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

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral on his report, and indeed his committee on producing a number of options. People have been critical and said to me that this report should have come up with much more definitive proposals. I do not agree with that at all; I think that it lays out all the options that are open to us. They are all unpalatable; we have to choose the least unpalatable of them.

We have to ask: why are we in this position? There is no doubt that the previous Labour Government seemed to be committed to an elected House, yet they were determined to stuff this House like a Strasbourg goose with Peers. We have now reached the point, as has been pointed out, of becoming an object of ridicule. The problem must be addressed. If it is not, the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is right that it will be addressed for us. It is our duty to try to grip this.

I am confused by our new coalition, which has come up with a rather strange formula that somehow the results of the election should be represented in this House. As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, has pointed out before now, this is the first time that the Government have a majority over the Opposition in this House, so I do not know why it is necessary to put in so many extra Members. We now have a Government who are more committed to an elected House—I totally oppose that and believe in an appointed one—than any previous Government have been.

We have to ask the Liberal Democrats, as our coalition partners, why they are particularly keen on an elected House and are, at the same time, putting forward many of their friends and supporters to become new Members of this House—they thereby exacerbate the problem that we shall face should we get an elected House. I know that my noble friend Lord Tyler follows me in this debate; perhaps he would explain to the House what seems to me to be that conflict of interests. I know it is irresistible if one has the opportunity to bring one’s friends in here, but one has to look at the constitutional implications of what one is doing.

We have to look at how we can reduce the numbers. I shall start with what I am totally against—I do not think that some form of compulsory retirement of those who are too old is the answer. I think that a judgment based upon what age people are is an arbitrary one. There are certain Members of this House who are completely ineffectual and are quite young and there are other Members of this House who are quite ancient and extremely effective, and I think that we would miss them desperately if we produce some arbitrary age limit by which we pick them out. I think that length of service is equally arbitrary and should be discarded as an option as well.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Strathclyde that voluntary retirement is a wonderful idea, but without massive financial inducements I do not think we are going to see serious numbers leaving voluntarily, so we need to start looking at other options. I originally put down that I thought that a moratorium on new Members would be a good idea; I certainly accept, like my noble friend Lord Astor, that perhaps some restraint should be made on the number coming in. It is absurd that one of the problems has been caused by this new Government in terms of the enormous influx that we have seen and, indeed, having another 50 to come.

When we consider what we should do to address the problem of numbers, I come down to the least of all evils and that is a form of election, very similar to that which was carried out by the hereditaries to reduce their numbers. To talk in round figures, if a party has 200 Members here and it is thought to be right to reduce numbers in the House overall by 25 per cent, then they would vote for the 150 they felt should stay. Noble Lords would make a number of considerations in that election as to the contribution people have made—the amount that they attend the House, or whatever—but who is better to judge who should stay and who should go than our fellow Members within our parties, or, indeed, on the Cross Benches, where they would have to do the same thing? This would have the advantage of removing from the Executive the odium of making arbitrary decisions about who should go and who should stay, which commends it in many ways.

I do not believe, unfortunately, that we can entertain the idea of compensation in any form. The noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, is absolutely right; it would be totally unacceptable to public opinion if we were to pay people for no longer being here. It is very sad that that is the case, because people being forced to leave this House would undoubtedly suffer financial hardship, but I am afraid that that is just the way of the world: it is very tough, but in the times of economic hardship in which we are now living, it would be completely unacceptable to pay people for having left this House.

We have to address this problem, we have to do it ourselves and we do not have the option of waiting for legislation to come along at some later date. This problem has to be gripped and it has to be gripped now.