House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Friday 28th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

My Lords, I join with others in thanking my noble friend Lord Steel for his persistence in bringing us to this point. I shall refer briefly later to the remarkable speech of the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell.

Perhaps I may say a few words about what one of the consequences of passing this Bill might be. I recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, indicated that this might be for another day, but I am responding to the wishes of certain noble Lords who have urged me to speak and to say something about the issue of a dignified and honourable ceremony that might accompany a Peer’s resignation. I am encouraged by the fact that when the Leader of the House spoke to what I always call the Cormack-Norton group he indicated that he would welcome views on this because it is clearly for the authorities of the House to take this forward.

As has been said, Clause 1 provides, for the first time, a statutory right for a Peer to leave the House permanently and not to be able to rescind that decision. As the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, reminded us, there is an existing, more informal, process but, as he said, with some confused implications. For instance, I have never been quite clear whether the process that the noble Lord is now following means that there will no longer be a reason for sending him a Writ of Summons. This Bill would make it absolutely clear that a Peer who takes advantage of the provision in Clause 1 and retires from the House would no longer be entitled to receive a Writ of Summons. That is a necessary and very important step.

The clause would establish the right to retire, but we need to recognise that something more than that will be necessary. I am thinking about a ceremony of some sort by which a retirement might be recognised by the House. When the Government responded to the report of the Select Committee in another place, they made it clear that it was very much a matter for this House to consider, and indeed a number of things could be done in this Chamber that would not require further legislation. Perhaps I may draw attention briefly to some of the suggestions that have been made and which my noble friend the Leader of the House might like to consider.

My starting point is what I shall refer to as the Hunt report, the report of the Leader’s Group on Members Leaving the House, chaired by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral. It reported over three years ago, so quite a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then, but as he said,

“an honourable and dignified means of retirement would be desirable”.

Perhaps I may remind the House what was said about that:

“We also recommend that the departure of a retiring member after distinguished service should be marked by the House in some suitable way, perhaps analogous to the ceremony of introduction by which the beginning of a member’s Parliamentary career is marked”.

That is certainly one suggestion that should be followed up. As noble Lords have said, I know that it has attracted a good deal of support, but without the detail of how it might be done and what the process would actually involve, it is a little difficult to form a judgment. However, it is a proposal that should be carried forward.

Other suggestions have been made since then. They followed the evidence given to the Select Committee in the other place, and I should like to quote what was said at paragraph 50 of the committee’s report by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, who has just left the Chamber:

“the lack of take-up of the voluntary scheme is partly due to the fact that ‘if people depart they would like some recognition of what they have done for the House. It does not necessarily have to be financial, but some sort of acknowledgement of services rendered might be worth exploring.’ He suggested creating a ‘decommissioning ceremony’ and argued that ‘people would like rites of passage’”.

It is very much a British characteristic that we like things to be done formally and visibly as evidence of the underlying decisions that are being taken. This might well be included in my noble friend’s study.

Further suggestions have since been put forward, one of which is that a retiring Member should have the opportunity to make a speech in the Chamber to mark, as it were, the end of his parliamentary career in this House. I have to say that few of us would be able to match the eloquence, wit and profundity of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, which we all enjoyed, but perhaps there might be an opportunity to do that. In another place it is managed by the Speaker calling a Member who has indicated that he no longer intends to stand at the next general election. He is given the opportunity to make a speech. I do not think it happened when I left that House, but I am told that it certainly does happen now.

Another suggestion is for some sort of tribute to be paid to the retiring Peer in the Chamber. On this I should like to make two points. First, there can be no first and second-class Peers retiring. It has to be the same for everyone, and I think that this would be widely supported in the Chamber. The second one is that it might be quite embarrassing for the Peer himself to be present when that happens. For instance, when tributes are paid to a retiring Clerk of the Parliaments, he is not in the Chamber to hear them. That, too, ought to be considered.

