European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

It is not about restrictions on trade. The fact is that we would have to renegotiate a completely new deal, about which we have no idea. We would still want access to EU markets. Some 50% of our trade is with the EU. If we went along with WTO agreements we would have to start paying tariffs on our exports. It may be that the noble Lord thinks that that would be a good idea for producers in this country; I believe that it would be fatal for many of our small businesses in particular.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

What does the noble Baroness think workers at the Airbus factory in Toulouse would say if their Government put a tariff on the engines made by Rolls-Royce, on the wings made by British Aerospace, and on the landing gear manufactured by Dowty here? Would they refuse to accept those and still expect buyers from overseas to buy an aeroplane with no engines, no wings and no landing gear?

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord asked me about Airbus, which is a major manufacturing industry based in north Wales. About 6,000 jobs depend on that relationship. I can tell noble Lords that I have been speaking to the leaders of Airbus in north Wales. They have assured me that they are very much in favour of retaining their membership of the EU. They know that, yes, there may be a short period when they could not retrain and move that facility abroad, but I can tell noble Lords that, in the long term, the French and the Germans would be very happy to receive their ability to build wings on the continent, rather than having them built in our country. This is a critical issue and not a laughing matter, in particular for those 6,000 workers at Airbus in north Wales.

As I said, the EU is far from perfect. Yet we sit here in our gilt-clad, centuries-old institution, replete with our opaque methods of determining membership and quirky yet endearing traditions of expression. Who are we to throw stones at an institution that has had less than 60 years to establish itself? Yes, the EU needs reform: not just this one-off but constant reform to adapt to the needs and requirements of our age, as indeed do our own institutions in the UK.

As a nation we have a moral and practical interest in preventing conflict, stopping terrorism, supporting the poorest in the world and stopping climate change. We need our global institutions to function well to cope with these challenges. We either do this together through bodies such as the EU and UN or we will find to our cost that our ability to influence these challenges independently is restricted. How many would hear Britain’s voice whispering in the world?

The EU also needs the UK. It needs us to be at the top of the table to help reduce the burden on business and ensure that we fight protectionism and trade dumping. But we need the EU. The EU has given us clear water, cleaner air, safer food, anti-discrimination laws, maternity and paternity leave, billions invested in our poorest communities and £3 billion a year for our struggling farmers. Some 3.5 million British jobs depend on that relationship with our nearest neighbour. We have seen caps on bankers’ bonuses, the capping of credit and debit card fees, health and safety laws that have saved countless lives, paid holidays and protection for part-time workers.

But we cannot and should not duck the immigration argument. It is true that immigration brings pressures to some of our communities, but let us not forget that EU citizens make a net fiscal contribution to this country. They staff our hospitals, process our food and are central to the hospitality industry. Let us remind people that 2 million of our own UK citizens have taken advantage of the EU to make their homes on the continent.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

I am grateful to have that additional support from the Cross Benches.

I was about to go back very briefly to the other, very comparable, situation that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, referred to. We have to take into account the practical example of the Scottish independence referendum.

I have to confess that, until now, many of us on this side of the House—certainly those of us on the Liberal Democrat benches—have theoretically had to argue this case. We do not have to do that any longer. We know now, from the Scottish independence referendum campaign, that young people in Scotland took this issue very seriously. They were very well-informed and registered in much greater numbers than opponents ever thought that they would: 109,593 young people in this age group registered and 75% of them voted. That is more than the next cohort up, where people tend to go away from home—off to new jobs or university— and lose touch with the electoral process. Only 54% of 18 to 24 year-olds voted, and 72% of 25 to 34 year-olds voted. Young people debated the issues with great intelligence and personal integrity, ignoring vested interests. Indeed, they were rather more balanced in the outcome, as far as we can detect, than middle-aged men, who were actually taken in by some of the myths of the separatists.

