House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Lord Burns Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Burns (CB)]

My Lords, I am also delighted to support the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Norton. It proposes some very important changes to how appointments are made. It would strengthen procedures and give confidence to the public, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, has mentioned.

I will comment on a few of the aspects which touch on the work of the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the Size of the House, which I chair. I take this opportunity to suggest how we could build on the useful reforms proposed in this Bill to achieve further changes in due course. The Bill proposes a limit on the size of the House, that it be no greater than the membership of the Commons. This is a crucial first step and has been a key part of the proposals of the Lord Speaker’s committee. The House of Lords is exceptional among legislative chambers in having no limit on its size and no constraint on the numbers appointed. A limit on its size would have many benefits, some of which I will mention.

Of course, it also raises other issues. First, this Bill says nothing about the transition to a level consistent with the House of Commons, and, as we know, this first step seems to be very troublesome despite the widespread support from Members of this House. Secondly, once the membership of the House has been reduced to the size of the Commons, the number of appointments cannot exceed the number of leavers. As it happens, over the past 10 years or so the numbers have stabilised—albeit at a much higher level than the Commons—with both leavers and appointments averaging around 25 a year. In no small way, this has been due to the introduction of retirements in 2014.

As the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, also mentioned, a limit on the size of the House could rightly focus more attention on the political balance of appointments. Over the past 40 years, appointments have been made disproportionately to the party in government, while the Official Opposition have suffered in terms of refreshment. This is not addressed in the Bill, which simply says that

“no one party may have an absolute majority”.

This is not a particularly strong test. I understand the reason for driving the political imbalance of appointments, but, over time, this leads to successive leap-frogging when there is a change of government. Can anybody be in any doubt about the consequences for the size of this House if there is a change of government at the next election, unless a significant number of current Members retire?

To avoid this leap-frogging, the Lord Speaker’s committee proposed that the flow of new appointments should reflect the results of the most recent general election, taking account of both the share of votes and the share of seats. However, it also follows that, if we were to share appointments in this way, it would probably be necessary to increase the turnover of Members. The turnover of 25 a year does not give the scope that would be needed to refresh the House and provide the vacancies necessary to create room for some change in the political balance over time to reflect election results. The committee took the view that, with a limit on the size of the House, a turnover could be achieved most effectively if we were to have appointments with fixed-term lengths. An age limit, which is often proposed, would not deliver a steady flow of retirements and would affect the party groups rather differently. With a House of 600 Members, our calculations suggested, as noble Lords know, that terms of between 15 and 20 years would be required if we want to see the 30 to 40 retirements each year to provide scope for that change. This challenging arithmetic follows, if we wish to see a continuing adjustment of party strength to reflect the results of general elections.

Finally, I strongly support the suggestion that at least 20% of the House should be formed by people who are independent of any registered political party. Additionally, 20% of any appointments over the course of a Parliament should also be required to be independent. Since 2010, the proportion of appointments to the Cross Benches has been significantly below this figure. The Cross-Bench and non-aligned numbers have been inflated by people escaping from the party to which they were first appointed, and who are unlikely to pass the test of independence as set out in this Bill.

In summary, I support the Bill; however, in time, I hope it will be possible to go further, along the lines I have outlined.