A further suggestion I have heard recently is that, instead of an oral tribute, it could become customary, when a Peer has retired or is about to retire, for there to be some sort of written tribute in the House magazine. This happens when a Peer dies, but of course only if particular circumstances make it relevant. It should happen for retired Peers. The provision of the necessary short paragraph or two that might form part of an article could possibly be a role for the Information Office of the House.

There are other things that may be done to mark the recognition of past service. Could not Peers who have retired be granted the same sort of facilities that were granted to hereditary Peers who left the House in 1999: the availability of a pass, access to the refreshment facilities and use of the Library? This was agreed after that Bill became law, and so far as I am aware, it has created no difficulties for the management of the House in any way. That, too, would perhaps help to attract more Peers to the notion of retirement. The right reverend Prelate—I almost called him “my noble friend” because he is—drew attention to what happens to bishops when they retire. Many of us will know how much that is appreciated by bishops when they are no longer able to sit as Members of this House, and I have to say that it is greatly appreciated by the rest of us because we can continue to enjoy their friendship in the premises here. That is of considerable importance. It already exists in two cases that I have mentioned, and why should it not happen for people who retire?

Another suggestion has been made to which I do not think my noble friend Lord Hunt referred. It is that there should be some enabling role for the Leaders of the parties and the Convenor of the Cross Benches to encourage Members who might be contemplating retirement and help them to take the steps that would be necessary to do so. There is merit in this proposal. However, the report of my noble friend Lord Hunt went on to point out that party leaders may not wish to encourage their supporters to retire because that would upset the balance of the House. This is a harsh political reality of which one has to take notice. There is no firm expectation, of course, that anyone who retires from this House could anticipate a new appointment from the same party to fill the vacancy. Indeed, part of the objective of the exercise is to help to reduce our number. Paragraph 36 of the report states that,

“the party leaders and the Convenor should develop a new understanding … about the proportion of seats in the current House on which it would be appropriate for each party or group to rely”.

That takes me into very deep water indeed and I am not sure how it could be approached. It is no different today, three years after the publication of the report, and, with a general election looming, I do not think that it is likely to be a possibility for the moment; but no doubt my noble friend the Leader of the House will want to consider it.

In the absence of further primary legislation, this Bill is not going to lead to a large reduction in the size of the Chamber, but as many other noble Lords have said, it is a very important incremental step along a road that we must take in the interests of the reputation of this House. I therefore warmly support the Bill.

Broadcasting: Digital Radio

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, it is clearly important that a positive momentum is maintained. Indeed, the Digital Radio Action Plan has been working extremely effectively over the past three years. In addition, on 16 December last year, the Government announced a package of measures on coverage, content and cars to support the next phase of the development of digital radio and provide consumers with greater choice.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

Can my noble friend assure us that before the switchover, he will be able to guarantee that one does not get these periodic silences in the middle of a digital programme, which can sometimes be very trying?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I think that interruption of any service, whether it is analogue or digital, is equally trying. A research survey in Bath suggested that there is a view that digital provides better reception, but we clearly want to ensure that as many of the population as possible benefit from digital.

House of Lords: Debates

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

It would of course be open to the House, if it put proposals to the Procedure Committee, to decide that one way of addressing the problem that the noble Lord raises would be a limit on the number of speakers. As with so many things in this House, there is another side to the argument: if one had a fixed limit and the first noble Lords who put their names down to take part all had the same view, we would not have much of a debate. As often, then, this issue is not straightforward, but that is the kind of thing that one could look at. It is also true that there are a number of debates where we are short on speakers, so we have the problem of undersubscription as well as oversubscription.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I hope this will not be regarded as a breach of our convention that we do not criticise the other place, but I express the hope that we do not try to go down the road that they have increasingly followed in recent years where a debate turns into little more than a conversation between the Minister who is trying to make a speech and Back-Benchers who are incessantly interrupting.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

That has seriously reduced the quality of debate at the other end of the Palace.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

Perhaps that sound is someone ringing from another place with a view on the quality of our debates. The response that the House gave to the comments made by my noble friend Lord Jenkin reminds us that we do not want slavishly to follow examples in another place.