Here, then, is the practical example. What is so important about this is that it demonstrates that, when young people are asked what they think about a longer-term issue of such huge importance to the country and to them, they take it very seriously. Some Members of your Lordships’ House who go on behalf of the Lord Speaker to sixth forms very often find that that age group is rather better informed, and perhaps more mature in their views, than some 60 and 70 year-olds.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

Has it ever occurred to the noble Lord that old people never get younger but young people, granted reasonable luck, get older? The older they get, the more they become like old people. It is a very curious thing. He is saying that their views as young people should be counted but that those of us who are in our advanced years are silly old fools who really should not be trusted with the future of the country at all.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Friday 16th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gordon of Strathblane (Lab)]

I join the noble Baroness in arguing for greater clarity on this, and I am genuinely surprised at the level of opposition to what seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable, understated amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, pointed out earlier, this does not at all affect the principles behind the Bill. There are still powerful arguments for allowing assisted suicide—and, although I am opposed to it, I recognise them. However, let us call it what it is. It is close to misleading to have the title of the Bill as it is the moment, any more than the title of the Homicide Act should be “Assisted Dying (Involuntary)”. No one would seriously describe a terrorist attack as assisted dying—but they have helped people to die, so I suppose you could justify it on that basis.

We try to narrow down a definition. If it is taking someone’s life against their will, we call it homicide or murder. If it is someone taking their own life, we call it suicide, and we have the Suicide Act 1961. It is that Act, not any other, that is amended by the Bill. How anyone can argue that a Bill amending the Suicide Act should not be called the Assisted Suicide Bill genuinely escapes me.

I draw noble Lords’ attention, although I will not quote it at length, to the Second Reading speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hameed, at col. 834, where he drew the very vital distinction between the withdrawal of artificial impediments to death taking its natural course and active intervention. That is a Rubicon that I think the public do not want to cross. I do not want to accuse the promoters of the Bill of any ill faith, but the fact that they choose to position the Bill as though it is on one side of the Rubicon when everyone knows that it is on the other rather gives me cause to think that they recognise that it is a Rubicon that the public are not yet ready to cross.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

I wonder if I could briefly settle this matter. I have just taken the extraordinary step of going to the Library and consulting the Oxford English Dictionary. I take it that most of us would accept the definitions of the Oxford English Dictionary. No one seems to dissent from that, so I will tell the House what it says here:

“suicide, n. The … act of taking one’s own life, self-murder”.

Can we settle the matter now?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

To some extent, that illustrates the point I was making. The Bill cannot be described as sophistry or as trying to secretly or behind the scenes change the law in a subtle or slightly insidious way. It is being presented to Parliament in the clearest of terms. All the issues were aired during the extensive Second Reading debate, in which every Member was able to take part, where even the definition in the Oxford English Dictionary was presented. All these issues have been aired; the question is about the right balance of terminology that the public, the medical profession and the legal profession understand and the legislation will hold. That is why I hold that this is the correct term for the Bill.

[Lord Tebbit]

I wonder why the noble Lord cannot accept the definition of suicide written in the Oxford English Dictionary. We have all accepted it for a very long time. Why does he now not accept it?

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

This Bill is not redefining suicide; nor are we seeking to redefine suicide; nor is someone who comes down from Scotland every week saying that the legislation in the past in England and Wales was superior or inferior to the approach in Scotland, where suicide has never been criminalised. This is not a debate about that; it is a debate about those coming to the end of a terminal illness and their ability to control their final days. It is limited legislation. Opening it up to this wider aspect and all the associated aspects of wider suicide is not necessary. That is why, over the past 10 years, I have come to this clear conclusion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I want to pursue the line of argument that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has started. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that this is an important group of amendments. The noble Baroness has raised the issues of practicality and, possibly, unexpected consequences of some of the amendments.

