Procedure and Privileges Committee

Debate between Viscount Stansgate and Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

We had a very good Government then, but it was nothing to do with the Government. From 2010 onwards, we had a big influx of new Peers coming in, and we have this odd situation in which we have so many on the Lib Dem Benches compared with their weight in the country—but this is the House; we are different from the Commons. I have sensed that as more and more MPs have come into this Chamber, they have exercised more and more influence and played a bigger part. I am in love with them all, so there is nothing wrong with that.

The conduct of the House has changed. My noble friend Lord Hunt put his finger on it about self-regulation. I am a radical. If we have a debate on anything, I would say we should have a debate on the composition of the House. That is what the country will require us to engage in at some stage, but we are not there. So what are we now? We are a House whose Members have respected each other, regardless of party, to a very fair degree; where the Whips have played a lesser role in the past than you find down at the other end; and where, particularly in our committees, we have worked so well. We come together and try to produce something for the common good.

When I came in here, this Chamber was about the common good and was not as political. In a sense it was, because the Tories had all the seats, but the hereditaries tempered it to a degree in that they looked for the good right across the board. I believe in self-regulation while the House continues to function and to have representatives put in it as at the moment. If we go to a different scene entirely, I think we have to look for a different type of Speaker.

With respect to my good friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, I think she is perfectly right but I do not believe it would rest there. There is a push and a change taking place that would require the Lord Speaker to take on more and more responsibilities in different ways to that which we are currently talking about. I am reluctant to embrace a change that puts power with the Speaker, in a Chamber that needs fundamental change. My noble friends are normally in favour of fundamental change to the way the House is composed.

I hope we will support the report before us and not embark on what I believe is a change—a foot in the door—that would lead to even bigger changes, without a fuller debate on it than we have had to date. I hope we will back the recommendations from the committee.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not sure it is to my advantage to follow my noble friend’s speech, in view of some of the matters he raised. I accept the invitation of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who said he hoped to hear some of the voices of people who are new. When we debated the matter in October, I was very new; now I am just a little less new. When I appeared on my first day, of course, I did not have PeerHub. I voted by going to the Table and asking for my name to be written on a scrap of paper; I took it that that would be sufficient to have my vote recorded.

Pass readers are clearly a matter of great convenience, as my noble friend Lord Hunt said. I was never one of those who welcomed the speakers’ list, even when I arrived and was new, but the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is quite right to say that we are talking about something that will change for ever, so it is an important point to discuss.

On my noble friend’s amendment, I take the view that change in your Lordships’ House is very small and incremental. This is one of the smallest and most incremental that I have come across but, if it is pushed to a vote, my small and incremental vote will be in favour of it.

I want to raise one question with the noble Lord, the Senior Deputy Speaker. Paragraph 5 of the report says that pass readers will be the authoritative figure for a vote. Although we will restore the role of Tellers, I must gently ask: what would happen if there was a discrepancy between the two? I hope that is not a frivolous question. With the “Hear, hears” ringing in my ears, I will sit down. I will be grateful for an answer.