House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Friday 21st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, I want to make a couple of comments on this. I had not really paid proper attention to this Bill in its previous three incarnations, mainly because I thought that we were going to see something through from the Government and that this was basically a side-show that would go away. Yet it does not seem to be doing that, which is worrying me. It is my experience of House of Lords reform that it flounders regularly. That is why 92 hereditary Peers were left here: to give an incentive for further reform. I am quite certain that if that incentive is removed, as is proposed under this Bill, we will eventually die out and end up with a wholly appointed House by default in a few years’ time, because further reform will flounder and they will just say that this is what we should have.

All we have done is to use a backdoor method of circumventing the possible will of another place, if it really wants to have an elected House. This is a hugely dangerous Bill; it is a clever way around ensuring that certain people manage to maintain their seats here. My purpose is to make sure that there is proper reform and that I am removed, but democratically. The whole point, and this is why I oppose this Motion, is that if we end up with an appointed House under this Bill, the appointments commission is absolutely key to the future composition of this House. That commission will probably end up with the great and good sitting on it, and they tend to put people on who are like themselves and who will tend to believe that the sometime excesses of the bureaucracy and the Executive just need a little tweaking to get them right.

That is very dangerous because we will see the mavericks disappear from this House steadily over the years, as they die out. We will probably no longer see another Michael Onslow—the late Earl Onslow— or people like that whom we need in this House, or somewhere in Parliament, in order to point out the errors of our ways from time to time when we all pat ourselves on the back for being wise and having great wisdom. The commission is key to it and I am not happy with the idea of an independent Appointments Commission as it is currently constituted, because you will not end up with something that our grandchildren like. This almost needs to be tackled very much upfront so that we can shape the future composition of the Lords, if we are to go down this route, in a way that is sensible and gives us back some independence. By the way, can I recommend the Cross Benches? It is wonderful sitting here because you can look both sides beadily in the eye without having to turn around and not address the House.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I arrived here this morning expecting to debate Amendment 1 first. I then find that my noble friend Lord Steel has used another device. Your Lordships will recall that in Committee on an earlier form of the Bill he introduced an amendment at the last minute, which he called a device. This time, he has introduced a Motion. He did not have the courtesy to tell me about it, yet he knew I had amendments down on the Order Paper. If he had discussed it with me, it would at least have been a courtesy. We would have disagreed but I would have been able to prepare for today in a different manner than I have.

I say seriously to the House that to accept this Motion is a very bad precedent for this House to do on a Private Member’s Bill. The only time that a Private Member’s Bill should have a Motion of this type is when it is unanimous and this is clearly not unanimous. All I am doing is repeating what I said in an earlier debate in your Lordships’ House. It is not the first time I have said this. If your Lordships refer to Hansard on 21 January this year, I said exactly the same thing to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, when he introduced his navigation aids Bill. The noble Lord did not produce a Motion but said, when reading out his speech on Second Reading, “I’m going to delete these clauses”. I think that he was going to delete seven out of the eight clauses. He also did not have the courtesy to talk to me about it first, although my name was on the speakers list. What I said to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, I also say to my noble friend Lord Steel:

“I fear that this is an abuse of the House. Perhaps he should do the right thing, withdraw this Bill and bring forward”—

this was to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley—

“for Second Reading a Bill that he actually intends to pursue through the House”.—[Official Report, 21/1/11; col. 617.]

I then went on about the amendments but the principle is exactly the same. If my noble friend Lord Steel does not now want an appointments commission—I will come onto that in a minute—he can quite easily withdraw this Bill. If he had come to me and asked, “Will you give me a very quick Second Reading on a revised Bill without the appointments commission?”, we could have looked at that and then we would not have had this Motion. This is a very bad precedent on a Private Member’s Bill.

There is another difficulty which my noble friend Lord Trefgarne raised: that I have consequential amendments, as does the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, which start in Part 1 and have consequences in the rest of the Bill. Those consequential amendments have now become pre-sequential amendments. That is not going to lead to a sensible debate; that will make it extremely difficult.

I then come to the real reason why the noble Lord is moving this Motion. It is not for the convenience of your Lordships but to remove the egg on the face of Mr Clegg. Those are not my words; those are the words which my noble friend Lord Steel used on 4 June, which your Lordships can find on the Guardian blog website. My noble friend said:

“There is a growing body of opinion within my party that we have to save Clegg from having egg on his face and this scheme”—

that is, the scheme relating to reform of the House of Lords—

“is not fit to fly”.

My noble friend wants to remove the statutory appointments commission. However, the extraordinary thing is that on 24 March 2010 my same noble friend moved an amendment to the Motion at Second Reading of a Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, with the words,

“but this House regrets the omission from Part 5 of the Bill of a statutory Appointments Commission”.

I know my noble friend has changed his mind as to whether this House should be elected. He started off, when he was leader of the Liberal Party, wanting an elected House. He then decided that an elected House would not work so he now wants to retain the House in its present form. My noble friend wanted an appointments commission. He regretted that with a Motion; he now does not want an appointments commission. I am concerned about the reputation of my noble friend, who is a great friend of mine. He keeps changing his mind. I remember that when the potential president John Kerry stood for election, he was known as “flip-flop Kerry”. I should hate a similar title to be given to my noble friend. For that reason, I will oppose the Motion.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Briefly, I support the noble Lord, Lord Wills. Surely we must get on with this. It is ludicrous that at present Members of this House have no power to resign permanently. We have far too many Peers in the House already. Surely, for the limited but significant improvements that Parts 2 and 3 of the Bill will provide, we should get on with it today, recognising that there is great dissent in all four quarters of the House over the issue of election or appointment. In any event, the Richard committee is looking at this. There seems to be no good argument against the Motion. I understand the disappointment of some who have spoken about the fact that we will not be dealing with amendments on the appointments commission. However, that is highly contentious. Surely we can get on with it now.

[The Earl of Caithness]

With respect, the noble Lord is wrong. We will deal with the appointments commission. You cannot not deal with it because there are amendments on it. What the noble Lord should have said to be clear is that it will be dealt with at the end, under our noble friend’s Motion. We will still debate the appointments commission in full.

[Viscount Tenby]

My Lords, I declare an historic interest. I was a member of the original group chaired by the late Lord Caernarvon. Seventeen years ago that first group started to discuss House of Lords reform and we have not moved much further forward since. I apologise for having been unable to speak at Second Reading. However, it was so long ago that I have forgotten the reason, but it must have been a compelling one.

I urge noble Lords, quite strongly, to support the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, in his Motion. My only criticism is that the Bill should be called the “Improvement to the House of Lords Bill”. It seeks, in practical and concise terms, to put right certain anomalies, which in some instances bring this House into ridicule in the outside world. We can go on talking in here but it is the perception outside that matters. With the greatest respect, many of the amendments tabled for discussion today—some are very good and solid—concern the reform of the House of Lords. They have nothing to do with this Bill, which is crafted to get us through the difficulties that we have had to date. Therefore, I urge noble lords to support the Motion.