House of Lords

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Williams of Elvel

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Williams of Elvel (Lab)]

My Lords, before I begin, I should say that, although this is a take-note Motion, it is a take-note Motion with a purpose. Most people seem to agree that the House is too large, but nobody seems able to come up with a solution that does not involve the cumbersome process of primary legislation. This afternoon, I want to offer a way forward. That is the purpose of this Motion.

Let us briefly look at the figures. During the past few years, the House has expanded both in “absolute” and in “actual” terms—these expressions and the figures I quote are taken from the recent helpful Library Note and supplements from the Library that I have requested. At 16 December last, the absolute—that is, the total—membership was 847. The actual membership—in other words, excluding those unable for one reason or another to be active Members—was 791. The average daily attendance in the 2013-14 Session was 497. By contrast, in 2009-10, the equivalent first and third values—that is, total membership and average daily attendance—were 735 and 388 respectively. Average daily attendance therefore rose from 388 to 497, which is more than a quarter.

The effect of this increase is not hard to see. The Chamber overflows at Question Time. The House has had to make provision for extra seats below Bar. Many debates are so populated that speaking time is cut down to five minutes or less. Consequently, Peers are put off from putting their names down at all. The rotation arrangements for committee membership to accommodate aspiring candidates is about to become, in my view, too stringent for proper operational efficiency. Division Lobbies are frequently too crowded for comfort. The facilities of the House are strained to breaking point. Accommodation and meeting space for Peers has not kept up with the increase in numbers, leading to business being conducted in the corridors or the Guest Room. In short, the conduct of the House’s business has become disorderly.

The question then arises: what powers does the House have by itself to deal with the problem without recourse to primary legislation? To this purpose, I have taken advice from the Table and my attention has been drawn to the report of the 1955 Select Committee on the powers of the House in relation to the attendance of its Members. In its report, which was approved by the House, the Select Committee stated in paragraph 2 that the House,

“has full power to do anything which may be necessary to ensure the orderly and decent conduct of its business”.

We should note in passing that what it cannot do is override the Writ of Summons.

My proposal on how to exercise this “full power” in the context of the problem that I have described is in mechanism quite simple but in reasoning rather complex. My proposal is that, on the recommendation of the Procedure Committee, the House should be invited to pass a resolution; namely that, “in order to ensure the orderly conduct of business in the House, attendance at the proceedings of the House shall be regulated in accordance with a scheme established by the House; and, to that end, Peers shall consider most carefully applying for leave of absence under the provisions of that scheme”.

If this resolution is passed it will allow an amendment to Standing Order 22 along similar lines but with the important proviso that, “the House will at pleasure grant leave of absence to any Peer making an application under the provisions of the scheme established under the Standing Order”. The Companion would then spell out in detail the proposed scheme in a new appendix. It will state the intention to ensure that no more than 400 Peers attend the House in each Parliament and that these Peers will be known as “active Peers”. These will be nominated by each of the four groupings—Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Cross Bench—and in addition the non-affiliated, on the basis of the proportion of the existing House held by each grouping, provided that 75% of nominations should be of those with the greatest relative attendance record in the current Parliament.

As to the reasoning behind all this, I will address what I perceive to be the four major areas of difficulty—all of which will merit full discussion in the Procedure Committee. First, there has been recently, after yet another influx of new Peers, renewed and more intense discussion about the optimum size of the House. Without regarding it as an optimum, the firm opinion of those I have consulted is that the maximum actual membership should be no more than 400 Peers. I believe this to be the right number to aim for. It would in practice return us, more or less, to the situation in May 2010—in numbers but with a different composition. It also has the advantage—I agree that this is rather dubious but in terms of presentation it is perhaps convenient—of being just over half the current actual membership.

Secondly, there is the balance of membership between the various groupings. As I said, I propose that the current balance of the House represented by the proportions of the actual membership in each grouping should be reproduced in my scheme. There are many possible variants but neither I nor anybody I consulted could suggest an alternative way of arranging the quotas that would not promote an undignified and bad-tempered wrangle. There will no doubt be disagreement but we are, alas, where we are.

Thirdly, I propose that 75% of all the nominations by grouping should be those who have attended with most relative frequency—relative to the number of days available to them—in the current Parliament. This provision would not only seem to be a most practical approach but will ensure a necessary degree of continuity, in particular to ensure that those who have kept the House active on a day-to-day basis in the current Parliament would be able to continue to do so without hindrance in the next. Moreover, it would be undesirable for the scheme in its trial period to produce a wholly different cast of characters, as might happen if this provision were not included. Nevertheless, political parties and the Cross Benches must have some leeway in choosing Peers who have not qualified as “active Peers” but who, for various reasons, they consider suitable to maintain and enhance the reputation of the House. The 25% provision for nominations at the disposal of each grouping is designed to give groupings that extra ability.

