House of Lords Reform

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Lab)]

My Lords, unlike my noble friend Lady Hayman, I cannot resist elevation, so whatever we decide after this debate about the total membership of this House, I have a rather radical proposal which would take some time to work through but may make us more effective. It attempts to address many of the concerns raised by the noble Baroness the Leader of the House about the total number of Members and their attendance.

My proposal allows us to retain the wide and rich variety of knowledge, wisdom and skills of our Members, but in such a manner that we all could contribute more in a focused and manageable way. It gives all Members of the House of Lords the opportunity to commit to a fixed period of full-time work in the Lords. In this way, the public would feel that they may hold us more justifiably to account. I have made this suggestion on various previous occasions when we have discussed the role, functions, procedures and membership of the House of Lords. I submitted evidence to the Wakeham commission, I have talked about this with Lord Chancellors and have written about it to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House.

I want your Lordships to include in your deliberations the concept of full-time and part-time Members of this House. After listening to 15 years of discussion of membership of the Lords, I am more than ever convinced that adopting a system whereby each Peer during his or her life as a Member can spend a period here as a full-timer is worthy of consideration. This scheme uses all Lords’ talents while retaining Members’ independence and skills. It allows them to carry on their work outside the House, which, after all, is what brought them here in the first place: it is their excellence in their jobs or professions which made them eligible to serve here. I believe that moving to this system, together with any changes we are discussing today, would greatly enhance our effectiveness.

So how could we move to a system in which one-third of the Members of the House are full-time, and yet still allow Lords to carry on with their work outside the House? The first innovation, which has already been mentioned, is that Members of the upper House serve for a fixed period—something that I think will eventually come—of nine years, although my suggestion could also be adapted to six, 12 or 15 years. For a third of their time—three years—Peers would serve as we do now, part-time. For example, I was managing director of Marks & Spencer when I became a Member of your Lordships’ House. So, as now, Peers would continue to work outside the House and be unpaid for their work here, except for the daily allowance.

For the middle three years, they would become full-time and would be paid a salary. They will have had three years’ notice, which is enough time to arrange a secondment from their normal employment and for their employers to plan for it; and in that first three years they will have had time to learn how this place works and therefore will have been trained for their full-time jobs. The lower-paid who come here—the teachers, nurses and social workers—and young Peers would be delighted with pay equivalent to, say, an MP’s, and company directors or wealthy professionals will take the pain of a drop in salary for three years for the sake of the honour and experience.

In the final three years of their time here, Peers would return to their work outside this place, but they would have become experienced part-timers in the Lords. They would have a great deal to offer the novices coming in, and could be mentors to those in their middle three years here starting their full-time job. Eventually, with, say, 750 Members of the upper House, there would always be 250 part-timers who were just getting involved; 250 who had been here for at least three years and were serving full-time; and 250 wise and experienced part-timers who had been here for at least six years, three of those full-time.

How we appoint or elect Members will be discussed many times, but whatever we decide on how to bring people into the House, how many Peers there should be and for how long they should serve, I feel that this suggested innovation would enhance and strengthen the changes we eventually agree to in the House.

The other convention I think we should adopt is that if noble Lords are given six minutes to speak and speak for only four, they should be able to bank the other two minutes for another day.

Iraq

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Lab)]

My Lords, in medicine, as the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, pointed out, removing a localised, potentially lethal growth surgically will be good for the body only if, alongside that, the whole organism is nourished and cared for with love so that it recovers after the operation. We know from our own history that vicious tyranny in our own darker times was ended over a long period, not by interference from outside but the will of the people in the region.

My point is that surgical air strikes from outside alone will not work in the long term for the people we wish to help in the region. There needs to be, alongside the military strategy, a political, economic and social plan for the region, creating jobs and extending education, involving the key players and listening mindfully to all the people in that whole region. What do they want? By the whole region I mean both in the south, including north Africa and the Middle East, and all the way up to the north, including Syria and Iraq.

We know that within this region the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran have huge influence and, were they each to play a positive role for the people there, this would make a huge difference. So here, in three minutes, I will suggest two grand initiatives, alongside the proposed intervention, to settle the whole region within a year. The first in the south is an example of what happens after air strikes. I have been privileged to be in discussions over these past few months while I have been in Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Egypt. They have been developing a regional plan to end the war there in talks involving Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Israel, whereby the first four of those—the local Arab countries—agree to demilitarise Gaza, with the promise of, say, $50 billion from donors to reconstruct and heal the strip for the benefit of all the people there, and to link this with projects in the West Bank. Israel then feels safe, and Gaza is therefore able to have a sea port, airport and open access. Then the Arab peace initiative, first proposed by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, becomes a real basis for Israel to be recognised by 22 Arab countries, including Palestine; and for Israel to recognise Palestine.

Egypt is key in all this, as the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, described so well. President al-Sisi’s positive statement to the UN Security Council this week shows that it has an appetite to play a bigger role. Saudi Arabia is having a donor conference at which it hopes to raise $100 billion for Egypt. If it can follow it through a safe and secure mechanism, perhaps the Middle East Centre for Civic Involvement, MECCI—which I have earlier described in your Lordships’ House—could ensure that the funds for Egypt go into projects that will help its people. In the short and medium term, they could gain employment and training while, in the long term, they form institutions and infrastructure for the benefit of all Egyptian people.

The second project I suggest is focused on the north of the region and is about Iran. Yes, we must be firm with Iran on the nuclear question, but being firm does not mean ostracising it. America, France, Germany and others, at the same time as talking tough and negotiating hard, are now discussing and planning in Iran the type of constructive business and trade that could be done were Iran to comply with the requests made of its nuclear programme. Again, with the wise counsel of the noble Lord, Lord Alliance, together with a senior Iranian Ayatollah, we are in discussions with great, skilful, innovative companies here in the UK, which could be doing business with Iran and helping its people to be involved in the long-term growth and development of their own country and the region. I propose that we at least make a scoping trade visit to Iran this year, and work with it as partners in trade so that it can also help resolve the ISIL issue.

On the first proposal, about Saudi Arabia and the regional solutions for the Middle East and north Africa, we should support the World Economic Forum and its MENA team, as we did with its Breaking the Impasse project on Israel and Palestine. They will be discussing this plan next month, and taking it forward in their annual event soon. On the second proposal, about Iran and trade, I am asking Her Majesty’s Government to help facilitate, without breaking any sanctions, an exploratory trade visit to Iran this year.