Leaving the European Union

Lord Luce Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord is right. Before our withdrawal in March, both sides have agreed to undertake preparatory work to enable negotiations to begin as soon as possible. There is also a clear programme to deliver an ambitious timetable, which will include the structure of negotiations and the schedule of rounds. He will also be aware that the withdrawal agreement includes a legally binding commitment to ensure that both sides use best endeavours to negotiate the detailed agreements that will give effect to the future relationship, in good faith, so that they come into force by the end of 2020.

[Lord Luce (CB)]

My Lords, I first thank the Government for their support of the people of Gibraltar. But will the Minister confirm that no concessions whatever have been made to the EU in the past few days over Gibraltar? Will she confirm also that it is not acceptable, either to us or to the European Union as a whole, that Spain should have the right of veto at the last stage of the overall agreement with the EU—if there is such an agreement—because it wants a separate agreement between Britain and Spain on Gibraltar?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We are absolutely committed to ensuring a deal that works for the entire UK family, including Gibraltar. Our position on Gibraltar sovereignty has not changed and will not change.

Death of a Member: Lord Carrington

Lord Luce Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Luce]

My Lords, many fine tributes have been paid to the remarkable life of Lord Carrington. It is generally agreed that he was an outstanding Foreign Secretary. Very briefly, I want to record my experience of his leadership at the time of the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands on 2 April 1982. I was serving as his Minister of State with responsibility for, among other areas, the Falkland Islands. Immediately after the invasion, he decided that the best way to serve his Prime Minister, Government and country was to stay at his post and to rally support in the United Nations behind the Government’s policy to restore the islands to British sovereignty. On 5 April, three days after the invasion and in the light of the growing criticism of the Government in and outside Parliament, he concluded that although he could not have prevented the invasion, someone had to carry the can for this foreign policy disaster. That day, he decided to resign to make way for a new team at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to start afresh. Throughout that agonising weekend, his only concern was to put his country before himself. My Lords, he did so with honour.

House of Lords: Size

Lord Luce Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Luce (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, that we need to reduce the size of this House. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who is not here at the moment, had the most interesting proposal of all, which is that those who decide to retire should retain their title and those who stay here should lose it. On the basis of that, we would be a totally empty House.

I can hardly think of a more important time for the Lords to rise to the challenge and to take a lead on the question of size, particularly against a background of a growing mistrust of Governments and of Parliament as a whole. We can also acknowledge that Ministers in this Government have given us encouragement by saying that the Lords is too large but that it must be for the Lords themselves to lead the process of reform, provided that there was a consensus, and that they would be prepared to work with Peers to take reasonable measures which could be implemented in this Parliament.

This is a challenge and an opportunity for the House of Lords. I agree with those such as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that there is a sense of urgency about this. At the same time, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, that we are at our best when we are pragmatic and incremental in our approach. There are some who have said that other things should have priority, such as composition of the House—of course, that can be tackled pragmatically as well—but, generally speaking, we have worked on the assumption in this debate that we retain our role in this Chamber, which is to accept the supremacy of the House of Commons and to have a complementary role.

To my mind, the key question is what numbers we need in order to fulfil this role effectively. That needs some coherence. Many say that it is just a problem of perception. I suggest that it is a problem not only of perception but of reality. If we face the fact that this House is steadily getting larger and that, by 2020, on past projections, we would probably reach 1,000 Peers; if we accept the extraordinary imbalances between groups and parties in this House, where UKIP has hardly any representation, the Liberal Democrats are overrepresented and the SNP, of course by its own choice, is not here at all; if we accept that we are the only country with a bicameral Parliament where the second Chamber is larger than the first, that other second Chambers around the world contain fewer Members—Canada has only 105 and the United States Senate only 100—and that there is a growing disparity in size between the House of Commons and House of Lords, all this points to a serious problem that needs to be faced.

