House of Lords: Size

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to have a chance to take part in this debate, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for having initiated it. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, who may be disconcerted to find that I have a large measure of agreement with what he said—unusually.

Of course we are too large, of course our functions must influence the size that we end up with, and of course the primacy of the Commons has to be maintained. I had the privilege of serving on the committee led by my noble friend Lady Taylor, and we came up with about 450 Members as the right size, with a number of other suggestions, most of which my noble friend has already iterated. Of course, we also need a bicameral system. I know in the past people have said that the easiest option is just to abolish this House and not replace it. I reject that entirely. I value this House and I feel very privileged to have been Member for some years—some would say for too long.

How do we move forward? I have one suggestion, which is meant seriously although it will be assumed I am not serious. Why do we not establish a position whereby those Members of this House who wish to stay as Members relinquish their titles, but if they leave the House they can retain their titles? I say that in all seriousness because I think it might work. The last time I raised it, people laughed at me, but we will see. I reject the idea that there is a case for appointing Peers for a fixed term of, say, 10 years. That, as my noble friend Lady Taylor said, simply means only older people would do it. The younger ones would not because they would have a career left that they could not easily take up.

I think there are three options. First, we could have an elected House, or at least a 90% elected House. It is still the option I favour, although I agree it is not very popular here. Secondly, as my noble friend’s committee suggested, we should reduce the House according to low levels of participation and high levels of years. That would enable us to get the House to be made smaller, although it would be contentious as to how it could be brought about. We need a constitutional commission to deal with this. A Select Committee has been suggested. Maybe that would work, but a constitutional commission might be better than a Select Committee because we would not be looking after our own.

Of course we must maintain a political balance, so that no one party dominates. At my age, I would be happy to fall on my sword provided that others also did so, or provided we had a clear-out of those who did not conform to the idea that they should be achieving a certain level of participation. On that basis, I would happily go, but others would have to join me as well. The Labour Party in this House is probably older than the other parties, so if we had a percentage reduction, that would hit the Labour Party much harder than other parties, so we have to be aware lest that might happen.

The question is whether the baseline for any change should be the percentage of existing Members here or bear some relationship to the strength in the Commons. I know that the Lib Dems would not be very keen on that, but would it not have some sort of logic? What I do not like—although it has not been suggested specifically—is what I call the Billy Bragg idea. He said that the House should be re-established not just after every election but that we should start again with zero membership and the political parties could appoint their Members. That would be a recipe for a sycophantic House, which is the last thing that we would want. Where would our level of independence go?

However, if we did it as the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, suggested, and simply vote in each party group and on the Cross Benches for who should remain, based on a baseline percentage, I think that would work pretty well. I know that it has been called a circular firing squad, but I think it would not be a bad idea. After all, the hereditary Peers did that, way back in 1999, and it seemed to work quite well. That would be a quick and easy way—it would not deal with the sophistication of my noble friend’s report, but it would be a quick and effective way in which to reduce the size of the House.