I want to reinforce the point about the impracticability of Amendment 13. It fails to reflect the fact that in many cases of terminal illness a person will move from the place where the illness was diagnosed and the care of their consultant and GP to somewhere else. We have a National Health Service. You still get treatment if you move from A to B; medical records pass from A to B most of the time, reasonably successfully. The care of that person will be transferred to another GP and another medical practitioner. They may well not have had care of that person for six months. It may simply be impossible to operate Amendment 13 in the case of people who are terminally ill. We need to reflect on the practicality of that argument. I do not believe that the noble Lord expected that consequence from his amendments. That was the point that I was going to ask him about if I had been able to intervene a little earlier. I am happy to give way to the noble Lord.

[Lord Tebbit]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but does he understand the concern that exists among many of us who saw that there were doctors who would certify that a woman’s health was at risk should her pregnancy continue who had never seen the woman concerned, who were pre-signing packs of such certificates to be used by their friends in the abortion business? How do we deal with that matter?

[Lord Warner]

The amendments would not deal with that matter. They would in many cases make it impossible for a terminally ill person who wanted to explore the issue of assisted dying to meet the requirements to have those conversations—let alone anything else—with a medical practitioner who was responsible for their care when they had moved house. I am not trying to make a wider point. I am on the narrow issue of the words in the amendments. I am with the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, all the way on the impracticability of Amendment 13.

I move on to Amendments 20, 21 and 22 in this group. No one who supports the Bill is arguing that we expect doctors to have the gift of foresight about the length of time that someone will live for. I point out that the Bill uses a period which is commonly used in many other areas of public policy, not least in the area of welfare. If noble Lords read Section 82 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012, they will find a definition of terminal illness that is being applied by doctors day in and day out up and down the country—for those who are nerdy in these matters, it is on form DS 1500—to secure improvements in benefits because the person is terminally ill. Parliament, in the past couple of years, has passed legislation which sets out the terms of terminal illness, and doctors up and down the country are applying that legislation for the benefit of people with disabilities. The idea that the Bill is doing something different and novel in this area is, frankly, not true.

I also ask noble Lords to read the GMC guidance for doctors on issues such as end-of-life care and consent. In its admirable guidance, it is clear that there is a reasonable expectation that when a doctor thinks that someone may be terminally ill and may die before the end of 12 months, they may begin conversations with people. It is not unethical, it is not bad medical practice, where a doctor believes that someone may be terminally ill, not to do anything dramatic, but to begin to have a conversation with that person and their family. If you make it a shorter time for the person to have such conversations—six weeks, for example—all you are doing is putting enormous pressure on somebody who has had to come to terms with some catastrophic information about their life and circumstances. It would be inhumane, unfair and lacking in compassion to shorten the timescale within which doctors and their patients could have the conversations that they need to have.

I believe that the balance is struck right with the six-month term. In the United States, where assisted dying is legal, the bar has been set at six months and there is strong evidence to demonstrate that the model there works effectively and safely. Some very interesting work was done by a surgeon and public health researcher, Atul Gawande, who explains in his recent book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End that survival statistics form a bell-shaped curve in which there are a small number of people who survive much longer than expected—the tail of the curve. He says:

“We have failed to prepare for the outcome that’s vastly more probable … we’ve built our medical system and culture around the long tail”,

of small numbers of cases. His view is supported by a number of pieces of research. I shall quote one that shows that fewer than one in four patients outlived the prognosis when their clinicians predicted survival for six months or less. In the great majority of cases, you could argue that the doctors have been optimistic about survivability rather than the other way around. Therefore, I think that my noble friend has struck the right balance in this area.

I shall mention one other bit of GMC advice, which relates to Amendment 20. The GMC is very clear to doctors, beyond doubt or peradventure, about the issue of patient consent. In my view, the amendment would be a breach of that advice. The advice is clear that even if the doctor disagrees with the patient’s decision their right to refuse a course of treatment is absolute and doctors are expected to respect that right. Following the GMC’s advice, I suggest that putting another impediment on doctors, as that amendment would, would be unfair to doctors.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, was speaking, I was trying to cast my mind back to a certain event. I think the noble and learned Lord said that politicians should take action only after due and proper thought, and I seem to recollect an occasion when this House was impaired in its meeting because the Prime Minister had accidentally kicked the Lord Chancellor off the Woolsack. I wonder whether that was what the noble and learned Lord had in mind when he was speaking just now; certainly it is what came back to my mind.