Now, I will not repeat the parameters suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and others. They are there and they make absolute sense as the kind of framework to pursue. We clearly need a Select Committee to get into the practicalities and we must accept that whatever idea is pursued as to how to make the reductions—whether retirement at 80, a 15-year term or internal elections, the latter of which I tend to favour on balance—each of those arguments has strengths but also major flaws. This issue requires a will in this Parliament to do something about it, and that in turn requires give and take. If we have that will and the willingness to give and take, a Select Committee can achieve a result which will enable us to say that we have done something to restore public faith in our parliamentary system.

Chagos Islands

Lord Luce Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Luce]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they expect to complete their policy review of resettlement in the Chagos Islands.

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s public consultation about a potential resettlement of the British Indian Ocean Territory concluded on 27 October. We are now examining the results and hope to take a decision on the way ahead soon. This 12-week consultation drew views from around 1,200 Chagossians and continues the conversation with Chagossian communities as part of our review of resettlement policy, which started in 2012. That included an independent feasibility study, which concluded at the end of January 2015.

[Lord Luce (CB)]

My Lords, this week is the 50th anniversary of the decision to provide a United States base in Diego Garcia, on British territory and in the Indian Ocean, which then led to the decision to deport 1,500 Chagossians, most of whom were indigenous inhabitants. As the KPMG report, commissioned by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has this year concluded that there is no reason why resettlement should not take place, will the Government make next year’s renewal of the agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom conditional on a commitment by both parties to facilitate and support resettlement of the Chagossians, thus rectifying a grave human rights injustice?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government regret the way the Chagossians were removed from the British Indian Ocean Territory in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Government, along with successive Governments before them, have said that what happened was clearly wrong. This is why substantial compensation was rightly paid. The noble Lord mentioned the renewal of the agreement with the American military for occupation of Diego Garcia and we will, no doubt, take these matters into account.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Luce Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Luce (CB)]

My Lords, I recall that the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, led a debate back on 6 January on the question of the size of the House of Lords. On that occasion, there was almost unanimous support for dealing with the question of size. Since then, I have been very struck by how far things have moved on. Today, after the general election, the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister have thrown down a challenge for us in this Chamber to take up to produce proposals for dealing with the size of the House of Lords. I am very struck today by the momentum—by the fact that there is enormous all-party support for this and a great desire to get on with it. That is certainly a change in the atmosphere. I think we are all pretty well agreed today, with one or two exceptions, that having too large a Chamber could well undermine the effectiveness of the work we do. Indeed, it is very interesting that in Canada, where the second Chamber has 105 appointed members, the Prime Minister has just called a moratorium on new appointments because he thinks it is getting too large. There is a serious point here that needs to be dealt with. We owe thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Steel, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and Mr Byles for all the work they have done in laying some foundations for us. We have now got to move on.

We cannot insulate the questions of appointments and retirements from each other. The one depends on the other, and they have to be interrelated. As far as appointments are concerned, it is time in my view to introduce clearer criteria. Of course we need a continuing infusion of new blood—we cannot afford to stop that—but we need a cap. Again, I am struck today by the fact that there is a pretty strong view that we should limit ourselves, perhaps by the end of this Parliament, to being somewhere around the size of the House of Commons or even a little smaller. I totally agree with that, but it means that we have to agree the formula for the size of the parties, as well as accepting, as I think the House does, that the Cross-Benchers ought to make up at least 20% of the House. We also have to deal with the minority party situation that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, introduced and ought to acknowledge the point that he made.

However, the question then arises of who supervises these criteria that I hope we are going to devise. Here, the role of the House of Lords Appointments Commission comes into play, because it will be up to it to interpret the criteria that this House agrees for appointments. The Prime Minister has enormous powers of patronage, and it is not unreasonable to ask him to constrain those powers, to ask the Appointments Commission to say what the balance of the parties should be in the House, according to the cap that we require, and to then ask the leaders of the parties, including the Prime Minister, to nominate their own people for their own party. All of that seems to me to make sense, on top of the need for the Appointments Commission to take into account, as it already does, the balance of expertise that this Chamber needs.

We then get to the question of retirement, where the number of ideas is quite enormous. None is perfect, and every single one of the ideas that has been produced has a down side—we just have to accept that. I will start with the voluntary retirement system. It is of course good that we have 35 people who have volunteered to retire. Like the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, I am committed to retiring during this Parliament, when I shall reach the age of 80. However, before everyone cheers very loudly at the news I have just disclosed to the Chamber, I would say that I do not wish to retire until I see real, concrete progress on the question of tackling the size of this House.

