House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Lord Swinfen Excerpts

Friday 21st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the debate has wandered a little from the amendment under consideration to the broader proposals the Government have produced. Let me remind the House that, as has already been stated, under the Government’s proposals Members of this House will serve for a term. That will resolve the question of an age limit.

Amendment 129 is grouped with Amendment 128 and, under these two amendments, there will be an upper age limit for the House of Lords but not an upper age limit for membership of the House of Commons. It is specifically allowed for in Amendment 129 that Members of this House, on retiring at the age of 75, will be free to stand for election to the House of Commons.

[Lord Swinfen]

My Lords, if we have an upper age limit for membership of this House we will be throwing away a terrific amount of experience and wisdom. The vast number of noble Lords who came in with the increase since the last election were appointed to this House by the leaders of the political parties in another place. It is not the fault of this House that its numbers have grown. I suggest that as, say, five Members of this House die and, therefore, no longer sit, they are replaced by only two or three new Members. We will need new Members to keep new and younger blood coming to the House, but in that way we could have a gradual reduction in numbers.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, again, I am grateful to all of your Lordships who have taken part in this debate. Let me start with my noble friend Lord Swinfen, who has just sat down; I hope that he will bring forward an amendment on his proposals.

I absolutely take the point about losing a lot of wisdom from people over 75. It was a concern of mine when we tabled this amendment but it was right to have had this important debate. My noble friend Lord Norton of Louth said, quite rightly, that we must differentiate between active and passive Peers. I would only say to him that he should have supported me when it came to the abolition of hereditaries in 1999 because all that Bill did, in fact, was to get rid of about 90 active hereditary Peers. The majority of the hereditary Peers who were excommunicated from this House were not active Members and although the House appeared large in number, if we ever got a vote of 300 in those days it was indeed a large vote, as the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, will remember. That argument should have applied to hereditary Peers but it was of course an inconvenient argument for the Government to accept. It will be a convenient argument for them to accept this time but it was inconvenient 12 years ago.

That brings me to the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, who said that I have an amendment to limit the House to 300 people, which indeed I have, and that we could not staff the existing committees. To follow up on what I have just been saying, pre-1999 we did not have the number of committees. It is only because we have grown like Topsy that we have increased the number of committees, and we will go on increasing them. There is no end to the demand that we must have a committee for this and a committee for that and, as the numbers increase—which they undoubtedly will until we get a proper reform of this House—we will keep on increasing the number of committees. I think that one should get to a number and then ask, “Right, what is the best way for those people to make themselves work in an efficient way?”, and if that means getting rid of some committees, so be it.

The debate we have had brings me to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, made on, I think, 4 June —maybe he will correct me—when he wrote this, which your Lordships can find on the Guardian blog:

“The old guard are already lining up to defend the status quo”.

That is clear from the debate that we have had. There is always something wrong with the amendment that is put forward. There must be other amendments and a different way of doing things. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, said that we must find another mechanism. I have put forward a mechanism and it has not received any great support but there is not another mechanism. We are therefore going to be faced with this continual problem of an increase in the size of the House, and of the active House.

I will, again, be referring in due course to some leaders that have been written in the papers recently about how this House works. I have increasingly come to the conclusion that in their writings my noble friends Lord Steel and Lord Tyler are both right, for what is this House designed to do? We have not discussed that. We are talking about reforming a system that is creaking at the seams without looking ahead to ask, “What should a second Chamber do?”. It would not be this House of Lords but having got what a second Chamber should be doing, you then work out how it is composed. I see my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth nodding. It is very unusual that we agree on reform of the House of Lords but this is one of those rare moments that one cherishes.

We are, again, putting the cart before the horse. Clearly, age is a non-runner. I accept that but it has been extremely worth while because at least my noble friend Lord Trefgarne and I have put forward a proposal to be discussed. I hope that other noble Lords will put forward different proposals, because there is no doubt that something needs to be done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Northbrook]

I have two problems with the clause. First, the definition of a serious criminal offence could cause a lot of problems. Secondly, if a noble Lord was locked up in Zimbabwe for a trumped up offence, it seems unsatisfactory that he would be excluded from the House for that reason.

[Lord Swinfen]

My noble friend has just brought up the point I was going to raise. Unfortunately, one or two regimes in the world unjustly lock up their people and, occasionally, visitors, after they have gone through a sham of a trial. That would be covered under the clause. How would my noble friend deal with that? Some very worthy Members of this House may be on business abroad who happen to have said things in this House that their hosts do not like and who take the opportunity to incarcerate them as a result.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

Since I have already undertaken to discuss the other matters with the Ministry of Justice, I am certainly willing to take this one on board as well if my noble friend would be kind enough to withdraw the amendment. If we need to come back to it on Report, we could.

[Lord Swinfen]

My Lords, I am not an expert on the Road Traffic Acts, but surely someone who drives unlicensed, uninsured or under the influence of drink or drugs or who does a very serious amount of damage to other people’s property, possibly killing or maiming them at the same time, would get a very severe sentence and is not the sort of person whom one would want as a Member of this House in any case. I think the noble Lord needs to think on that side of it before pressing his amendment.

[Lord Trefgarne]

With the undertaking from my noble friend, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, perhaps someone could enlighten me on the origin of all this. I assume that commoners vote for the Commons and that Lords are a totally different kettle of fish. Is that correct? Can anyone say what the principle is supposed to be? Otherwise, it looks ridiculous.

[Lord Swinfen]

My Lords, I believe it is because we have a voice and a vote in Parliament.

[Lord Wright of Richmond]

My Lords, I think it is also the fact that Members of the House of Commons are no longer Members of the House of Commons when the election takes place.