I find myself concerned about a number of matters before us today. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, talked about the “legality” of Ministers’ words and about “unlawful conduct” of Ministers. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, spoke of “unlawful actions”. That is all fine. I think that there should be the capability for judicial review in such circumstances. But those circumstances conform to my understanding of the only three grounds on which judicial review used to be granted: that the act or decision of the Minister or official concerned was contrary to law; that the act or decision was ultra vires; or that no reasonable man could possibly have reached such a decision.

I would be much happier if I could be assured—not only by my noble friend who will answer the debate, but by some of the distinguished lawyers who have spoken—that that remains the case. I have had the impression recently, when reading about some cases in which judicial review has been granted, that a judge has decided that a rather better decision might have been the one that he proposes to make now. I am glad that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, shakes his head at that, but I think that he understands a little of my anxiety, and that of a number of others. It seems to me that it would not be right for judges to substitute their judgment for that of officials or Ministers who lawfully took a decision.

Even worse, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, quoted a judge who said that he thought that Parliament might not have the right to change the law that it had made. That seems a very peculiar doctrine. In that case, who does have the right to change such a law? Would it be the judges, or would it be, I do not know, a mob in the street, perhaps? Surely it is only Parliament, which has made a law, that has the right to change it.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, spoke of the dangers of elected dictatorship. Of course those dangers are there. I do not like elected dictatorships, but in this country there is a very good mechanism for getting rid to them—at the next election. I would rather do it that way than have some judicial process for getting rid of them. I hope we shall hear no more talk about that, because I do not like unelected dictatorships either, even if they sit in law courts.

I have some very clear worries about the manner in which judicial review has developed in recent years. I hope that we will be able to come to a conclusion here, all of us, that we should go very firmly back to those three criteria alone and no others—no talk about judges perhaps deciding that there is an elected dictatorship and something should be done about it; otherwise, their places on their benches might be at risk.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)]

My Lords, the House will be glad to know that there is a limiting factor on how long I can speak for, which is the state of my bronchial tubes; they are so excited by the subject that I am danger of choking altogether.

I am very glad to be able to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, and I am particularly glad to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg. I remember when he had ceased to be Lord Chancellor and a Labour Government were tabling an obnoxious provision, I think to take away the rights of asylum seekers in the courts, and the noble and learned Lord simply put his name down to speak—that was all he had to do and the Labour Government saw the error of their ways and did the right thing.

I wish I could say the same of the present Government, whom I support within the coalition. They have had two warnings from two different committees, on both of which I serve: the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which has given two reports; and the Constitution Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Lang, five of whose members are members of the Conservative Party and, not as far as I know, dangerous radicals. One might have thought that the warning given by the Constitution Committee that, the judges having expressed their concerns, the Government should heed the warning, might have cut some ice within the Ministry of Justice and with Mr Grayling. I am very sorry that that has not been the case.

Part 4 places obstacles in the way of people seeking to challenge the legality of the actions of the Government and other public authorities. It interferes with the discretionary powers of the courts by placing handicaps in the way of public interest groups and their lawyers, and the ordinary woman and man in the street, in seeking to ensure that the Government and other public authorities act lawfully, fairly and rationally in accordance with logic and accepted moral standards of good government.

Judicial review is the process by which the courts enforce compliance by public authorities with the law. It is an appropriate and necessary judicial function because, as Lord Bingham pointed out in his great little book, The Rule of Law, the courts act as,

“auditors of legality: no more, but no less”.

