House of Lords: Lord Speaker’s Committee Report

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to contribute to the debate on the report of the Lord Speaker’s committee on the size of the House, which I believe to be extremely positive in its conclusions and recommendations. I acknowledge the huge amount of work undertaken by the committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Burns. Like many other noble Lords, I am broadly supportive of the recommendations, particularly the reduction to 600 Members and the proposal that that should be capped in future, and that all new Members would normally serve a non-renewable term of 15 years. These are clearly consistent with the aims outlined in the report.

The report indicates that the committee considered the feasibility of recommending a retirement age but declined to do so. Yet as of 11 November our current membership has an average age of 69, with a range of 39 to 98. There are 296 Peers aged between 71 and 80. While I am fully aware that only a small percentage of people of advancing years develop cognitive decline sufficient to warrant difficulty at work, the majority of employers are in a position to recommend an occupational health assessment for workers above a certain age—to protect their employees, as well as those they serve. Judges now have a fixed retirement age and other people making major strategic decisions in a range of organisations and businesses are regularly required to undertake medical assessments to ensure their capability for their role. I wonder whether the committee discussed this, in line with the Nolan principles of public life. If so, perhaps we should seriously consider, in relation to the nature of our work, introducing such assessments, perhaps at 80 years of age. Of course, the vast majority of Peers of this age would meet the requirements, as can be seen by the quality of debates in this House on a daily basis. However, this would also provide public accountability of our collective responsibility as a House to demonstrate our fitness to practise, as other professions are required to do.

I will not talk much longer because other people have said the things that I hoped to say, but I reiterate the situation that my noble friend Lady Brown of Cambridge outlined. We came in at the same time, three days apart, and we both think it would be entirely reasonable to offer to retire at the end of a fixed term; neither of us will be 80 at that point. My reason is that I was appointed through the Appointments Commission process to help balance the House in terms of representation; in my case, predominantly nursing. By the end of 15 years, I would expect the House to benefit from a new Member with more contemporary knowledge of this field. I do not wish to suggest that I am not ably assisted with superb advice from relevant professional and charitable groups in relation to nursing. However, over time there is no substitute for recent, relevant occupational experience for people appointed in the way that I was. Therefore, I would like the House to consider not only a fixed term of appointment—at the very maximum, of 30 years—for new life Peers but a maximum period for current Peers from an agreed date, possibly 2022. This would still give the flexibility for Peers appointed for life to retire earlier but would also indicate to those who in future may be appointed only for 15 years that we are dealing with the reduction of our current membership in a fair and consistent manner.

I acknowledge the Speaker’s commitment to the principles of public life by calling for this review and commend the committee for producing an excellent set of recommendations, which I fully support. I believe that we need to work at a faster pace than the report indicates, in a manner consistent with the Nolan principles of public life I referred to earlier, particularly in relation to selflessness and leadership.