There so many other ideas: selecting active Peers to retire at the age of 80; a mandatory system of retirement after 15 or 20 years; an age of retirement of 75 or 80; or, following the precedent of the selection of Irish and Scottish Peers, a process of self-selection, electing our own groups according to the numbers that we require. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, mentioned that last idea, which I find attractive.

We must have a carefully balanced system. It will be difficult, but we must do it. We have to take into account the Leader’s point that it must be as simple as possible. That is the biggest challenge of all to those of us who are prepared to work on these issues. The body chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is already working on this. I welcome the fact that the Lord Speaker has an advisory group. All parties will have to be committed to this effort, with as much urgency as possible. As the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, said, based on the experience of his commission 15 years ago, there has to be a will to make it work. If there is no will, we will not succeed. We must have an immense amount of give and take if we are to get consensus. In my view, each of us ought to be exercising not our rights in this Chamber but our responsibilities to this country.

House of Lords

Lord Luce Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Luce (CB)]

My Lords, I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, about the quality of this debate on the whole question of the size of the House of Lords. It has been outstanding, with very distinguished contributions, and we owe that to the noble Lord, Lord Williams, for giving the lead in this.

I am also very glad that the House in general has made a distinction between the longer-term issues of what one might call radical reform of this House—the proposals for an elected House, for example, which will no doubt return in due course, or the implications of devolution in Scotland or of a European Union referendum, if we have one, which are longer-term issues—from what we have principally been debating today, which is the continuing current role of the House of Lords as a revising and scrutinising Chamber, which obviously involves more modest, incremental changes, perhaps against the background of Burke’s maxim:

“A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve”.

I would also like to reinforce the view that has been expressed today by some noble Lords that there should be a constitutional convention, I assume of a permanent nature, which will pick up all the strands of constitutional evolution as they develop—the big issues meshing in with the more daily issues and the pragmatic, incremental aspects of reform—so that we have a more cohesive picture as time goes on of how our constitution is evolving.

We have our role as a revising Chamber and I believe it works pretty well. That probably explains why the Prime Minister and the Government of the day on the whole do not awfully like the House of Lords, because we are doing our job pretty well. I believe that our effectiveness would be strengthened, however, by tackling this whole question of the size of the Chamber. Like many noble Lords, my preference is for a reformed appointed Chamber. The longer we fail to tackle this issue of size, the more the pressure will increase to introduce more radical reforms, which for my part I would not support or approve of.

The present size is, I think, an impediment to being an effective revising Chamber. I do not want to exaggerate it but the trend to increase the size of the Chamber is simply not tenable. Of course there are problems of space. There is less scope to contribute. There are cost problems. There is no great merit in being the largest second Chamber in the world. We know the figures—we have heard them time and again in the debate: we have nearly 800 Members who are eligible to sit; average attendance is the highest at just under 500; and the trend since 2000 has been an overall increase of 25%.

I agree with all those who said that this House needs new blood regularly. It is important for the House to have fresh expertise, fresh experience and, I might say, younger people as well. But if we continue with the current trend, it will not be long before we have more than 1,000 Members in this Chamber. That to my mind is totally unacceptable. We can all debate what would be an optimum size. I personally believe that somewhere in the region of 450 to 500 is about right for the job we are trying to do and that we would get the best value with that number. I very much commend the views that have been expressed by the group of Labour Party Peers led by Lord Grenfell and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, which has produced some very constructive ideas that have contributed very much to this debate.

The difficult issues, as we have already heard, are how to get the size of the House reduced. There is a very difficult balance to be struck. First, there is the whole question of the balance of the parties and the fact that the Cross-Benchers must make up at least 20% of the membership. That factor has all the time to be borne in mind when we are considering a reduction in the size of the House.