Energy: Nuclear Power

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Tuesday 29th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

Obviously, my Lords, I was running round in shorts 50 years ago—and in fact even now I barely understand what the noble Lord is saying. However, he is absolutely right that the fundamental point is that we need to get on with this. As I said, we will have planning permission in front of the Secretary of State by the end of this year, by December, on which he will opine until March 2013 at the latest.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, although the energy Bill quite rightly spells out the details of the electricity market reform, which the industry regards as an extremely important element in helping it to reach its decision, it does not yet contain what is called the strike price. What will be the figure, and when will the Government be prepared to announce it? The strike price is what the industry is waiting for.

[Lord Marland]

As my noble friend rightly says, electricity market reform is fundamental to the setting out of future investment criteria and investment possibilities and predictability. However, we do not want to put the cart before the horse, and we want to make sure that everyone understands electricity market reform. At that point we will have a process whereby the Secretary of State will opine, having received—

Liaison Committee: Third Report

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs]

My Lords, I declare my interests as the chairman of the Science and Technology Committee and as a career scientist. As the chairman of the Liaison Committee said, my amendment refers to paragraphs 18 and 47 of the committee’s report, which include the proposal to reduce the resources of the Science and Technology Committee to those of a single committee from the present level of a Select Committee and a sub-committee. Although the report is not specific, my reading is that it will, in effect, halve the number of inquiries that the committee is able to carry out. This does not seem to square with the Leader of the House’s letter to Cross-Benchers in which he refers to a small reduction in resource to the Science and Technology Select Committee.

My amendment is important because it gets to the heart of what the House does best—using its great depth and breadth of expertise to investigate and to hold the Government to account. This House is unique in the world in its depth of scientific expertise. The Goodlad report of April 2011, of which we heard earlier, acknowledged,

“the clear public interest in making best use of the expertise of the House’s Members”.

Science in its broadest sense—including social science, medicine, engineering and technology—permeates almost every aspect of government policy. This is notably true of the all-important agenda of rebalancing the economy by developing new industries based on advanced knowledge and technology.

The Science and Technology Committee not only has great depth of expertise but great breadth in its coverage. I will list just a few examples of areas that we have covered in recent years. They include policies related to education, innovation and economic growth, energy supply, treatment of infectious diseases, ageing—a topic of particular interest to many of us—internet security, preservation of our heritage, and disposal of waste. The reports of the Select Committee also have significant impact. To name just one recent example, our report on the future of nuclear energy resulted in a substantial change in the Government’s approach. If the lights stay on in 15 years’ time, we should thank the Science and Technology Committee for its work.

Our reports not only have the stamp of authority within government but are highly respected and admired in the wider world. I will quote Mark Henderson of the Times, who wrote of our report on genomic medicine, published two or three years ago, that it was,

“a quite remarkable summary of the state of the science and the steps the Government must take”.

He went on to say:

“It is hard to imagine even a body like the US Senate producing a report of quite this quality and authority ... There’s a reason why this report is so good: it was compiled by a committee of people with genuine experience and understanding of science”.

To avoid misunderstanding, I should add that the committee is not just a club for scientists. It has an eclectic mix of Members, which enriches its deliberations and sharpens its recommendations.

The Science and Technology Committee has a tradition of following up its reports, thus ensuring that its scrutiny is thorough and insistent. For example, our recent report on public procurement and innovation was very critical of the Government’s approach to driving innovation in UK industry with its £230 billion annual procurement budget. The Government largely accepted our recommendations and we said that we would return to this topic soon to inquire whether the recommendations had been carried through.

The ad hoc committees referred to by the noble Lord the chairman of the Liaison Committee will not have this capacity to follow through their inquiries and check that the Government have indeed acted on their recommendations. The Liaison Committee’s proposal to reduce the resources of the Science and Technology Committee will do great reputational damage to this House. The presidents of four national academies—the Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the British Academy —wrote a joint letter to the Prime Minister expressing their concern about the Liaison Committee’s proposal.

