House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Lord Cobbold Excerpts

Friday 28th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cobbold (CB)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I welcome the Bill that we are considering today. It is an important step forward in the ongoing process of House of Lords reform.

My particular interest is in Clause 1, which permits a Peer to resign as a Member of the House by giving notice in writing to the Clerk of the Parliaments. It is an important step forward, and it will be interesting to see how many Peers make use of the option and whether it will reduce the number of Peers who rarely, if ever, visit the Chamber.

As for the 92 elected hereditary Peers who were exempted from Section 1 of the House of Lords Act 1999, of which I am lucky enough to be one, the situation up to now has been that a resignation by one of the 92 would reduce the size of the portfolio by one unless it was the result of the death of a Member, in which case the gap would be filled by a by-election to retain the 92 total. I am pleased to see that Clause 4(7) confirms that a by-election must be held to replace one of the 92 Members not only in the event of death but in the event of a formal resignation.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Steel, for his efforts on this subject and I wish him every success in the months to come.

House of Lords: Reform

Lord Cobbold Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cobbold]

My Lords, I am one of the many speakers who believe that the draft Bill we are debating today is not about House of Lords reform; it is about House of Lords abolition and replacement by an 80 or 100 per cent elected Chamber or senate. It is unlikely that many Members of the present House would wish to stand for election and so the new senate would not have the benefit of the experience and expertise that this Chamber enjoys and given that the new senators would be salaried, the proposed senate would cost several times as much as the present House. There can be little doubt that an elected senate would threaten the primacy of the House of Commons and, for this reason alone, I am surprised that any Member of the House of Commons supports the idea of an elected upper House.

To reject the proposals in the Bill is not to say that this House is not in need of some reform. Indeed, the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, lists a number of reforms, all of which would or should be welcomed. The most urgent and important of these is the creation of a statutory appointments commission which would be responsible for all appointments to a life peerage and a consequential membership of this House. The commission should choose candidates from a publicly recognised range of experience and expertise with an agreed annual maximum number of appointments. Under present arrangements, there is no control on numbers of new appointments and consequentially no limit on total numbers in the Chamber. Following the exceptionally large number of recent new appointments, the House is definitely too large and one hopes that the excessive number of new appointments is not a deliberate tactic of those advocating an elected senate to weaken the present House.

There is no doubt that the present House of nearly 800 is too large and the Steel Bill suggests a system of voluntary retirement. While welcome in principle, I do not think that such a scheme could achieve the long-term reduction in membership that is required. In a sense, there is already a system of voluntary retirement in that a member may simply stop attending. I believe that a long-term reduction in existing membership can be achieved only by a system of compulsory retirement. This could be based either on the age of the Member or on period of service. Personally, I do not think age is the right choice. People age at different rates and I believe that the only fair and workable system would be a compulsory period of service for all Members which, in my view, should be 20 years. Given a fixed period of service of 20 years it should be possible for a Member reaching 20 years and still performing a valuable role in the House to be given an extension of service of, say, one to five years on application, I suggest, to the Lord Speaker. Implementing such a 20-year period of service would need to be accompanied by agreement on an optimal total size of the House, which is probably around 300, and a phased programme of retirement for the 150 Members of the present House with a period of service in excess of 20 years.

A further reform in the Steel Bill is the ending of the electoral process for choosing replacements for the 92 hereditary Peers when they die. While I am lucky to be one of the 92, I do not think that heredity can any longer justifiably be on its own a qualification for membership of this House. These suggested reforms are readily implementable. The Bill which is the subject of this debate must be rejected. It is a waste of time and money to set up yet another commission to investigate its merits.

Finally, if the coalition decides to proceed with the Bill, it is a major constitutional issue and could not be introduced without a referendum. In last year’s election, the manifestos of all three parties called for an elected upper Chamber so the public have not yet had the chance to express a view. A referendum could be the last way left to defeat the Bill. The Bill before us must be rejected: reform, yes; abolition, no.

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

Lord Cobbold Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cobbold]

My Lords, may I intervene in the gap? I apologise for not being here at the beginning of this debate but, having listened to the very able contributions from all sides, I wanted to stress my strong belief that a fixed period of service is the best way to move forward and that a figure of 20 years is probably right, although it could be less—perhaps 15. That idea is better than the limit by age.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Cobbold Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cobbold]

My Lords, I am one of those who strongly support the House remaining a fully appointed Chamber. I support the reforms proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and agree to the proposed ending of the election procedure for replacing the 92 hereditary Peers. Although I am a beneficiary, I do not think that heredity can any more be justified as an automatic qualification for membership of your Lordships' House. That does not, of course, mean that a hereditary Peer cannot be appointed to the House on the basis of personal merit.

My main concern is about the growing size of the Chamber. Noble Lords are living longer and the numbers of new entrants are large. The idea proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Steel—that there should be a voluntary retirement option—is a step in the right direction, but I do not believe that it would solve the problem. I believe that there should be a fixed retirement rule. It should be based on either a retirement age or a fixed period of service. I feel strongly that a fixed period of service is preferable. An age limit takes no account of the fact that individuals become Members at different ages and therefore would have different periods of service. A fixed period of service, on the other hand, is the same for everyone.

How long should the fixed period of service be? It could be 20 or 25 years; I would suggest 20. There should be a mechanism to grant an extension of, say, up to five years to a Peer who is making a significant contribution at the time of retirement. This step could be approved by the Lord Speaker after consultation, as appropriate. Given that a large proportion of the current membership of the House has considerably more than 20 years of service, it would be necessary to have an extended transition period of at least five years. I proposed such a system in an amendment to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill in the previous Parliament, but it was lost in the wash-up and not debated. Basically, it would involve listing the present membership by length of service and dividing it into, say, five groups, with the longest serving group retiring in the first year and the others spread over the next four years. In summary, I believe that a fixed period of service will be necessary if this House is to survive as a fully appointed House, and I believe that it is of paramount importance for the future of this country that it should.