House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Viscount Thurso Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

The noble Baroness made a very passionate speech in favour of democratic accountability. Why then did she not stand for the House of Commons instead of coming here?

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

My Lords, I do not think the noble Baroness wishes to answer the noble Lord’s question, and she has every right to do that.

I rise very briefly to support my noble friend Lord Newby. This is a very straightforward and simple amendment that seeks to place a duty on the Government to do something after this Bill has passed.

Some of us have spent a great deal of time on Lords reform. I started in this place just under 30 years ago and had 27 years between the two places, and one of the things I have observed in that time is that chances to do something to reform this place do not come along too often, and legislation comes along very rarely.

I greatly enjoyed the eloquence and oratory of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, although I have to say that he has once again convinced me that the more eloquent he is, the more incorrect his arguments are. I very much appreciated the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, with grace and gentleness, rebutted them.

The key point in all that—I am desperately trying not to give a history lesson—is that, when we did the draft Joint Committee of both Houses in 2011-2012, so ably chaired by the late Lord Richards, we came to a compromise position that addressed every single one of the points the noble Lord put forward, and they went into the draft Bill that went before the Commons. That Bill had a Second Reading and, had it had not been for a slightly sneaky operation by Jesse Norman on the programme Motion, it would have gone through and been discussed by both Houses.

So I support my noble friend simply because there needs to be reform. There needs to be reform because we need more legitimacy. In 1832, we were powerful and the Commons was not. From 1832 onwards, the power has moved to the Commons. We now need to regain some legitimacy so that we can again be a powerful part of a Parliament that holds the Executive to account. In asking for this amendment, my noble friend is simply saying, “Let’s hold our feet to the fire and get it done”.

[Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on the eloquence of her speech. But she put forward a point of view about this House that I think is mistaken when she said that it is supposed to be representative of the people. It absolutely is not and it never has been. It has other purposes, for better or for worse, and we all sit here as representatives of nobody but ourselves. That is particularly true of Cross Benchers and the non-affiliated, but actually it is true of all party Members as well, and there are important reasons for that. We are well placed to bring to bear on the proceedings of Parliament as a whole a disinterested point of view, in the proper sense of “disinterested”: in other words, not representing an interest but trying to think as hard as we can about what is right.

The speech by the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, was very important here, because, if we think about the function of this House, we may come to realise that its current composition is not so idiotic. Its function is to scrutinise, and the type of people that want to scrutinise are not the type of people who want to get on in life. The people who want to get on in life are those in the other place who are, as was eloquently pointed out by the noble Lord and others, trying to get the next position, higher marks on social media, more likes and jobs. Most of us have gone beyond that stage of life. That is obviously not true of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, because she is very young, but she disinterestedly and kindly sits here in order to contribute her wisdom.

The trouble with the Bill is that we are not thinking about function but droning on about composition. As long as we think that it is a good thing to have a powerful House of Commons that forms most of the Government of the day, it is perfectly reasonable to have a not-very-strong House of Lords that tries to scrutinise. If we think that that is perfectly reasonable, we might consider that perhaps we should not be mucking around with our composition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, although, with apologies to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, it does not actually mention hereditary Peers. This debate has ranged much more widely. At some stage we will need to discuss the next steps for reform. I hope that we will not overlook the work of either the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, or the noble Lord, Lord Burns, who had some very sound proposals in his report that we somehow seem to have swept under the carpet.

I have been here for nearly 18 years and I have no wish to retire, but it is possible that, if I still have my marbles in another 12 years, I would be grateful for an honourable way to go. Most of us are appointed because we have expertise in a particular field, but it is quite possible that, after 15 years, our expertise is not quite as lively as it was when we first came in, so having this sort of term seems to make quite a lot of sense.

I cannot understand why noble Lords have not grouped more amendments in this debate. This seems an unnecessary waste of your Lordships’ time and, I fear, the sort of thing that brings this House into disrepute. I note that the ungrouped amendments all seem to come from the Conservative Benches. I wonder why.

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

My Lords, my Amendment 66 has been grouped with these amendments. I will briefly explain what the amendment does and then make a valiant, though likely unsuccessful, attempt to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that it would be worth accepting.