Tom Bingham summed up the basic principle in the following way—and this I say to the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, because even if he regards me as an unreliable Liberal Democrat, perhaps he will take it from Lord Bingham, one of our greatest judges, in his book—when he said:

“Ministers and public officers at all levels must exercise the powers conferred on them in good faith, fairly, for the purpose for which the powers were conferred, without exceeding the limits of such powers and not unreasonably”.

Those are the principles of administrative law in this country—no more and no less—and they remain as they were when Lord Bingham wrote and as they were 30 years ago.

[Lord Tebbit]

Who does my noble friend think should make the judgment as to whether the powers that were legally used were fairly used? Different people have different judgments about what is fair. That of the Liberal Democrats is very different from that of the Conservatives—indeed, it is sometimes different from that of the Labour Party.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I ask the same question of the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. If he thinks that Ministers, not judges, should make the judgment, then we are in wholly different places. The answer to the question of the noble Lord is that in the end it is for Parliament to make the laws, it is for the Executive to administer the laws, but it is ultimately for the courts to decide and to declare what the law is when it comes to public law, as for any other kind of law.

It is important to emphasise, for the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Horam, in particular, that there is no automatic right to judicial review. It has to be applied for. It is granted only if the administrative court is satisfied that the application raises a properly arguable case by someone with a sufficient interest—not a mere busybody—who has exhausted any effective alternative remedy, such as a planning appeal.

The application has to be made without inordinate delay. The concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Horam, about delay are, therefore, met by the strict requirements of the administrative court. If the application succeeds, the court has a broad discretion that the remedy is necessary and proportionate. It will not permit the procedure to be abused. It will punish any abuse of procedure with an appropriate cost order.

If, as the Justice Secretary contends,

“‘left-wing’ campaigners have exploited the process of judicial review to frustrate government initiatives”,

—dear me!—the courts have ample powers to ensure that judicial review is not abused, including making cost orders against those who abuse the procedure.

It is an ancient principle, probably going to back to Magna Carta, that under the common law, which is at the heart of our system, no one shall be judge in his own cause. In seeking to interfere with the powers of the courts, and to place obstacles and handicaps in the way of application for judicial review, the Justice Secretary and the other Members of the Government—Liberal Democrat as well as Conservative—are judges in their own cause. They have a political self-interest in what is in Part 4.

But this House is in a different position. We have a vital constitutional role in protecting the rule of law and the accountability in law of Ministers and of government departments and of all public authorities. The House has the opportunity this afternoon to fulfil that role by placing the wider public interest against party-political interest. That is why, though I do not enjoy being a rebel, if there are Divisions on any of these amendments in the name of the very distinguished supporters of this one, I shall cross the floor and shall vote with them.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, no one could dispute the good intentions of the Bill, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We have to be careful of the words we used. I noticed that the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, referred several times to the “right” that we all have to take our own lives. We do not have that right; we have only the capacity to do it.

I will not repeat many of the points so well made by other speakers, but I am concerned at the financial incentives to end the lives of the frail, the handicapped, the ill and the elderly. They—or perhaps I should say, looking round the House, “we”—are a financial drain on our families, on pension funds, on the health service and, indeed, the economy generally. I and my wife—who, as the House will know, was crippled almost 30 years ago by IRA/Sinn Fein—have seen a lot of this. The Bill would provide a route to great savings in public and private expenditure, and to a great pressure on the elderly, the sick and the disabled to do the decent thing and cease to be a burden on others. Those who care for such people are all too familiar with the moments of black despair that prompt those words, “I would be better dead, so that you could get on with your life”.

Of course, supporters of the Bill say there is an effective barrier in it against such pressures. Two doctors must certify that the individual seeking help to commit suicide has fewer than six months to live and is of sound mind. Late last year, the Daily Telegraph exposed the doctors who performed sex-selective late abortions. We now know that there are doctors who pre-signed wads of blank certificates without even knowing the names of the women concerned, certifying, without seeing or knowing who they were, that their health would be at risk without a late abortion. The CPS left it to the BMA to deal with those doctors. The BMA did nothing. Will there be doctors pre-signing the certificates prescribed by the Bill? What will the sanctions be against those who do so?

