House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, when I first entered this House, quite a few years ago, there was an anticipation of a modernising, radical Labour Government taking over and delivering their manifesto promises. I was a bit surprised, therefore, when my first pass extended my attendance here into this century. Well, we are past that, we are past the 100-year anniversary of the Parliament Acts, and the future of the House of Lords is still not clearly defined.

I remain a committed and unrepentant democrat. I think every part of the legislature needs to be at least predominantly elected. I recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, has just reminded us, that that dramatically changes the terms of trade and engagement between this House and another place. That needs to be codified, written down and made clear before any move to radical reform. I agree with my noble friend Lord Rooker on that point.

Despite my strong views on the long-term future of this House, I welcome my noble friend Lady Taylor’s report, and her presentation of it today, because I am enough of a realist to recognise that we are not going to get a radically reformed House very quickly. Therefore, if we do not do something about it, we will stagger on in roughly the same way for at least the length of the next Parliament. That is slightly depressing but it means that we should look at some changes and reforms to the way in which we do our business that will both improve the way we operate and give us greater legitimacy and a better image in the eyes of the public. I regard this report as being part of a blueprint for how we operate in the next Parliament—no longer than that, no more than that but also no less than that. The group has done a very good job.

I broadly support the intention to have a constitutional convention because there are a lot of other constitutional issues that we need to look at. That does not mean that we will resolve them all within two years, and we will no doubt legislate in a piecemeal way thereafter, but at least we can have a coherent cross-party and cross-society discussion of them.

I agree with most of what the report says about our numbers. We need to deal with our numbers. We need to deal with the way in which people get in here, in terms of at least a modicum of legitimacy, and we need to deal with how we get out of here with at least a modicum of decorum. My noble friend hesitated to use the word “cull” but that does mean a reduction. By definition, the three-fifths rule that we now have will cause a significant reduction, and quite rightly so. People who do not attend regularly should not remain in this House. However, to some extent, the problem with our processes is that the people who do come here are too numerous and want to get engaged in too many things. That does not resolve the problem.

Therefore, I support a cut-off point—if that is the term. I tend to be more favourable to the view of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, that we should have a fixed term rather than a fixed retirement date, which is unfair to those who come in when they are 70. Nevertheless, some sort of cut-off point is needed and we need to grasp that nettle. Whatever age or length of term we adopt, some people will be upset and it will be unfair to some. We need to adopt that process, consciously, so that everybody—existing and future Members—is aware of it. In the old days, tsarist Russia was described as “autocracy tempered by assassination”. The House of Lords ought to be, at least for a short time, “oligarchy tempered by forced retirement”. I therefore support the general view on that.

I will mention two points that I do not think have been raised. One is a slightly delicate one and relates to the way in which we are paid, which has been, for one reason or another, subject to some serious media criticism. We are on occasion vulnerable on that front. If there is a three-fifths attendance requirement, why can we not move to a salary basis for our remuneration and why should that not be taxed? One of the most difficult things for the public is to see that we are not taxed like anyone else doing a decent job—and if we are talking about working Peers, it is a job.

I agree with most of the points that the report made on procedure, but I think it was a bit timid on the structure of our committees. One of the strongest arguments for an appointed House is that it brings into the legislature all sorts of experience, expertise and, at least in some cases, wisdom—and brings it to bear on the process of government. But, by and large, we do not make use of that expertise because we do not have a comprehensive range of standing policy committees in the House. We have some good committees, such as the EU Committee, the Constitution Committee, the Economic Affairs Committee and the Science and Technology Committee. All their remits could be broadened, but they are cross-department.

We need some more cross-department committees: for example, on industrial and employment matters, social affairs, and international and defence policy. A huge number of people in this House are expert in that but apart from the EU committees, which are limited by what EU legislation is before us, we never really make use of that expertise in terms of actually holding the Government to account. We have our own debates in which we can all pontificate but if you look at second Chambers around the world, the first one that anybody thinks of is the United States Senate. The great glory of the United States Senate is that it can hold powerful people, in and out of government, to account.

We need a similar process here and that involves us looking at establishing for ourselves a broader range of committees. I do not think that the House of Commons would object to that because the committees would not be dealing with legislation or challenging the legitimacy and primacy of the House of Commons. I know that when the Economic Affairs Committee was established, there was some resistance from the then Chancellor, but we have sort of overcome that. We need to broaden that experience and, therefore, the usefulness of our House for the next Parliament, when for the most part we will still be appointed.