My amendment seeks to address the fact that there is broad agreement across the House that in some way, shape or form the length of time that people sit in the House should not be indefinite. The concept of a seat for life has no more validity than a seat for life that has been inherited. The report from the noble Lord, Lord Burns, suggested 15 years, as referred to in Amendment 13. I have chosen a term of 20 years precisely because 15 years sounds like something I can imagine, whereas 20 years sounds somewhat more gentle. The number has been chosen so as not to frighten the horses.

The amendment would amend the Life Peerages Act such that the right to receive a Writ of Summons would be limited to 20 years from the moment someone took their seat in the House. That would mean that if somebody happened to be just under the 20 years when an election was called, they would get a Writ of Summons and could get up to 24 years. If they were lucky—or unlucky, depending on your point of view—to have sat for 20 years when an election was called, that would be their lot. By referring to a Writ of Summons, the amendment has the merit of meaning that anyone who was limited would get to the end of the Parliament they were sitting in so that if they were chairing a committee or running a Bill, they would be able to complete their work.

The amendment is deliberately designed to affect peerages granted after the passage of this Bill. There is quite a lot of feeling, one way or another, about the concept of changing the terms of employment, as it were, for people who are already here. Therefore, people given a peerage in the future would know precisely what they would be doing and the length of time they would serve.

An alternative for terms of reference, which will be debated later, is a retirement age. I do not favour retirement ages because I have met people of considerable age with great faculties and abilities and some people of not very great age who do not have great faculties and abilities. I would rather have, as happens in the other place, a term limit based on moment of arrival and moment of departure, rather than an arbitrary one based on age.

The key difference between this amendment and virtually any other that will be tabled is that it does not affect anybody who is currently sitting in the House. Why, therefore, have I brought it forward? I hope to persuade the Leader of the House that it may be worth considering and possibly accepting.

As I mentioned in the debate on the last group, I have been around the houses on Lords reform for the best part of 30 years, across two Houses. Apart from the fact that anybody who engages in that requires a certain degree of stamina, I have noticed that progress has been remarkably small and often barely incremental. The amendment therefore seeks to put in a longstop. If it is accepted, it would change nothing at the moment. If the Government go ahead, as promised, and bring something forward in the remainder of this Parliament, nothing has changed; this is perfectly reversible and whatever changes might be thought appropriate by the Government can go ahead. It has no impact on anything that might be discussed. But if the circumstance arises—and the odds are probably in favour of this circumstance—that for one reason or another, such as international affairs or all sorts of different reasons, time is not found in this Parliament for any further reform, and the electoral maths changes so that the next term might be more difficult, we would be back to having another 10 or 15 years before something happens.

If, therefore, we are really interested in the size of the House coming down—I think we all wish to see that—and if some form of limited term is appropriate, the amendment puts this out into the distance. It is exactly like crown green bowls, where you put one ball right at the back, just in case. If nothing happens, there would be a longstop that would start to see a reduction in the numbers.

I would like to think that my amendment has been drafted in a way that has some elegance and grace and would solve a problem that I hope we will not have and therefore could be disregarded. But in case we do have the problem, it is a mechanism planted into the future that would have some control over the size of your Lordships’ House. For those reasons, I hope the Government might consider this amendment, or something very like it, as a workable proposition, and use the Bill for this tiny addition that would have no impact on the vast bulk of what they are seeking to achieve.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, instinctively, I like limited terms. It is like running a board: you know who is leaving, when they are leaving and what skills they have, and you recruit to replace them in an orderly way rather than relying on the grim reaper to do it for you. I often say about 15-year terms that it is five years to learn the job, five years to be effective and five years to go out of date. I fear that I may offend a few in the Chamber today by making that mathematical assertion.

In practice, there is one point that we need to consider with regard to limited terms: what then? If people have spent their peak career earning years in this House and then leave at 50 or 60—with no pension from this employer, by the way—are we in danger of putting people off from joining us because they have nothing to look forward to as a support beyond the time they spend here? I worry that your Lordships’ House would become more attractive to people of independent means and less attractive to people who are not in that lucky position.

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

May I respond to the noble Lord briefly, as we are in Committee? If one looks at the average age at which people come into this House, it is at the end of their careers, just below or above 60. Therefore, 20 years takes most people who come into this House from mid-50s to mid-70s or early 60s to early 80s. Under the current arrangements, there are relatively few people who come into the House as a full-time occupation who are in their primary working years. I know that there are exceptions, and exceptions always prove the rule. However, if we wish to have some longstop, my amendment takes care of most of the points he has made. If people know in advance that they are being offered something for 20 years, they always have the choice of declining.