To go a little further, the reason for basing the majority of nominations on previous—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord, and I am listening very carefully to his scheme. However, would not the provision that required 75% to be very active Peers encourage more Peers to be more active and therefore defeat his purpose?

[Lord Williams of Elvel]

I am all for more Peers being more active. We are talking about 75% of those with relatively high attendance records in the current Parliament. This will be debated and decided by the Procedure Committee, but I do not see an argument for resiling on that.

There have been other suggestions. Some have suggested an inbuilt gender balance, some a proper regional balance, some ethnic representation. One suggestion that I heard was that former Members of the House of Commons should not qualify.

Frivolous and impractical suggestions apart, the only other attractive criterion for nominations is the exclusion of Peers beyond a certain age. Yet, attractive as the idea may be as a principle, in my view it has three main drawbacks. First, it is difficult—and, if I may say so, idiosyncratic—to argue that the disorder I described earlier is due not to overcrowding per se but to the presence of Peers above a certain age and that therefore an age exclusion would lie squarely within the aim of,

“ensuring orderly and decent conduct of … business”.

Secondly, in order to avoid being unfairly discriminatory in applying only to a particular group of Peers, it would have to apply to the absolute number, the total membership of the House. That being so, new appointees and Members returning from official duties or leave of absence would, as a matter of fairness, be subject to the same limitation as existing Members. In the former case, it is difficult to see how that would fit easily with the Writ of Summons and the Letters Patent—or, for that matter, human rights legislation.

Lastly, it would not properly address the matter of the balance of groupings in the resulting House. The application of a blanket limitation on age would have differential effects to the disadvantage of the Cross Benches, average age 72, my party, average age 70, and the Conservatives, average age 69. The winners would be the Liberal Democrats, with an average age of 67 —the party of eternal youth. I am not sure that that would be entirely acceptable to the House, but, if it were, it would distort the percentage of the groupings and in my view introduce an unstable House.

The fourth possible point of controversy concerns those who are at present entitled to attend but who are not nominated as active Peers. I suggest that they be encouraged to apply for temporary leave of absence. The Select Committee that I quoted and the consequent Standing Order 22(1) make the position clear. Application for leave of absence is an act of individual choice and there can be nothing which smacks of compulsion, but the fact that only active Peers will be entitled to attend and hence eligible to make claims for travel and attendance should be incentive enough if linked to the suggested text in the Companion.

I have used the expression “trial period” because the scheme may, and probably will, need to be modified in the light of experience of operating a House with a finite and defined membership, as opposed to one which is in practice open ended. It may be necessary to accommodate new groupings. In future years, different groupings may wish to adopt different methods of selection of active Peers. The House of Commons may in the end decide what it wants to do with us—perhaps.

I therefore suggest a review as the next Parliament draws to its close. Of course, it may be that the forthcoming general election will produce a House of Commons which is so fractured in composition that it is unable to last the full term of five years. Although I have suggested text for the Companion, I suspect that there may be some provision to allow that to be rolled over if there is an early Dissolution.

I am under no illusions about the difficulty of translating my proposal into action. There will be a particularly heavy burden on the Procedure Committee to analyse and digest both my proposal—which will be formally on the desk of the Chairman of Committees tomorrow morning if this Motion is agreed—and the proposals and submissions which I very much hope other noble Lords will make to it. Nevertheless, the House will be aware that if anything is to happen, it really has to happen before the end of March and the start of a new Parliament. That is why I urge that the committee reports back to the House with its conclusions before the end of February.

Finally, I am under no illusions about the impact of my proposals—or any similar proposals to reduce average attendance—on some valued Members who do not attend regularly and are not chosen by their groupings under the 25% provision. Nevertheless, I believe that it should be done. A House of finite and defined membership will have many advantages. No future Government will be able to pack the House with their supporters. The controversy over “cash for peerages” will disappear since although political donors may be awarded peerages as an honour, there will be no immediate passport to a voting membership in this House. Divisions will no longer depend on who can bus in more of their inactive Members. In short, the House will look more like what it should be, a well informed, experienced and moderate revising Chamber, and less like the caricature which is frequently painted: that of a cross between an old folks’ home for superannuated politicians and a bloated relic from a bygone age.

It can be done. We are always told that this is a self-regulating House—I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will support me—and if we are to regulate ourselves, we should take the opportunity to do so. The means are there; the question is whether we have the will. I beg to move.