House of Lords: Appointments Process

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Balfe]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, to establish a committee to review the process for appointing members of the House of Lords.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a couple of points right at the beginning. I have had an email from my noble friend Lord Hayward, who was going to speak, but has decided not to because there is not much time. He asks for his support to be recorded. I have also heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, who came up with an ingenious way of dealing with peerages, which we will come to.

To put this debate into context, I should say that this is not about attacking anyone. It is about us hopefully getting a better House of Lords. The main reason I am here moving it is that I was lucky in the raffle; we essentially have a raffle for this kind of debate.

It might help the House if I begin by reading out the question I tried to get debated, which read: “Noting the extent to which all major parties represented in the House have, on occasion, nominated persons for Membership whose virtues are not immediately evident to the general public, the House resolves to establish a committee to look into how the system could be improved and to pass its findings to all political parties to consider when making future recommendations for Membership of the House.” I thought that was a fairly straightforward and easy resolution to put forward, but I was told by the Table Office that a topical QSD needs to be in the form of a question and cannot ask the House to make a decision. That is how we got to today’s wording. That underlines the question of being a self-governing House, when we cannot even set up a committee to look at something. That in itself is a very good starting point for this debate.

To me, the debate is born out of frustration with, in particular, the present Prime Minister. Whether through contempt or disdain, he does not appear to take any notice of this House whatever. He has not taken any notice of the Burns committee or the need for us to engage in some form of reform. I see no sign of him understanding or wanting to understand. To even up the score, I was also disappointed that the Leader of the Opposition, who put her name down to speak in this debate, subsequently removed it.

We should look at the facts. We always talk about the number of people in the Lords. That is indeed a problem. But there is another problem—the number of Members of this Chamber of whom we see very little. There are 39 people on leave of absence; one whom I shall not name has been resident in California for at least the last four years. Apparently, there is nothing to stop people being on perpetual leave of absence. All they have to do is to write an annual letter to the clerk saying that, at some point, they will take up their seat again. They do not even have to give any indication as to when. With 39 Peers on leave of absence, that gives us 783. Of those 783, there are roughly 200 whom we hardly ever see.

This is as much part of the problem as the number that we do see. The number of people taking part in the work of the House is not terribly large. On Wednesday this week, we had 411 voting, and that went down to 356 for the second vote. My good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, got some figures for attendance in September and October. The average attendance at the September Sittings was 376. In October, it was 402. So we do have a problem with numbers, but part of it is that some Members are seldom seen and do not contribute to the work of this House. This is why we need some sort of thorough look at how the House works and what can be done.

Since October 2019, the present Prime Minister has appointed 64 new life Peers. Had he not done that, we would have been on course to achieve the Burns committee’s recommendations. Had he restrained himself in the way that Theresa May did, we would be, according to the Library, more or less on course to fulfil the Burns recommendations.

So I hope we will come to a point where we can look not only at the numbers on the payroll, so to speak, but also at the numbers who are actually doing something, in order to find a way to reduce the numbers in the House and also provide a place for people to take part in what is happening. Looking at the green list, as I call it, for today, there are 23 Select Committee reports awaiting debate. Five have been waiting for more than a year. What sort of a House is it that has high-quality committees producing high-quality reports that never get debated? This is, frankly, disorganisation. The oldest report—which goes back to 27 April 2020—is now 16 months old. This is not an acceptable way of running the House.

I realise that the Minister is in a rather difficult position, because I am not really asking for anything that he can give us. All I could ask him is to go back to the people who listen to him and say, “Look, it’s about time we set up some sort of body to look at how to make this House fulfil its constitutional duty better”. May I remind the Minister that the Conservative manifesto contained a pledge to look at how to do things better? I will not say how they could be done better, but some of the comments we see—particularly in the Sunday Times, which should, frankly, know better—are not in the least helpful.

Let us start by accepting that we are all lucky to be in this House. When I look at my noble friend Lord Farmer and the work that he has put in on families and prisoners, I think he is more than worth his place in this Chamber. The fact that he is a former Treasurer of the Conservative Party is no more relevant than my work as trade union adviser to David Cameron. We both did jobs for our party, and at a point our party decided—God help them—that we would be okay to put in the House of Lords and that we might manage to contribute. By definition, all the Members in the Chamber are here to listen to this debate because we care about the Chamber and want to make it work.

