House of Lords: Allowances

Lord Stoneham of Droxford Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

Your Lordships’ House needs to reassert itself. I urge the Lord Privy Seal to withdraw this Motion until the House has an opportunity to debate it fully or, if she cannot do that, at the very least to accept the amendment so skilfully advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

I declare an interest as someone who receives and claims allowances. I am, I think, the only representative today of the usual channels, and I would like to make a few remarks about how this system will work. No one in their right mind wants to debate allowances—that is reflected in the attendance today—and nobody really wants to make arguments on the subject. I accept that the focus of our work must be on the crisis, how the country is affected health-wise and how we are to come through it job-wise. However, there must be an understanding in the House that many of us accept that there has to be some form of short-term response to protect the reputation of the House, but we should not support it if we think it will undermine our work, effectiveness and reputation in the longer term.

In the short term, as my colleague and noble friend Lord Newby pointed out, the halving of the allowances that we are talking about is not the case. It is more like a quartering. Few people will be able to make more than one intervention a week. If the commission also put out a press release emphasising the benefits of cost-savings, which I accept there were, it raises fears that this is a permanent solution and it will be politically difficult if we then have to put the costs up again.

Turning to my role in the usual channels, I shall tell the House a little about the difficulties of what will happen in the short term and why this must be a short-term solution. Too many Peers will have to intervene in Questions and debates and, more importantly, good people will stand aside to allow others who need the financial support to do so. They will not speak or ask questions when we most need them to do so. The Chief Whips—I am sorry to use this analogy, but 50 years ago I spent time in the London docks—are making me like a shop steward in the casual system who will determine who speaks, who deals with the rationing of questions and, effectively, who gets their income. I do not want that role, and nor should the House want the Whips to have that role.

In the short term, a number of Peers have contractual obligations with their rents. These are the people really committed to this place and who therefore do really good work; they provide for themselves to do that and take out contractual rental commitments. With this level of allowances—I remind everybody that the allowances are for expenses—I think most people who have those contractual arrangements, certainly those in my group, will not be able to meet them, probably through the summer, by the looks of things.

Thirdly, one in 10 of my group is supported by an intern or a member of staff paid for by my group. That means that 10 people’s jobs are uncertain at the moment, should this scheme go ahead in the long term. All those people contribute behind the scenes to the work of this House. We do not see them; they support us. They will face a lot of uncertainty and the Peers will have to make up their minds whether to give up their contractual obligations to those people. So do not think that it is just us who will be hit by this; there are also the staff who support us. That is on top of all the people paid for by the various state funds, do not let us forget that.

What I am really saying to the House is that the commission needs to show leadership—I would have done. I think I behaved in this way in any organisation that I ran as a manager: if I cut people’s wages or made people redundant, I cut my wages. I did not take a wage increase or a bonus. That should flow across our organisation, if we are to provide leadership in the short term.

This scheme cannot last in the medium term; it is a short-term response. I accept that, so let us make it so. Therefore, in the short term—we do not want to wait until 29 June to do this; we need to start now—we need to define what work in the House means, because it does not mean just intervening in the Chamber, so that we can introduce a new revised scheme when we have the hybrid Parliament working in June and onwards. It is sadly not acceptable that we should settle our own allowances and money—the Commons has come to realise this—so we need an independent review, which will take a bit longer. That is why we need a short-term solution after this scheme is approved today. We need something longer-term, to be looked at independently and outside.

That is the advice I give this House. Obviously, we accept that we have to do something in the short term, but it would be very unfair on the effectiveness of this House and its Members if this is seen as anything other than a short-term, temporary scheme.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

I, too, am speaking in favour of my noble friend Lord Alderdice’s amendment. Having come through the virus, I am able to be here and am glad to have the opportunity. Many of my colleagues, of course, cannot be here.

The United Kingdom is going through an extraordinary crisis and the Government have much that they must tackle. This is a global crisis with huge implications. As the noble Baroness will know, over 200 Members of the House that she leads have written to the Lord Speaker, making the point that it is our duty as Members of the House of Lords both to help the Government and hold them to account. Given the gravity of this crisis, we need urgently at least to return to our normal sitting pattern. We rightly allowed the Commons to be prioritised in setting up hybrid procedures. Now that it has been done, the same must urgently happen here. As the letter says, the implications of the pandemic are huge. There are issues of health and safety, economic damage, civil liberties and human rights, and many aspects of each. There is so much to cover. Just yesterday, the Lords examined the financial stability report, which had passed unseen by the Commons because it had not even been published when they waved it through.

Internationally, some Governments and others seem to be taking advantage of the cover of coronavirus. It is our responsibility to make sure that a spotlight is shone there too, given that the United Kingdom aspires to global leadership and is a member of the UN Security Council. Therefore, there is more for us to do, not less, so all effort must be put into the Lords returning as the second and scrutinising part of Parliament, and impediment must not be placed in the way of that. However, it has been, as the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, and my noble friends Lord Stoneham, Lord Newby and Lord Alderdice have made plain.

I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, said about a ministerial pension. I was an unpaid Minister through most of the coalition. The Government Chief Whip said at the time that none of us would lose out. Clearly, we need a sunset clause for this proposal, which assumes that we will be working less, not more. If this proposal is to go through, clearly the salaried members of the commission must show leadership by voluntarily taking a pay cut, not to 80% but along the lines that will result from this proposal. The sooner we at least move back to our usual days and hours in this crisis, the better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I have said, these issues are under constant review. We are looking at them all the time, but a sunset clause sets an arbitrary date. These are temporary measures and we are looking to develop things. Lots of ideas have been mentioned today about how we may wish to move forward, and we are committed to that. I think that that negates the need for specific dates.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

I do not think the noble Baroness answered the question that I raised. In showing leadership, she must go back to the commission this week, or next week—whenever it is due to meet—to start some of the work that will be required when this scheme ends. It is not good enough to wait until the end of June. We have work to do to define what business in the House means. Is she prepared to go back to the commission and recommend that that work should start straightaway?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am sure that all members of the commission—a number of whom are here today—including me, will take that on board. We meet regularly, and I am sure that such discussions will happen. The noble Lord is absolutely right: as this develops, there needs to be thinking on allowances, our proceedings and a move to a hybrid House. We will need to have regular conversations to make sure that we can come up with solutions that work for Members and for the business of this House.