I appreciate, of course, that the Liaison Committee has a difficult job. It wishes to create new ad hoc committees to inquire into new areas, and to enable a wider range of noble Lords to participate in committee work. It is trying to do this at a time of scarce resources. However, in allocating these resources it is essential to be very thorough in assessing value for money. Indeed, the report of the Liaison Committee refers to value for money in paragraph 8. I looked very carefully through the report to understand how this assessment of value for money was made but I was unsuccessful in finding any relevant analysis. The Science and Technology Committee, at its present level of support, represents excellent value for money. It uses the unique expertise of the House, it covers a very wide range of policy areas, and its reports have authority, impact and respect within government and more widely. It conducts follow-up inquiries to ensure that its recommendations have been acted on.

I am not, however, simply defending the status quo. I made specific and constructive suggestions to the Liaison Committee to enable it to achieve its objective without damaging the work of the Science and Technology Committee. These suggestions, which included increasing our co-option of additional Members to embrace a wider variety of expertise from the House, and shortening the term of service of members of the committee, were not taken up in the report. I invite the noble Lord the Chairman, when he responds, to explain to the House how his committee carried out its assessment of value for money, and why it concluded that better value for money would be had from reducing the activity of a demonstrably successful, immensely valuable, high-reputation committee and creating new committees. I believe that any such analysis would support my amendment.

Before I close—and I wish to be brief—I suggest to the noble Lord the chairman of the Liaison Committee that he takes this proposal back to the committee for further consideration. If he agreed to do so, that would be the basis for my withdrawing the amendment. Meanwhile, I beg to move.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has said. I used to be a member of the committee and I have been co-opted to a number of recent inquiries, including the one to which he referred about the UK’s capacity for undertaking nuclear research. I want to draw the attention of the House to one particular point made by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs: that is the wide influence that the Science and Technology Committee has, and the respect within which it is held, not only in this country but across the world.

Some years ago, the noble Lord, Lord Winston, came to see me to ask whether I would be willing to chair an inquiry into a subject on which I had been rather jumping about as a member of the Select Committee, which I called in those days science and the public. He offered me that opportunity and of course I accepted. It became known as the science and society inquiry. Neither the noble Lord, Lord Winston, nor I had any idea at that stage how far that report would penetrate to reach not just thousands but millions of people across the world.

I will not go into the detail but we made the recommendation that the public understanding of science was a rather inadequate way to approach the relationship and that there should be wide engagement by scientists with the public, with ears as well as voices being important. I recently had an indication of how far the impact of that report had gone. The British Council organised a two-day seminar in this country, in London, to reflect the 10-year anniversary of the Science and Society report. Representatives of no fewer than 55 countries across the world attended. I was astonished. That report had become, if not the Bible, certainly the guidance for a large number of countries across the world on how relations between science and the public, science and society, should be developed.

To pick up one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, the committee has always included people like me who are not scientists. I deferred always to my scientist colleagues on any issue of scientific understanding; that was their specialty. However, a number of people have said to me: “You know, that Science and Society report could not have been written by a scientist”. Of course, I had had a certain amount of experience in government and elsewhere of dealing with scientists and of trying to ensure that they were explaining themselves properly to the public. Of all the reports which the Science and Technology Committee has produced, that has turned out to be one of the most influential. It was produced by Sub-Committee B, as it was called, not the main committee.

With great respect, the description by my noble friend the Leader of the House—I have the letter, too—of a small reduction in resources simply does not begin to reflect what would be the impact of the Liaison Committee’s proposals. If a committee is to undertake a serious inquiry, a minimum number of people have to be allocated to support that committee. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, it appears to be the intention that the committee should be reduced to one inquiry at any one time. That is a huge reduction in the work of one of the most highly regarded committees in this House and is simply not acceptable. I ask the committee to think again.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, will no doubt decide how he will handle the amendment in the light of what the Chairman of Committees says. I would find it very difficult not to support him. The committee is in danger of doing serious damage to one of the most valued and valuable parts of this House of Lords. I very much hope that it will reconsider the issue.