In closing, I ask the Minister to try to convince those who have the authority to look carefully at how we can make this House work better. That cannot be done by fiat. It will need a lot of study—the sort to which this House and its membership can substantially contribute. So I hope this debate can be a useful way of starting to look at how we can have a better, more efficient and, inevitably, smaller House.

Budget Statement

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I recall many years ago, when I had my first public appointment in the Greater London Council, having a meeting early on with officers. We had an expenditure proposal on the table, and I said to the finance officer, “Can we afford it?” I will always remember his reply. He said: “Mr Balfe, there has never been a shortage of money in County Hall. There has frequently been a shortage of willpower when it comes to applying it to useful propositions.”

In the last year or so, we have seen that there is not only a magic money tree but a whole forest of them. I doubt that we will ever again hear the cry that we need a new Marshall plan, because when push came to shove the Chancellor found far more money than Jeremy Corbyn ever dreamed of spending on the economy. So I begin by pointing out that, if we need money, it can be found; the question is whether we should do the finding.

One of our difficulties at the moment is that we are told we are reinventing conservatism. I put it to your Lordships that reinventing conservatism has nothing to do with spending money. Stanley Baldwin reinvented conservatism in the late 1920s. He devised the assisted areas Act, which opened up roads and motorways to the north-east, the area that the right reverend Prelate came from. Baldwin discovered that not only did this enable people to travel to Newcastle but it enabled the people of Newcastle to leave it, which they did in great numbers. I suggest that levelling up is not going to be achieved by spending money. It may be achieved by investing money in education, health and other areas, but not by just throwing a dollop of money at a problem.

The Conservative Party is clearly in the process of reinventing itself. I would like to think that maybe the Labour Party would look at itself and do a bit of reinventing, because it seems to believe in something different every week. I read the pledges on which Mr Keir Starmer was elected, and I was enough of a junkie to read his speech to the Labour Party conference —or, rather, the booklet that was released. They bear very little resemblance to each other; it seems that the policies change almost with the weather. I hope the Labour Party will put its thinking cap on and try to decide what it wishes to achieve and then how it wishes to achieve it. Although I doubt we will ever be great political friends, I must say that some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, often come close to defining a policy area that is well worth a closer look. I shall leave it at that.

The position has been made about education and health. I have often argued in this House that health is safe with the Conservatives. Health expenditure is safe for the very clear reason that we need to keep these people alive. It is very well known that the older people get, the more likely they are to vote Conservative, so obviously the Conservative Party is going to be in favour of a strong, well-functioning health service.

However, I ask the Minister to get his colleagues to look at the way in which it is organised. The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, was right: there is a huge need to sort out the dysfunctions of the NHS, and there are many. Its overweight bureaucracy now cannot even manage to see a patient. In our area, if you want to see the doctor, you have to be triaged and they decide whether you are going to be seen. Of course, as we know, many conditions have been missed.

The point on education is, of course, exactly the opposite. Young people do not vote and expenditure on education has been allowed to wither more than is sensible for an advanced country. I hope that the Government will look at spending on education.

My final point is that the Chancellor has said that expenditure must have its limits and clearly it must. Many people in my local association are concerned at the way in which government expenditure is going. They do not feel that it is the job of a Conservative Government to keep on pushing up expenditure; they feel it is the job of a Conservative Government to produce value for money. I hope that, when the Minister gets back to his department to reflect on this debate, he bears that in mind and looks for value for money from the expenditure that we are undertaking.

Standards in Public Life

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to take part in this debate, initiated by our good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. It is also great for me, because I get lower and lower down the speaking list, to a point where I am now so low that the Chamber is beginning to fill up for the winding-up speeches, so I am actually getting a better audience than I normally do.

I will begin by saying a word in support of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. It has been very much maligned because of a decision about a Lord, but, when I was appointed to this Chamber, there was a very thorough investigation. Two of the people on the list nominated by the Prime Minister were later withdrawn—and this is by no means uncommon. I am told that if you look at the commission’s proceedings, quite a lot of names have, after investigation, been withdrawn, so I do not think that we can tie all the commission’s work around one nomination. I am also told that the nomination that was turned down from the present Prime Minister was not the only one. Indeed, in the reign of Gordon Brown there was also someone turned down who was subsequently put forward—but I am sure we can look at that.

