Interim Report: Leader's Group on Members Leaving the House

Lady Saltoun of Abernethy Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lady Saltoun of Abernethy]

My Lords, after the noble Earl’s speech there is not an awful lot left to be said.

What a ridiculous situation the coalition Government have got us into. First, they make 50 new Peers immediately on taking office—nearer 60, I believe—and the House has to sit early so that they may all be introduced before the Summer Recess. Next, they tell us that they are going to produce another 50 new Peers, I think before Christmas. Then they suddenly discover that there is no room in the Chamber for them to sit, so they set up a Leader’s Group to decide how to get rid of enough of the existing Peers to make room for the new boys. One does not need to be Einstein to have foreseen this farcical situation. If anyone thinks that enough Peers are going to absent themselves voluntarily, by taking leave of absence, to make an adequate impact on the seating problem—the bums on Benches problem—they must be living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Therefore, they are going to have to be sacked, and in order to sack Peers who sit here at the command of Her Majesty, as conveyed by their Writs, it will be necessary to pass primary legislation to which Her Majesty will have to assent. That has been confirmed by the Clerk of the Parliaments, and that will apply whatever grounds for sacking them are decided on.

I turn to the idea of paying Peers to go. The Freedom of Information Act is still with us—worse luck—and your Lordships may be quite certain that, the moment that the press get hold of a whisper about money being paid to Peers to go away and twiddle their thumbs at home, all hell will break loose. I wonder what sort of sum per Peer the advocates of this suggested piece of bribery had in mind. Any amount that I can envisage the Treasury being prepared to part with would be nothing but an insult to most Peers. Another issue for us hereditary Peers is that I do not see how any of us could decently accept a penny in view of how our friends and colleagues were sent packing in 1999. They were not offered a golden handshake and were treated pretty meanly as far as use of the facilities of the House was concerned. Of course, if I were to be offered a million pounds to go, I have to admit that I should be tempted, but I hope that I should resist.

Incidentally, it might have been a good idea to have one hereditary Peer on the Leader’s Group, but I do not suppose that it matters. I really am rather sorry for the group, which has been asked to perform a miracle and has produced a very readable report that says virtually that miracles are no longer available. What a mess this Government have got us into. I do not see any way out of it. Cancelling the next batch of new Peers would stop the situation getting worse, but it would not undo what has been done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, because I absolutely agree with him that if we do not do something ourselves, we will have change visited upon us. There has been an air of unreality in the debate so far.

I should like to start by looking at this issue the other way round. I am absolutely certain, although my experience is not as great as some, that this House has a valid and crucial role in the constitutional and political life of our country. I am also persuaded that, come 5 May 2015, it will be significantly changed. Other noble Lords may take a different view. Longer-serving noble Lords have said to me, “We’ve heard all that before. We can sit tight and do nothing and wait and see what happens”. I think that we should be much more practical and pragmatic, and think carefully about what the nation would expect from this institution come May 2015. I will answer that question by saying that by then the size will need to be reduced. There is a case for an institutional size for the House of Lords of between 400 and 450 Members. It would have a purpose and would do its job more efficiently. The question is how to get from where we are now to 5 May 2015 and to a position where we can withstand what might be coming in our direction from the House of Commons or wherever.

I will make one other broad point. I spent a lot of time working happily on the House of Commons Commission in my previous existence. It seemed that there was more of an institutional determination of what was in the House of Commons' interests among the professional staff and the Members who were appointed to the Commons Commission to work with the Speaker. I may be wrong—my experience is not as great as that of some other noble Lords—but I get a strong sense that no one in the House of Lords thinks about the House as an institution. The business managers do this in part through the usual channels. Obviously, the Leader of the House does it, but he has other considerations to bear in mind. We need to think about giving someone—perhaps the Woolsack or some other mechanism—a unique responsibility and duty to go to bed at night and get up in the morning thinking about what is in the House of Lords' collective institutional interests. That is absent, and that makes debates such as this much more difficult.

This committee has done excellent work. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is a very serious politician for whom I have enormous respect. However, he has been given a very difficult job. Someone has to come up with recommendations that we can vote on and agree, otherwise nothing will happen. If nothing happens, by 2015 something very unpleasant may be visited on us. I invite noble Lords to contemplate grafting grandfathering on to electing a third of the Chamber, and to contemplate what that would look like. We would start with 730, although by that time it will be 800, probably more—and then we would elect a third on top of that. One could go out on to the highways and byways of the United Kingdom and try to explain how that makes sense. I would not like to try that, because I do not think that it makes any sense whatever. The good thing about the coalition agreement and the changes that are being made is that we know that we have a five-year period in which to start thinking carefully about this. It does not make the decisions any easier, but we know the timeframe. We must make use of that time.