Lastly, a few months ago an elderly lady asked me to advise her how she could ensure that her wish to leave all her assets to a charity for ex-service men and women could be entrenched against any attempt by other would-be beneficiaries to override it. “You see”, she said, “I have no children but I have several vultures awaiting my death”. This Bill will be a breeding ground for vultures, individual and corporate. It creates too much financial incentive for the taking of life.

Whole-life Sentences

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, does the Minister accept—

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, it is this side.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

Cross Benches!

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, can my noble friend perhaps read out a list of the names, nationalities and legal qualifications of the judges who interfered in our affairs?

[Lord McNally]

I think the best thing that I can do is place a list in the Library. Over the years, the court has held against Britain in about 3% of cases. During that period, we have had the great benefit of being part of a continent-wide concept of upholding human rights, of which we should be proud.

Political Party Funding

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, not only do I feel light-headed, I think I am going to swoon away: I think I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. Yes, I fully agree with him. As the Deputy Prime Minister has rightly said, this is obviously not the time to try the fundamental reforms that this report, and indeed the Hayden Phillips report before it, recommended. However, there is an opportunity to engage in discussions to see if we can do things within current frameworks to address some of the issues he raised. That would be a very fruitful use of time in this Parliament.

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, while I too agree with a good deal of what has been said, does my noble friend not agree that it would be very dangerous if we were to set maximum levels of expenditure for the parties which were convenient for a party which could attract less than 10 per cent of the electorate, as opposed to major parties which attract somewhere around 40 per cent of the electorate? Perhaps it was a little dangerous for my right honourable friend the Prime Minister to leave this matter in the care of his deputy, who does not seem quite to be on song with the rest of the Government.

[Lord McNally]

For a party that has pretty consistently polled over 20 per cent of the vote in recent general elections, there is certainly no self-interest about the 10 per cent figure. Indeed, we should all wait for the next election, which as we all know, usefully, is in 2015. Four years is a long time in politics.

Supreme Court: President

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I thank the noble Lord for his initial remarks about co-operation, which will again help with the sense of urgency. On the question of judicial diversity, one of the most encouraging things in recent days is the way in which members of the senior judiciary have been going public on the need for urgency on the matter. It is a fact that four members of our 161 judges in the High Court are of black, Asian and minority background. In England and Wales, four out of 42 members of the Court of Appeal are women and we have one woman on our Supreme Court.

[Lord Tebbit]

Will my noble friend consider that what we need on the judges’ Bench are the best judges? They should be selected solely and absolutely on merit and there should be no more talk of integration and diversity among judges than among Olympic athletes.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I could not agree more with my noble friend. The difficulty is that sometimes the idea of choice on merit slips into “chaps like us”, and that is what must be avoided.

Cohabiting: Law Commission Report

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I think that intervention suggests that it is right for the Government in this case to err on the side of prudence.

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, would not the most sensible, the cheapest and the most effective way be for the cohabitants concerned to marry?

[Lord McNally]

I think in other circumstances the noble Lord is fairly outspoken against forced marriages.

House of Lords: Reform

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tebbit]

Would my noble friend like to think about this? At the moment, we seem to be having more introductions to this House than one would find at the average dating agency, yet my noble friend seems to be—if I may put it this way—slightly less than coherent in explaining to the House what it is that these people, including us who are already here, should be doing. Should we not get a little more precision and coherence into it before we provide for a new system for bringing more people into the House?

[Lord McNally]

I am sure that when my noble friend—I could tell how easily “noble friend” tripped off his tongue—looks at Hansard tomorrow and reads my first reply today to the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, he will see perfectly encapsulated the job of a working Peer. As to new Members and the size of the House, this is one of the problems that a House with no retirement age but with a need to be constantly refreshed will run into. We look forward to the report of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, who is looking into these matters for us.