[Lord Desai (CB)]

My Lords, I have many things to declare. One is that I came here not as a hereditary Peer but was appointed by John Major, who conspired with Neil Kinnock—the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock—to get me here. Secondly, I have been here for 34 years, so I obviously do not qualify to be a sane, sensible person, because I am too old. I am 85, and after 34 years I am clearly not qualified to be here at all—so I have to fight for my life, because I actually like this place.

When I came here I did not swear an oath, not being a believer, but I affirmed one. I affirmed an oath to serve Her Majesty the Queen, her heirs and successors. I did not say “Till death do us part” but I definitely came on the promise that I was appointed for life. I was not appointed on whether I was qualified, whether I was sane, whether I was solvent, or anything like that. Okay—if I violate the rules of conduct, I may get thrown out. Apart from that, given the logic of your Lordships’ House, I do not see any reason whatever to have age limits and term limits retrospectively. Yes, have a Bill which is not to do with the hereditary Peers but with House of Lords reform. If you want to reform the House and reduce the number of people and so on, then say that normally at such and such an age you would qualify.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Viscount Thurso Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, which is very creative and imaginative. For anybody who thinks this is beside the point, I certainly would not want to press the issue too hard—it is somewhat absurd to suggest that the removal of 92 hereditaries will turn the British constitution completely upside down—but the point is important.

It is said by those who call for the abolition of the remaining hereditaries that the hereditary principle is indefensible. That is often said, and then not really argued—it is simply stated. If it is indefensible, that must apply to other aspects of the hereditary principle, of which the monarchy is the most prominent. One point I would make to the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, is that he is, in fact, mistaken. The present King did make a speech in the House of Lords, when he was Prince of Wales: he made his maiden speech here and was entirely entitled to do so. I remember no parliamentary crisis arising from it.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, that this must be quite annoying because there are so many things flying around; could it not all be grouped? This is the problem with the Bill: it raises a very big issue and then tries to make it very narrow. Masses of issues come out of this which we need to think about, and heredity is one of them.

Heredity is a very important principle in life. It is for our monarchy, which is much respected around the world and here, for all the reasons the noble Earl, Lord Devon, said. It is also very largely the principle on which our citizenship and all families are based. What are families other than hereditary? It answers a very important aspect of people’s way of thinking about things. It may well be appropriate in modern times to remove that from a parliamentary chamber, and that is what is very likely to happen. But we need to understand that this may reflect badly upon us if we get it wrong; that it may expose this House to lots of questioning about what we really are and whether we deserve to be here; and that it may make people feel that our history and our understanding of ourselves is diminished.

Last week I was in Ukraine. I was taken out to Zaporizhzhia, right by the front, by a very nice Ukrainian driver who had previously been a rock star, or at least in a rock band, but harder times had come upon him—as they often do with rock stars. As we parted, he said, “I am so pleased. First time I ever meet real Lord”. I felt very ashamed because I am not a real Lord: I am a Boris creation. I said that to him, but that only made me rise in his estimation, because in Ukraine, Boris is an immensely popular figure. It is interesting that over there in that snowbound, war-torn place, the idea of a Lord means something to an ordinary person. It is a universal idea, and it is an idea which is essentially British and retains a certain importance. All that can be done away with, and it probably will be in legislative terms, but let us think about the way this is being done and be cautious.

Andrew Marvell, the great poet—who was a Parliamentarian, by the way, not a Cavalier—wrote a famous poem about Oliver Cromwell’s return from Ireland. He warned Cromwell about the danger of ruining what he called

“the great work of time”.

That is something we need to think about. This Bill is Cromwellian, and therefore is dangerous.

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

My Lords, I have bitten my tongue for the first two or three groups our Committee has considered, but I feel obliged to make a quick comment on the amendment tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Devon—and also because my gluteus maximus has gone to sleep.

We have a constitution, which is the Crown in Parliament. The Crown, based on heredity, works extremely well. Parliamentary democracy, based on heredity, works extremely badly, and I can make the difference between the two. We need a second chamber that is either selected or elected—my preference is elected—and I will stand with the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, in defence of our King.

