House of Lords: Membership

Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Hughes of Woodside

Thursday 28th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am a great admirer of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, who has given great service to our nation and to this House. Although I agree with him that the two new Members who have been announced should be given the warmest of welcomes—we all agree with that—I regret to say that I cannot follow the logic of his other remarks. I wish to give my strong support to the initiative taken by my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood, to whom we are all in debt, and very much to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who has moved his amendment moderately and persuasively, and I hope in a way that will have garnered support in all parts of the House.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Since he is a great advocate of reducing the size of this House, might I commend to him the traditional trade union solution to dealing with redundancies: last in, first out?

[Lord Cormack]

If that became the will of the House we would all have to accept it, wouldn’t we? My old and mischievous friend from another place makes his point with his customary tact. It is now 11 years since my noble friend Lord Norton and I formed a group called the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. My noble friend Lord Norton, who did that group great service as our convenor throughout those years, cannot be here today because of his teaching duties at his university. We miss him and the contribution he would have made. We formed that group, over which I have had the honour to preside, because we believe that this Chamber is effective but could be much more effective. We were always committed to an appointed House rather than an elected one, but we also recognise the fact that the House as it exists can and should be improved even though many people in this House—by no means the majority, but a number of very distinguished Members—would like to move towards election. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has made that his position in the past. Nevertheless, surely we can all recognise that the House as it exists is not only capable of improvement but cries out for improvement, not only in its size but in the way in which we do business. We all owe a great deal to noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, who have been working hard in this regard over recent months and years. Whatever one’s ultimate view is, surely we should not stand in the way of what the noble Lords, Lord Steel and Lord Hunt, have referred to as “housekeeping reforms”.

To the Deputy Prime Minister, who has shown an interesting flexibility of mind and memory in recent days, I say, “If you believe that the best is elected, then do not let the best be the enemy of the good”. We think that this House as it exists—and on Mr Clegg’s own admission it cannot be fundamentally changed for some years—should now be changed in the way proposed in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. We all hold my noble friend the Leader of the House in the highest regard. I very much hope that he will take it upon himself as Leader of the House—leader of all of us—to convene a meeting to discuss ways and means of approaching the problems referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Steel and Lord Hunt. He would be doing us all a very great service if he exercised his initiative in that regard and I very much hope that he will. Of course, our expertise and experience, notwithstanding the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, must be refreshed and revived, but if many more Peers are introduced into this House without addressing the current problems we will bring this House into disrepute.