When we consider retirement, we look first at the voluntary aspect as well as, later on, at the mandatory aspect. I believe quite firmly that voluntary retirement on its own will not solve this problem. We have had a superb example set by Lord Jenkin of Roding, who has officially retired today, and I join other noble Peers who have already said that they plan to retire in due course. My decision is to retire in the next Parliament, during which time I shall reach the age of 80. I have a principle in life that you ought to go before you are asked to go, which probably explains why many of the jobs that I have held have been for a very short time. It is a matter of individual judgment, and I do not wish to be judgmental on anyone else’s decision as for when is the right time for them to go. It fits, however, with one of the Labour Party’s proposals in its very good paper.

I feel strongly that if we are to see a balanced reduction in the size of the House, it can be done only with some kind of a mandatory system. Today we have heard a wide range of ideas, such as retiring during the Parliament in which you become 80; ending your time after 15 years; having an electoral system for each group in the House as to who should retire; a cap on the size of the House; or retirement based on seniority. There is no shadow of doubt that whatever proposal comes forward, there will be large body of opinion against it—we have already heard that. There will objections to every single one of these proposals.

At the end of the day, my view is this: if there is a will in the House to reduce its size, then we will find a way. But there has to be a will to do that job; without that, we cannot succeed. I hope that the idea proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, of setting up a committee to examine this matter carefully will be taken forward. It will take time, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has implied—you cannot do this kind of thing overnight. It should not cut across longer-term considerations which will emerge in due course. However, it would be a serious mistake to let this matter drift. We would provide an even better service to the country as a revising Chamber if we were bold enough to tackle this issue of size.

House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Luce Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Luce]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, is to be congratulated on this timely debate, since it is very much the right time to talk about pragmatic improvement to the quality and work of this House. I want to focus on just one proposal, produced by the Leader’s Group, which the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, mentioned—the proposal for a Back-Bench committee, which I think could be appropriately described as a Back-Bench debates committee, to select topics for debate.

We all agree that there is a major priority in this House to play the role of a revising Chamber. The case has been made time and again. However, we are also a forum for debate and inquiry. Opportunities are there to challenge the Executive and debate issues of importance. I was lucky enough to have one on the Government’s policy towards Indian Ocean piracy last week. I am very glad that in the debate last year on working practices, on 11 June, the Leader of the House demonstrated a very open mind on this proposal, saying that it might be possible for Back-Bench Members to pick debates that are sufficiently topical, varied and of general interest, with a possibility of providing a sifting mechanism for that purpose. The choice that we have is between what has been described as “intelligent selection”—a rather Darwinian way in which to express it—as opposed to a lottery system. We are covering balloted debates for Back-Benchers, which take place once every month for 2.5 hours, Questions for Short Debate, which could be on the Floor of the House for up to 90 minutes maximum, or in Grand Committee, taking three or four at a time.

Although our practices are very different, we can learn something from the Commons’ procedures. Its new procedure of a Back-Bench Committee, established in 2010, seems to have worked well in deciding debates for up to 35 full debating days in every Session of Parliament. I think we can learn from that. The proposal is that we should have a committee of something like 12 Peers picked by the different parties and groups, including Cross-Benchers. The committee in this House could be of a smaller number, but whatever number it is, Members would be able to apply to that committee in open procedures. Then the committee would decide in private whether that topic should go forward for debate. This debates committee should obviously develop its own criteria but it is fairly obvious that debates in these circumstances would have to be limited in scope and either topical or long term. The level of importance would have to be decided, perhaps taking into account, for example, the representations of NGOs and voluntary bodies of one kind or another. The committee should be non-partisan.

It is interesting to note that in the House of Lords Business and Minutes of Proceedings of last Monday, 29 October, there were 57 Questions for Short Debate and 35 Motions for the next day for balloted debate. That shows the level of demand for this kind of procedure. The details can of course be refined but we would see improvements in our procedures by doing this. We would make better use of scarce time in the House and it would not necessarily involve substantial expenditure. It would be a good, pragmatic, transparent and coherent way of managing Back-Bench debates. I hope it will be taken seriously.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Luce Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Luce]

My Lords, having listened to the debate so far, and thinking back over the discussions about this Chamber over the past 14 or 15 years, I cannot help feeling—I am sure noble friends will feel the same—slightly giddy. I have fortified myself with some water to keep me going.