House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I spent part of the weekend reading last week’s two-day debate in which I was unable to take part. One thing that struck me was the number of noble Lords who referred to the fact that many outside organisations—voluntary bodies, NGOs, trade associations and so on—find it much easier to make their points to noble Lords in this House than they do at the other end of the Palace. That applies particularly to legislation. Therefore, in my few minutes I shall reinforce what has already been said by other noble Lords.

There is the question of how we could deal better with legislation. The first proposal, which has already been discussed and I can deal with briefly, is that we should have a more settled process for pre-legislative scrutiny. I was intrigued by what my noble friend the Leader of the House said in opening the debate: more draft Bills have been introduced in the past year than for some time. I welcome that, although I am not sure that I welcome the House of Lords Reform Bill. However, the fact remains that this is a very important process.

I say this with the experience of having served on what was not technically a pre-legislative committee but a committee on a Bill in draft. That Bill was originally called the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill. Anyone who served on that committee will recognise the enormous value of hearing expert evidence from a variety of sources, which enabled us to make some very important recommendations on the Bill—not least those that persuaded the Government to abandon one part of it. It was brilliantly chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Willis of Knaresborough—Phil Willis MP, as he then was—and was an extremely effective process.

That is the way to do it. The other place might find hearing evidence for a day or so just before Second Reading useful; I found this pre-legislative or draft Bill process to be much the most effective process and I hope that we might do it. I am moved to suspect that, had we done that on the Public Bodies Bill, a very different Bill would have finally been presented to Parliament by my noble friends.

Secondly, on legislative standards, I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Butler, was a member of the group and will be speaking later. I suspect that he might have had a good deal to do with the proposal as it has found its way into the report because he and I were both involved with Sir Christopher Foster’s Better Government Initiative, of which this was a very important part, which tried to make sure that legislation that comes before Parliament is much more fit for purpose than it so often is. The main purpose of having parliamentary scrutiny on the lines spelled out is that it will sharpen the minds of those who prepare Bills in government departments when they realise that this is what they are going to have to put before Parliament. I look forward to hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, has to say about that later. I wholly agree with my noble friend Lord Maclennan that it should of course be considered by a Joint Committee, as indeed was the Bill that I referred to a few moments ago.

Finally, it has become apparent, and there is very wide acceptance, that post-legislative scrutiny is now essential. It is not just “motherhood and apple pie”, as the report quoted; it has become absolutely essential to see not only whether legislation has achieved its purpose but, almost more importantly, that no unintended consequences have flowed from the Bill, which so often do the damage. Again, I agree with my noble friend Lord MacGregor that this activity must be a joint one. This House must be involved; it cannot be left to the departmental Select Committees at the other end, because we look at these things. This point has been made by a number of noble Lords. We are complementary. We have a different perspective, often a longer-term one that is not so immediately pressured by the immediate political pressures that one is under in the other place. This will be hugely important.

To finish, I have tabled an amendment to the Localism Bill that will provide a measure of post-legislative scrutiny.

Climate Change

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

Yes, he was, absolutely. I thank noble Lords for listening to what I am saying. That is a great start. He was encouraged to set up a plan for the Green Investment Bank, which he has done. Therefore, he is not a government adviser. He has pointed us in a number of directions in terms of reforming the climate change market and we are grateful for his views.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, in the debate on the Queen’s Speech, I drew the House’s attention to the recently published Hartwell paper, which argues that there needs to be a new approach to dealing with the huge problem of climate change, to which my noble friend has referred. Will he give me an undertaking that the Government will study the Hartwell paper, as it seems to me to have a good deal of wisdom in it?