I always enjoy the virtuoso performances of the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, but he recommends doing nothing—and doing nothing is dangerous. I invite noble Lords who do not believe me to talk to some of the staff. Ten days ago, I witnessed some of the custodians downstairs trying to deal with people coming in through a Peers’ entrance. Many noble Lords do not, as they should, give notice of the fact that they have guests. Sometimes the guests come in big numbers. When new Members come in, it is a natural thing to want to bring in guests and show them round. That is important and I make no complaint about it. However, the system that we have down there was designed for a much smaller House, where people were much closer to one another and Members were much better known to the staff who protect us. I make clear that on this occasion there were no complaints, but the staff were overwhelmed. I do not know whether anyone has ever asked them whether in their heart of hearts they believe that they can give us the level of protection to which they have always aspired, but I think that a House of this size makes that impossible. Therefore, if this is to be done properly, serious new security arrangements, for example, will have to be organised. I could give lots of other examples of what would really need to be done if you were going to be thirled to a House as big as this, and it is not just a question of accommodation—Oral Questions would be the least of your problems. I think that we should also take the staff into consideration.

I have the great privilege of being the chairman of the Information Committee. I am still quite new at it but I enjoy the work and, with colleagues, I am responsible for looking after the Library. For the first time I am looking at graphs relating to usage that are all exponential. I can tell noble Lords about costs per Member and I can tell them how many Members are active. The answer is 420. They make proper requests for information at the Library and they receive a service. However, that service will be diluted. If we leave things as they are until 2015, noble Lords can forget the levels of service that they have enjoyed in the past unless we move to digital support mechanisms, although I know that some colleagues are not as comfortable about that as others.

Therefore, if we do nothing, we will walk blindfold into a situation in which we will be behind the curve when this tsunami of change occurs. It is only my view that such change will happen and other noble Lords may have a different view about it, but even those who do not think that it will happen will have to admit that there is a risk that serious change will come in our direction and, if we do not get ahead of the curve, we will deserve all we get.

I want to say two other things. First, I believe that using age as a basis for any change would be discriminatory. I would want to see a House that reflected the population of the country, and the fact is that people are living longer. We must not forget that, and I would want people here, as already happens, making sure that that point of view is available when important policy-making occurs. If the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and his committee decided to investigate the matter and to give people commissions to look into the issue, we could with a little ingenuity—I promise your Lordships that there are mechanisms, skills and procedures available—arrive at an index of activity that demonstrated whether people were contributing substantially to the work of the House. For my money, I think that we should certainly consider moving in that direction, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will look at that seriously. I would be very happy, working with the staff in the Library and others, to assist in that process if, as I hope, his committee deemed it a sensible thing to do.

My second point is that you have to be realistic about asking people to relinquish their roles here. Why would anyone in their right mind want to leave this place? We are looked after, it is comfortable, it is collegiate and it is warm in the winter. What is not to like about the House of Lords? It is a wonderful place to be, and anyone who wants to leave it must be off their trolley. Therefore, I think that one has to be practical, and I make an offer to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.

I think that it is possible—the skills are available to us within the House—to work out the marginal cost of Members’ use of the Library and so on. There are businesses all over the country that do that kind of thing. They carry out cost-benefit analyses of how, if you reduce your staff load over the distance, you save money. It is an invest-to-save policy. There are distinguished civil servants among our number who have been doing that for years. Therefore, there is a value-for-money case to be made—the figure arrived at might not be £50,000 but it might be significant—for saying that between now and 2015, for argument’s sake, some of the institution’s resources would be freed up, and that we should encourage some of our colleagues to consider what would be a rather grand redundancy package. I certainly think that that work has to be done. I do not know whether the figure would come out right; I do not know that many would take the money even if they were offered it. We have heard that some colleagues would not go for £1 million—I would seriously think about £1 million. Figures can be established and worked on, and I would be perfectly prepared to go into the high streets of the United Kingdom and say, “In the interests of the institution”—

[Lady Saltoun of Abernethy]

Has the noble Lord considered what the press would say if any Peer were given a penny to leave this place?

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

Yes, I have thought about that. It is an important question, but there are commercial and business standards for reducing workloads that are long-term cost-effective to an institution. I would be brutal and say that the needs of the institution are such that we have to change the system of introducing new Members—whether by elections or otherwise is a debate for another day. The figure could be worked out and justified by saying how we arrived at the per head offer. It would not be age discriminatory as that would be indefensible.

My plea to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is that we must do something about this, although I know that it is not for his committee to decide. He must come to a conclusion and make a recommendation. I hope that he will think seriously about the practical approach that I have suggested. I know that I may be in a minority, but if he does not do that, the danger is that we will stagger on to 2015, which is not in the long-term interests of this institution. I am convinced about that.