I start by saying that I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Maclennan, and my noble friend Lord Laming that there is a serious gap between the electorate—the public—on the one hand and Parliament and governmental institutions on the other. There is no excuse whatever for complacency on our part in this Chamber, let alone in the House of Commons. However, knowing what the coalition Government’s proposals are, I find myself strongly in favour of a substantially reformed appointed House. Therefore, I do not support the coalition’s proposal.

The coalition has stated that it wants the role and function of the House of Lords to remain unchanged as a revising Chamber, which persuades Governments and the House of Commons to think again. Since that is the coalition’s objective, the task would be far more effectively performed if we were a substantially reformed appointed Chamber. On the other hand, had the coalition said that it proposed a second Chamber that was commensurate, or possibly even equal, in powers to the Commons, we would of course need to consider an elected Chamber, whether directly or indirectly elected. However, the evidence is absolutely clear that, although the Government want no change in the role of the Lords, the effect of their current proposals would be to undermine that very objective.

The arguments are borne out not only by the Joint Committee but by the alternative report, which make it plain that the Chamber, if elected, would be bound to be more assertive, and that the natural restraint that this House normally exercises would be unleashed. We can add to that the fact that the conventions of the two Houses would have to be reviewed along with a whole range of issues such as the level of expertise; the partisanship of the House; whether elections would produce a B team; whether there would be more constituency rivalry; whether there would be gridlock, as there so often is in the United States, and finding ways to deal with it; cost; hybridity; and many others. All those could be overcome if we were rightly going for an elected House, but I do not believe that that is the right way forward.

I have two reflections to make. First, we all know that our constitution has evolved over centuries. As has been said by other noble Lords, in our experience of how we do things, the best way forward is the pragmatic one and incremental reform. Looking at the Lords over the past 100 years, there was change in 1911, 1949, 1958, 1963 and 1999. More recently, there was further change with the introduction of the Supreme Court. In the words of Lampedusa in The Leopard, if we want to stay the same, things have to change. I hate the word “change”. “Things have to improve” would be a better way of putting it. That is the British way of tackling these issues.

Secondly, in recent years—certainly over the past 14 years—successive Governments have not been sensible in how they have proposed radical, big changes. That started in 1998 with the plan to abolish hereditary Peers without producing any coherent plan or cohesive approach to replace them in the Chamber. It was almost a flippant approach to the role of the House of Lords, with little sense of history. Since then, we have debated this issue until the cows come home. The Wakeham report and many other reports have stimulated that debate. However, in my view, which I think goes along with some of the views expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Maclennan and Lord Wills, we have not debated these issues in a sufficiently coherent context. That seems to be the heart of the problem. We cannot look at one arm of the constitution without considering the effects on its other parts. The interrelationship is of great importance.

I am glad that the coalition has reiterated that its overwhelming priority is to put the economy of this country straight. However, if that is, rightly, its priority, I submit that it is very dangerous to divert and dissipate its efforts on issues such as an elected House of Lords, for which there is no consensus. I propose a way forward to the Leader of the House and I put it in two categories. First, to give more coherence and consideration to the substantial constitutional issues, we should pick up the recommendations in the alternative report on the case for establishing a constitutional convention, but I suggest it as a permanent framework for the consideration of major constitutional issues, in which constitutional developments of major importance in either Chamber would be considered. The future proposed referendum in Scotland would be a major factor; the level of devolution would have a major impact on the constitution. Any changes to EU treaties and any referendums that flow from them would also be relevant, as well as whether there should in the longer term be an elected Chamber. All that should be embraced within a permanent framework of a constitutional convention.

[Lord Wills]

I hesitate to keep intervening, as I have had my say already, but I am very interested in what the noble Lord has just said. When I was the Minister for Constitutional Affairs, I was very attracted to exactly that idea of a constitutional council. It is desperately needed, and I very much welcome his suggestion today, but as soon as I raised the idea officials got extremely anxious and worried about the threats to Parliament, and the pre-emption of the Government of the day and Parliament in proposing these measures. Has the noble Lord given any thought to those sorts of concerns, which will inevitably be brought forward in response to the invaluable suggestion that he has just made?