The next thing I would like to say is that there is a general ooh-ah about corruption in this country. I was shocked last Sunday to see the headline in the Sunday Times where a gentleman, Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz, was castigated for receiving a CBE for donating a huge amount of money to Prince Charles’s charity Dumfries House. Were it not for the Prince of Wales, that house would not have been rescued. He has done an enormous job as prince and, frankly, if you have to give away the odd bauble to get some money in, I would have said that that is a matter for congratulation, not for having a go at people. We probably need to get a scale and a perspective, because if you look through any honours list you always see a number of honours “for charitable services”. That is all this particular person did, so I exonerate him.

I will make one or two points about what we could do in our House. First, I very much endorse what my noble friend Lord Young had to say. The time has come for us to look to IPSA to be our regulatory body. I do not think we would have the scandal, frankly, of Members of this House who do not live in London basically being given a different rate of allowance from those who do. IPSA is probably the place to look after our pay and rations, because it has worked down the Corridor.

I would also like to see some attention paid to the revolving door. When I was young in the Civil Service, almost 60 years ago, people wanted to bring in outsiders. At that time, the union I was associated with warned that if you brought them in, their premium would be on getting a job outside and that senior civil servants would constantly be looking to the people they were giving the contracts to and thinking, “What happens when I’m 60?” Well, the first thing to do of course is to increase the retirement age, but the second is to look at this revolving door, because it revolves a bit too smoothly in some places.

I would also like the Government to look at the situation of trade envoys. Trade envoys are not government appointments, yet my good friend Andrew Rosindell was sacked as trade envoy to Tanzania for voting against the Government. Trade envoys also come from the Labour Party. I do not know whether they have any sanction about Labour trade envoys, but I do not think it is right that a trade envoy appointed on expertise should be treated as part of the payroll vote.

My final the point is that we really have to look at the idea of non-legislative Peers. There are people in society who deserve high honours and who have contributed enormously to the country, but they are not trained legislators. There should be a way for this top honour of being called a Lord to be split into two divisions: legislative and non-legislative Peers. This would get rid of a lot of the problems of donors as well.

House of Lords Appointments Commission

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I give general support to the idea put forward by my noble friend Lord Norton, but I reflect on the words of my noble friend Lady Noakes that any appointments commission would probably end up appointing people like itself. That concerns me. For a start, I doubt I would be here if there was such an appointments commission. I also doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, would be here, because he tends to step out of line from time to time. I am happy with there being an appointments commission, but I think it should have clear criteria for turning people down, and that should then be the end of things; it should not be able to be overruled.

I also think we need to look again at political balance. Although my party has far more than the other parties, I do not think it healthy for this to carry on. I would like to see some agreement on political balance, because one of the strengths of this House is that it can defeat the Government. As was said to me when I first came here by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, who was then the Chief Whip, the difference between here and the Commons is that in the Lords you must win arguments and in the Commons you can just win votes. That is an important principle of this place.

My final point is that we need to distinguish between honorary peerages and working Peers. I came here to work but some people did not. Basically, they take up a place that they should not be taking up, so we also need to look carefully at having working Peers.

Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con) [V]]

I could never conceive that the noble Baroness would be a threat to anyone and I rejoice in her kindly words always. The reality is that Parliament agreed in 2000 that it was appropriate to protect sensitive information from inappropriate disclosure and legislated for exemptions in some areas, including absolute exemptions for information relating to security and intelligence agencies and communication with the sovereign. That decision was taken by Parliament, and in the spirit of adhering to the law, the Government continue to follow that provision.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I also have an MI5 file, which I discovered after a recent government publication. What distressed me was that all the information in it was wrong. Can the Minister make these files available so that MI5 at least has accurate information about why we are totally untrustworthy?

[Lord True (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord would not expect me to have access to any such file, and we do not comment on security matters in any case.

Post-Brexit Financial Settlement

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness to the Front Bench. I look forward to debating such issues with her on what I hope are many occasions in the future. The link between the EU budget and the question she asks is possibly a little tenuous, but nevertheless I am happy to say that I received her letter and obviously will reply shortly. I have never met Mr Temerko and I have no recollection of discussing his business with any Ministers or anybody else. We are establishing what correspondence, if any, there was with me or my office last year, and will reply.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, certain people have tried to make mischief with this figure. What we need—I think we have now had it from the Minister—is a clear statement that we will stand by the agreement that we negotiated. If he can say that, I am sure that it will find favour on both sides of the negotiating table.

