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

Debate between Lord Desai and Lord Tyler

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am very tempted to follow my noble friend and try to explain the massive underrepresentation of our party in the past, particularly when the leader of his party refused to make appointments from our Benches. As I understand it, all our new recruits have already committed themselves to vote for substantial radical reform when they come here, which is a step in the right direction.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and his colleagues, because it is a very good report. It has the advantage of brevity, which is not always the case in your Lordships’ House, and I confess that I have changed my mind as a result of his and his colleagues’ persuasion. I thought that we had a relatively simple issue here, and that as long as we avoided either excessive financial remuneration for those leaving or some enormously bureaucratic IPSA-like machinery, we could find some way through. I am not sure that that is the case.

I also thought that the key issue was the disentangling of the honours system from service in Parliament. I think that that is a critical issue. As the noble Baroness the Convener of the Cross Benches said, we must face up to that as soon as we can. Whether we have to wait for the wholesale reform that I will come to in a minute, I am not so sure, but I am persuaded by the report that the issue is a great deal more complex.

However, I am also persuaded, as is my noble friend Lord Kirkwood, that if we have to wait for the full reform package, which I estimate can come as a Bill—not a draft Bill—only in the Queen’s Speech of May 2012, we must do something earlier than that. There must be an interim solution. That is why the report is so helpful. It has caused me to react in two distinct ways—which are, potentially, I have to say, in conflict.

First, noble Lords may have examined table 3 on page 11. I am staggered that in Session 2009-10, 79 Members of your Lordships' House did not attend on one single day. As I understand it, that does not include those who had taken leave of absence; 79 Members who thought that they still were active Members of the House never attended on a single day. Why should the taxpayer pay for them to continue to stay away? That would be totally illogical. As my noble friend Lord Alderdice has already said, they are not here, so there is no point in paying them to stay away; nor, if we now introduce new qualifications, should we encourage them to come, because that would make the situation even worse.

Why should any taxpayer feel confidence about recompensing those who simply turn up to claim their allowance?

[Lord Desai]

I am somewhat lost. A person who does not come here does not get paid anything and does not cost anything. What is the problem?

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Desai, has misunderstood me. I was suggesting that it would be wrong to pay them not to come in future, because they are not here anyway. That is all I am saying. I think that the noble Lord made a similar point earlier, and I am very sorry if he misunderstood me.

Why should we now recompense people who, frankly, turn up only to draw that allowance—who do not make a contribution, do not speak, do not ask Questions and perhaps only occasionally vote as the Whips tell them? That is not a real contribution to the work of your Lordships' House. Occasionally, I hear Peers say that we can take credit for being unsalaried. As has already been said, if you are not salaried, surely that precludes any redundancy payment or pension payment, by definition.

I was struck by the contribution of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn. We should consider very carefully taking a leaf out of the Bishops’ book. The idea of one in, one out, is admirable. Whether the different party groups and the Cross-Benchers would find that acceptable I do not know. As I understand it, when those on the Bishops’ Bench take retirement on an orderly basis, they do not get any golden goodbyes.

Incidentally, it is important to think for a moment about why the Bishops are here. They are not here to be the conscience of the nation; they are here because their ecclesiastical ancestors had to be in the counsels of the monarch of the time because they were hugely important landowners—feudal barons. They were important at Magna Carta. It was important to have them on your side if you wanted to go to war because they had a lot of money.

I am told on good authority that in medieval, feudal times, there were more Lords Spiritual than Lords Temporal, including abbots and abbesses. The first women in the English Parliament were pre-Reformation abbesses. That was nothing to do with the conscience of the nation, and predated the established church. I may be misled; I am a historian rather than a politician really, underneath, but perhaps there is a Henry VIII lesson for us here. If there is a political and practical imperative, that will have to take precedence over every other consideration. That is why my noble friend is so right: we simply cannot wait to have a new solution imposed upon us.

I did not think that I would ever say this, but I have to echo the words of the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers—that is something new for me. I thought he was absolutely right. If I were really devious—and, of course, I am not—I would support the most absurd, ludicrously generous retirement package for those who cannot be tempted to go otherwise because it would undoubtedly increase and harden the public’s support for reform of your Lordships' House, which I believe in. That seems to me to be the right answer. If we want to get this on the road, let us be ludicrously generous because that will increase the public’s support for real reforms, but I do not think that is what is here.