation, which has now become part of the police and crime commission, with much greater powers than it had originally. The police and crime panel will also be the police commission. It will have powers to hire and fire police chiefs and all sorts of other powers as a consequence of this change. But we do not know what we are talking about. We do not know whether it is an elephant, a tiger or what it is. We should think again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader of the House is being slightly unfair on the House. Noble Lords were very clear what they were voting for. They realised that if the amendment was passed, they were kicking a very large hole in this Bill. That was the decision of the House. What people are querying is the strange “band played on” mentality of the government Front Bench. You have hit the iceberg but the band carries on playing. No doubt, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, wishes to remain at the wheel until such time as the “Titanic” sinks below the waves—you can see where the metaphor is going. My point is that I do not think it is fair of the noble Lord the Leader of the House to suggest that people were not aware of what they were doing. What we cannot understand is what the Government think they are doing.

[Baroness O'Loan]

My Lords, if I may speak again, perhaps the Leader of the House could help me by telling me exactly what it is that I am now discussing. I think that I am discussing a police commission comprising a police and crime panel that will elect one of its number to be a police commissioner that has no powers in the Bill, as all the powers in the Bill belong to other organisations. I am mystified as to what I am supposed to be thinking about.

[Lord Strathclyde]

The noble Baroness is generous in giving me powers, which I do not have, of knowing what it is that she is talking about. I dare say that what the noble Baroness is supposed to be talking about is the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Hamwee. If my noble friend Lady Hamwee wishes to proceed with her amendment, she may and she can explain what noble Lords are supposed to be discussing. If she does not wish to carry on with her amendment and subsequent noble Lords do not wish to carry on with their amendments, the rules of the House are utterly clear: you say, “Not moved” when your name is called. We would then carry on to the stage that the noble Lords, Lord Soley, Lord Harris and others, wish to get to. This really is not complicated.

House of Lords Reform

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan]

My Lords, the debate on reform of the House of Lords has been, as Members have stated, a very lengthy one. However, reform has been ongoing, most importantly since the Life Peerages Act 1958 when women were allowed for the first time to take seats in the House of Lords.

Now the coalition Government have stated in the programme for government that this committee will bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected Chamber and that there will be a grandfathering system for the present Peers, which I understand means that we will be permitted to serve out our term. Why it is called a “grandfathering” system for those of us of my sex, I am not quite sure.

The proposal appears to deal only with the methods of appointment to this House. I accept that there are consequences with any model of appointment, but nevertheless I question why there is a focus on the method of appointment only.

I emphasise that, as has been said previously, the cross-party Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform does not include the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers. Given that Cross-Benchers represent some 25 per cent of the membership of the House and given that they make a significant contribution, it cannot be right for them to be totally excluded from this process. The holding of a debate such as this does not address the lacuna created by this deficit in proper process. Even now, it would be much more acceptable were the Convenor to be appointed to the committee. In an era in which the Government legislate and call repeatedly for equality, and in which statutory obligations are placed on so many organisations, it is important that there be equality of access in the way in which any process of reform in this House is conducted.

The possible outcome of the coalition Government proposals for a House elected using proportional representation cannot be definitively forecast. We know from the operation of PR in Northern Ireland that on occasion the results can be somewhat unexpected, and that people can use their vote tactically to achieve the end of keeping an individual out rather than electing anyone. Be that as it may, it is eminently possible that a PR vote for an elected House of Lords would result in a House that, rather than being reflective of the share of the political parties in the previous election, would be very different.

There are of course a variety of systems of PR. The outcome of the most recent election, had it been conducted under alternative voting, would not have produced the result that the coalition Government seek to achieve for the House of Lords because the result of that election was the result of the first-past-the-post system, not an alternative vote system.