Emergency Covid Contracts

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I think that, when the final inquest on this affair is ended, we will find that the Civil Service also was not up to it in certain areas when it came to commissioning contracts. Ministers undoubtedly cut corners. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, the other day when he was here, and he said he had obeyed the Nolan principles. I want to ask the Minister whether the Nolan principles specifically forbid the use of private emails, because I am not sure that they do. If they do not, will he try to ensure that the Nolan principles are brought up to date, to reflect where we are and modern technology?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the Nolan principles arise from outside government. I was there at the start of the Nolan process and recall that it arose from recommendations that were requested by the then Prime Minister. I do not believe the principles necessarily cover emails—I may be wrong—but there are other areas of guidance to Ministers; there are duties under the Ministerial Code and so on. Obviously, Ministers must have an eye to all of those in their daily work.

Civil Society Forum: UK Delegation

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, obviously, a prerequisite for moving this forward has been the first meeting of the Partnership Council to kick it off, which happened only two and half weeks ago, so we are in the early stages of identifying the possible UK representatives. It is for departments to do that, and departments are engaging very actively with the civil society groups they meet. Our intention is absolutely to establish a collective capacity on the UK side to begin the discussions with the European Union. We are at rather an early stage of that process.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, Article 14.3, which deals with the establishment of the forum, states:

“Each Party shall promote a balanced representation, including non-governmental organisations, business and employers’ organisations and trade unions”.


I remind the Minister that between one-third and 40% of trade unionists support the Conservative Party and a number support other parties. It is doubtful that the Labour Party even has a majority of TU support these days. Will the Minister ensure that, when the government departments appointing people to UK places are appointing representatives of the trade union movement, they take steps to ensure that they reflect the political balance of the members of trade unions, not just the leadership?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a very good point about the possible gap between the views of trade union members and the views of those who speak in their name. This has been a feature of British politics for some time. It is absolutely our intention to ensure that the UK component of the civil society forum is balanced in every possible way, so that there is full representation of all shades of opinion and interest.

Covid-19: Status Certification

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 29th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I think nobody pretends that everything that has happened in the last year has been done perfectly in every case. The Government maintain that we have made enormous progress. I think people are gladdened and heartened to see the progress being made, in both the statistics and delivery. So far as international travel is concerned, I will not add to speculation. The Government will set out their position on international travel in advance of 17 May, as set out in the road map.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I point out to the Minister that many people in this country are just fed up with lockdown, and anything that can ease it and make things simpler will be welcome. On the international front, I ask him to ensure that any international certificate we come forward with is compliant with and under- standable in the countries that people wish to travel to. We really cannot go into a situation in which we have multiple different certificates for international travel.

[Lord True (Con)]

I obviously agree with my noble friend that for international travel there have to be international discussions, and indeed there are. So far as his point on lockdown is concerned, lockdown is extremely hard. It is something that has been and is being done for the sake of the general good and has contributed to the situation we are now in. Of course, the Government never underestimate the mental health and other issues that arise and have arisen.

Budget Statement

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate all maiden speakers, in particular my noble friend Lady Foster, who I have known for a good number of years, mainly in Brussels. She alluded to her role there on the transport committee and in the transport field for the Commission, where I have to say she was a distinguished and feared figure, because she knew her stuff—and that is the most important thing to get things done. She was also deputy leader of the Conservative group—the deputy leader is the one who gets the jobs that no one else wants—and she survived a good few years there. Finally, although she mentioned British Airways, she did not mention that she was instrumental in setting up a trade union. Labour loves to feel that it has all the TU people, but we have yet another person on our Benches who is an intimate in the trade union field.

I will move on to make myself unpopular with the Opposition, certainly, if not the Government. We cannot keep on living on credit. It is as simple as that; difficult choices have to be made. Johnson compares himself to Churchill. I see the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, opposite; his grandfather was Churchill’s Chancellor of the Exchequer. Churchill spent money like water—but it had to stop, and this has to stop. We have to construct a way of living with Covid.

I say this to our friends the nurses: they have to be subject to the same economic disciplines as anyone else in the labour force. A pound on the wages bill is a pound off the cancer treatment bill. There is no unlimited supply of money. That is the message that I would like the Chancellor to ram home to No. 10. We must start again living within our means and we must make decisions based on hard economic facts, not emotional spasms.