House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Grenfell and Earl of Caithness

Friday 21st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

I absolutely take my noble friend's point. As I said to him earlier, that is not going to work because the only way you are going to get retirement from this House is to have a financial inducement, and I do not think that that will ever be acceptable, particularly in the present financial circumstances. For a House comprising Peers who are not paid but merely receive expenses, to be paid to leave is not acceptable. It was not acceptable for the hereditary Peers and it is not acceptable for the life Peers.

[Lord Grenfell]

I have to challenge the noble Earl’s assertion that the number of committees is driven by the size of the House. This is not the case. I have some experience of this. The number of committees is driven by the fact that legislation is becoming increasingly complex, particularly the scrutiny of European legislation, and, unfortunately, by the quality of the form in which legislation comes from the other place often being very poor. Your Lordships have a duty to scrutinise properly. It is not quite right to say that we create committees to make jobs for the boys and girls. We do it because there is a genuine need for better scrutiny.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I certainly bow to the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, who has much greater experience of this than I have. There is no doubt that, as a result of the reforms in another place, there is less scrutiny there than there used to be and we have to do more. However, there are other committees that have grown since I was first here. It is a bit of both. The noble Lord is absolutely right that the complexity of legislation, particularly European legislation as it has come in, has needed committees. However, my figure of 300 is merely taken from the Government’s proposals. We will come back to that but we must get on.