[Lord Luce]

My suggestion is that we approach this in two ways. The big issues on constitutional aspects should be embraced in the constitutional convention, which should be a permanent framework. Secondly, having said that there is no room for complacency, I think that we should now get on with the pragmatic incremental changes that command a large degree of support—or many of them do, at least, and many were put forward by the Wakeham commission—while the broader constitutional issues are being looked at in order to improve the effectiveness of this House. As noble Lords know, there is no shortage of sensible recommendations, from the Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, to the proposals from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, on working practices. On many of those I believe that there could be common ground. There is already common ground that the appointments commission should be on a statutory basis and there are already discussions on the need to reduce the size of the House. There are plans and thoughts emerging on the retirement scheme for noble Lords and policies on disqualification and expulsion. We should look at fixed terms. The recommendations from the Goodlad committee have not been properly considered, but the proposals for improving the scrutiny of legislation and strengthening topical debate procedures, for example, would undoubtedly improve the strength of this House.

I believe that we have a forum in the Chamber, through the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, which could act as a forum for these pragmatic views to be drawn ahead and to try to achieve a consensus. That is the constructive way forward and an alternative way forward. When I last spoke on this subject last year, I said that, if the House did something like this, I would offer to resign as an incentive for the House to get on with it. If the House is prepared to do that, I am prepared to retire.

House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Luce Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Luce]

My Lords, I can say one thing without doubt: the first real improvement in working practice is that today I am privileged to be the first to be called on the Back Benches. I hope that that tradition continues indefinitely.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, for convening the debate and for adopting a positive attitude towards the question of working practices in this House. I welcome, too, the fact that he is setting up the Leader’s Group to study these matters. I speak as someone who has been a member of one of the three committees—which has been working under the title of Strengthening Parliament—and it is from that experience that I wish to contribute a few views. However, I do not think it would be right to do so without putting into context my view on the broader picture of the Government’s proposals for reform of the Lords.

I start from the concept stated by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that the powers and role of the House of Lords is likely to remain the same. That puts a heavy onus on the Government and the committee under the Deputy Prime Minister to convince us that an elected or partially elected House will lead to improvements—I use the word “improvements”—in the capacity of the House to revise, scrutinise and persuade the other place to think again. At present, I think that the views put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, for improvements and modernisation of an appointed House are the right way forward. The present policy of the Government looks like a form of populism in order to appease an electorate who are genuinely dissatisfied with Parliament. The Deputy Prime Minister’s description of this House as “an affront to democracy” illustrates this point. What are most needed are hard-headed, practical, unexciting adjustments to improve the performance of this House on behalf of the public. We in this country tend to be better at the rolling, pragmatic, incremental and more coherent evolution of the way in which we operate. In the past decade or two, we have fallen short of that. Our approach has often been shoddy and incoherent. I go along with the view of Edmund Burke, that we should have a,

“disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve”.

I cannot resist reminding the House of the vicar father and his English son travelling through Nebraska. The son said to his father, “You know, Dad, you can fit the United Kingdom into Nebraska”, to which his father said, “To what end, dear boy?” That is the question that we have to ask on every aspect of reform that we consider. We cannot, of course, afford to be complacent; we cannot afford to be self-satisfied in our procedures at any time and we have a duty to the public. But we should acknowledge that there have been many adjustments, in the past decade for example, to the working practices of this House.

The cross-party groups which have been looking at working practices have produced a wide range of ideas, some of which will be acceptable to the House, some of which will not. They are all worth examining as a way to improve the performance of this House. They range from recommendations to improve the scrutiny of primary legislation to ideas for strengthening the means of challenging the Executive more effectively and improving our internal governance and accountability. Many of these thoughts need looking at seriously by the Leader’s Groups.

Without examining all the proposals, which I have no intention of doing, I shall make one or two reflections on them. First, there is a continuing tendency on the part of successive Governments to produce too much legislation. Often, that legislation is badly thought out. It has become too much of a virility symbol for Ministers that they must produce a Bill. But when you look at the quality of the Bill, you really should question it. One of the proposals to come out of the committees’ work is that Bills should be much more fully justified before they are brought before Parliament for examination.