[Lord Marland]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for inviting me to comment on the Hartwell report as I have studied it, which gives me a few brownie points. It raises a number of points of interest, some of which we agree with and some of which we do not. Among other things, it draws attention to the need for energy efficiency, which is high on our list of priorities, and investment in non-carbon energy supplies, which again is high on our list of priorities and is hard to argue against. A lot of things in the report were agreeable but some were not. We shall consider them in the recess and bring them together in a debate in the autumn.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I rise as number 50 on the list and I am conscious of the fact that there are still another 15 or 16 speakers to go before the wind-ups, so I shall be brief. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Strathclyde is not in his place, as I would want him to hear this. He has listened to many hours of this debate and I cannot help but feel some sympathy for him as the Minister who will no doubt have to take through this House whatever emerges from the committee of which we have heard or from the Joint Committee that is to follow it.

It is perfectly clear from the speeches that we have heard that the position has not changed since the previous occasions when we have debated this issue. An overwhelming majority of this House is against the idea of an elected House and believes, as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, so cogently put it in the speech to which we have just listened, that an appointed House is a perfectly good way of finding the expertise that is necessary for us to perform our totally different function from that of the House of Commons. I listened to my noble friend Lord Onslow saying that the House of Lords needs more powers, including the power to tax. All I can say is, “Heaven forfend”. I hope that, as someone else said, the Members of another place may be persuaded to read his speech.

Earlier this afternoon, I listened to the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon. We are very old friends; indeed, when we came down from Cambridge, we shared two rather grotty rooms while we started our practices at the Bar. Therefore, it is not altogether surprising that I should have intended to talk about two of the points that he made so cogently and to use the quotation that he gave from the Leader of another place, Sir George Young. However, as my noble and learned friend said it all perfectly well, I will not. To my mind, he made an extremely cogent argument as to why the Government’s position on this is wrong.

Like my noble and learned friend and others, I believe that the major problem in our constitution has been the Executive’s increasing dominance over the House of Commons and to some extent this House. It seems to me that that is what lies behind the public disquiet about politics and politicians. The Administration —one has to say this of whatever party or coalition of parties—seem to require the control of Parliament, which should be their watchdog. Parliament is there to scrutinise the Government as the first check and balance in the constitution.

One of the people who have been writing about our affairs over the years has been the admirable academic Meg Russell of the Constitution Unit at UCL, who has had many wise things to say about this House and its reform. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, referred to the House of Lords Library’s excellent report—in fact, the other report was produced in March, not yesterday—from which I quote. Meg Russell wrote in her latest book:

“Although ministers try to present arguments as Lords versus Commons, the far more interesting dynamic is that of Parliament versus executive. The existence of the Lords as a serious longstop has given a greater confidence to MPs to extract concessions from ministers, and the greater rebelliousness of the Commons also acts to boost the power of peers. This … could represent a real shift of power within the British Westminster system”.

Yet what do we see? The Government propose an all or mainly elected House, which, as others have said, will come under the control of the political parties and in which we will lose most, if not all, the value of the Cross Benches and the independence of mind that they bring. It was certainly said that one of the motives of the last Government was to increase the Executive’s power over the House of Lords, which was the one organ of government over which they did not have control. So I align myself wholly with the majority of your Lordships in opposing what this Government are trying to put forward.

I am sorry that I did not hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, who expressed some doubt as to whether this reform could happen. I share that view. Given the great weight of opinion in this House, the Government will have a very severe task if they try to force their legislation through Parliament.

The noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, has a Motion on the Order Paper, and invited all of us in the House—a number of noble Lords have taken advantage of this—to express our views. I wholly support the four points that he has made in his Motion, and I particularly support the view that the commission should be statutory. I read the excellent evidence given by the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, to the Constitution Committee of this House. It was a marvellous example of transparency that showed how the Appointments Commission works. If noble Lords have not read it, I strongly recommend that they do.

I will make one final point. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, said that nobody is listening to us. That simply is not true. I will cite my own experience: I chaired the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology’s inquiry into science and society 10 years ago. Ten years later, there is not a single professional scientific or engineering body in the country that does not have its science and society activities—and the Government have, too. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, is not in his place, but his idea that nobody is listening to us is complete rubbish. We work in a different way from the Commons, we can be equally influential and we should be allowed to go on doing this.