It has been said publicly that the turnout for elections, particularly in European elections and elections for the Mayor of London, is very low. In the past three Mayor of London elections, the proportion electing was 34 per cent, 34 per cent and 45 per cent respectively, and that was a situation in which the mayoral elections attracted candidates, it has been said, with a high public profile and the functions of local authorities are clearer than the functions of the new House would be—we do not quite know what those functions are anticipated to be. It has also been suggested, and I think noble Lords have said this, that elections to the upper House would be likely to attract candidates who would really be seeking to go into the Commons, and therefore it would become a second Chamber in more ways than one.

Can it be appropriate to develop a new system for selecting individuals for membership of the House of Lords by simply seeking to replicate the outcome of a previous election using an uncertain voting system? There is, of course, an alternative.

It is necessary to consider the possible outcome in terms of the election of an alternative Government to this House, one that did not reflect the party results in the House of Commons but that would effectively create a powerful Opposition to that Government in this House. One also has to contemplate the fact that elected Peers would look to their electorate to ensure that they remained in the House. This would introduce another dynamic into this House’s deliberations that may not be conducive to proper scrutiny and the reform of proposed legislation.

In addition, one has to factor in the fact that the other place has become rather dysfunctional. On a number of occasions, Bills have come to this House that have not been properly scrutinised and debated there. The tenor of debate in this House is generally more reflective, considered and purposeful. Were we to move to a fully elected Chamber, the dynamics of the context of our debate would change. Is it possible that that would result in the kind of dysfunction to be seen on occasion in the other place?

It is right that Governments should not be motivated solely by cost or by cost savings. Nevertheless, it is the case that this House, with its 753 Members—many of whom never appear in the Chamber and 155 of whom are women—cost about £104 million in 2008-09. Were Parliament to legislate for an elected House, costs would increase dramatically. We currently do not receive the kind of salary and office costs attendant on membership of the other place. Elected Members would have to be paid just as elected Members of the other place are. Inevitably, this would be a substantial salary.

A reduction in the size of the House is clearly necessary. Without wishing to be indelicate, that may, in part, happen naturally, and if the appointment of new Peers were handled differently, the size of the House would diminish anyway.

I shall briefly address the issue of how we work. As a newcomer, I think it works well. There is recognition of the role of the other place and of the place of government in that House, but Bills often leave this House to return to the other place in a significantly different form from that in which they came here. I think we could fine-tune our working practices, but I do not understand that to be the purpose of this new committee on the reform of the House of Lords.

Is reform necessary? I think it is. The route that we should take is the one that I am proud to have been appointed through: the House of Lords Appointments Commission. The noble Lord, Lord Jay, gave us its figures for appointment. It has appointed 51 people since 2001. Forty-nine of them are active, two having died. It has appointed about 20 per cent of the total of 183 independent Cross-Benchers, which means that 70 per cent of even the Cross-Bench Peers have not gone via this route. Of the 51 appointments, 37 per cent are women, 22 per cent are from ethnic minorities and 8 per cent are disabled. This composition represents greater diversity than does the current composition of the House of Lords and reflects the remit of the commission, which is to ensure that the House is more broadly representative of Britain’s diversity—a remit which it takes seriously. I am therefore moved to support the conversion of the House of Lords Appointments Commission into a statutory appointments commission. I do not see why those who have given distinguished service in the field of politics should not apply, as I did, to that commission for appointment to this House. There is nothing which diminishes one when one applies. The process of open competition is something which the people whom we serve understand and are familiar with, and it would add credibility to the appointments process.

There are clear arguments for non-active Members to be able to retire, attractive as it may seem to some parties to be able to call on the votes of those who have ceased to play an active role here. It would be better for this place if there were to be a process whereby a person could honourably retire if they chose so to do. I am well aware, however, of the extreme clarity of the minds of some of my noble colleagues who are a little further advanced in years than I am and of the wisdom which they bring to debates. Age should not be a determining factor. I agree that we need to be able to remove from this House Peers convicted of serious offences.

In all this, then, I am minded to support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Steel. There is much for this House to consider in the context of reform of the House of Lords, but the consideration must be worthy of this place. It must be conducted in a proper manner by all the representatives of this House. The Houses of Parliament have a great history. Any change will have great significance for the future of our country.