Secondly, there continues to be—it was the case in my day when I was a Member of the other place—a complete lack of contact and understanding between the two Houses. I hardly ever came to this Chamber in 21 years in the other place. But if we are discussing these reforms, including overall reform, there needs to be a much better mutual understanding of how we work. Therefore, I welcome the fact that the working groups recommended a more bicameral approach to many of the issues that we are tackling. I acknowledge that the coalition Government will follow up with a Joint Committee to look at the overall proposals for reform of the House.

The third factor is to redress the balance between the Executive and the legislature. Here, although our procedures are different, we should seek encouragement and learn from the work of the Wright committee in the other House in the previous Parliament. There are certain ideas there from which we, too, can benefit. We had only to see how refreshing, for example, were the recent cross-party elections to the Treasury Select Committee. The proposals of that committee to have more say on the part of the Back Benches in business management of that House are also relevant to this House. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that the usual channels are an essential lubricant to business, but I also think that Peers on the Back Benches need to have more influence on the management of the House.

My fourth point is that public ignorance of the Lords is profound. Here, we need to seek ways in which we can involve the public more effectively in the affairs of the House. Again, in these working groups there is a recommendation that we should produce proposals for public evidence hearings on some kinds of legislation; there will be other ways to pursue this matter.

Fifthly, the time is coming—I am glad that this has been acknowledged—when the Lord Speaker’s powers should be looked at. There are arguments for extending the powers of the Lord Speaker, perhaps in certain, somewhat limited ways. I will come to the governance point which refers to the Lord Speaker in a moment, but here I come to something which I realise is controversial in this Chamber and where a lot of people, who have had far more experience, would not agree with me. However, for my part I find Question Time pretty undignified. Possibly it is because the attendance in the Chamber has got much bigger and it is much more difficult to handle self-regulation in that way. While I am totally in favour of self-regulation, for my part it makes much more sense for the Lord Speaker of the day to have the say, as opposed to a partial part of the House—even though the Government are totally trustworthy—deciding which group should be called upon next. That might help a bit to get rid of the slightly undignified aspect where sometimes the person who shouts the loudest is the one who gets in.

On the question of non-legislative matters, I would ask the House not to underestimate the value of topical debates. I have been very fortunate to have had two topical debates in the past two years, which I think have brought some influence to bear on government decision-making. The proposal in the working groups that topical debates should be part of a regular weekly one-hour procedure, at whatever time of the week is agreed as being the most suitable, should be adopted. We should have a more coherent system for that.

I come to the question of governance and accountability, which is my last point. I do not know whether I share this with very many other noble Peers, but my ignorance of the governance of the House was almost total until I joined the committee chaired by my noble friend Lady Murphy. I say without hesitation that this House is certainly very lucky to have the present incumbents who look after its governance, led by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, and his team of colleagues. However, we need to be not only a self-regulating House but one with a credible system of self-governance which will command public confidence and meet acceptable standards in today’s age. I, for example, do not feel that I can criticise the Press Complaints Commission as much as I could if I am not quite confident that we have the right self-governing system.

The Institute of Government has produced proposals —I think it was last week—for the governance of the other place: for the commission and the Board of Management to be more open and transparent; for a role for non-executives and for the national audit committee; and for occasional external reviews or financial health checks. It would do us no harm to look at those kinds of things to see whether it would strengthen our own systems of governance. At the same time, there is a case for looking at our lines of accountability. I ask myself what would have happened had there been a police raid on one of my noble friends in this House, as opposed to the other place. Would we have had clear lines of accountability and responsibility for dealing with that? I am not absolutely convinced that we would.

There is a strong case, as we recommend, for the Lord Speaker to provide leadership for the strategic governance of the House and to chair the House Committee with an open election system for that committee and the ability occasionally to co-opt if it needs outsiders to help it in that work. At least we should undertake an independent review of our governance system. I for my part welcome most warmly the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, in setting up the Leader’s Group.