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to say that, as the royal representatives and great offices of state—the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Earl Marshall—are being removed from the House, is it reasonable not to sever the Royal Family’s link entirely with the Floor of the House? I might draw the line at the Duke of York or the Duke of Sussex, but I could tolerate some others.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Viscount Thurso Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

My Lords, we have reached that point in the debate when pretty much everything that can be said has been said, but not yet by me. I will confine myself to one observation and one suggestion but, before I do that, I offer my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Brady. I served with him on the Treasury Select Committee in another place. Of course, he has gone on to great things as a hirer and firer of Prime Ministers, while I just sort of went on. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, for her exemplary valedictory. Lastly, I thank the Leader of the House for her courteous tone and the way in which she introduced the debate. I hope to follow her example.

The Bill is rather small, containing five clauses, or four if you leave out the one about the short title. It has to be said that rarely can so much have been said by so many about so few clauses. It is a remarkably simple Bill that has at the heart of it one basic proposition, which is the removal of us hereditaries. Since I have spent my whole time talking about reform of this House from the point of view of a wholly elected House, it would be odd if I had to oppose that principle, so I will not. However, equally pernicious as the hereditary principle is the principle of life tenure. We need to confront that and come up with some way in which terms are limited, and I will come to that in my suggestion.

Frankly, I never expected to arrive in your Lordships’ House, because my father assured me that reform would have taken place before it came to me. Unfortunately, 29 years ago he died, and I arrived here having never had any interest in politics as something I should do. I came to enjoy and respect what happened, but I also learned how much the reform of this House could add to the strength of Parliament, a theme that I have spoken about on many occasions.

So in 1999 I was happy to go, by which time Lord Maclennan had persuaded me that I should try for the other House. I duly ended up as the elected Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, and I had a very happy 14 years when I got more job satisfaction after looking after my constituents and doing other things, such as sitting on the Treasury Select Committee, than I have had in many other walks of life. I never expected to come back here because I thought the job would have been done by then but, lo and behold, there was an election and I got back here in 2016. Now I am off again, adding to my remarkable collection of political P45s.

My observation from that is that House of Lords reform does not happen, or, rather, it happens in very small chunks with large amounts of time between them. That leads me to my suggestion, based on something in the report by the noble Lord, Lord Burns: to look at introducing term limits, not for anyone who is in the House at the moment but by a simple amendment in the Bill to the 1958 Act saying that anyone coming in the future would be limited to a term. It could be 15 years or 20, I do not really mind; it is simply about the principle that people should not be here for their life. That would be a modest and simple thing to do. I am trying desperately not to cut across the desire of my leader, my noble friend Lord Newby, not to create a Christmas tree, but I think this would be a very small bauble that would have no great effect on the other major events but would have a strong effect on the future of the House.

That is my observation and my suggestion. Above all, as I said in our debate on 12 November, I am a parliamentarian and I believe in the strength of Parliament. We need a strong second Chamber that is legitimate in the eyes of all its stakeholders so that it strengthens Parliament, in order that Parliament can continue to hold the Executive to account. The threat we face of a public who are becoming ever more disconnected from the parliamentary process would be reduced by a stronger Parliament.

House of Lords Reform

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Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for having brought forward this debate, which has been thoughtful and an immensely valuable contribution to deliberations on the future of your Lordships’ House. However, for me, it has brought on a slight Groundhog Day feeling, since I have been taking part in such debates since my first incarnation in this House, in the other place, and again in this House for nearly 30 years now.

The first debate was in 1996, when I was struck for ever by the contribution of my late great friend Lord Mackie of Benshie, who rose and, in his stentorian voice, said, “I believe wholeheartedly in the hereditary principle”, and then after a pause said, “For breeding cattle”. He went on to describe the policy of these Benches, which was not about hereditaries. I have remained absolutely convinced since those days that a reformed House, based mostly, if not entirely, upon election, is the proper way to go forward.

I accept that that is not going to happen in a hurry. When we failed to get the 2012 Bill, which got its Second Reading, through to its other stages we missed a real trick for proper reform. In the short term, two things are absolutely imperative, both of which are in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Burns.

The first is size. We have to agree a size and agree it even before we have worked out how to get there. We have to say a number—I am not going to put a number on it, but numbers have been floated—and then we can agree how to get there. Until we have decided on the size, nothing else can really work. The second is limits. I am not in favour of an age limit. There is no age limit down the other end and I know lots of people can come into this House at a later stage in life and make a valuable contribution. I am against people being here for ever; it is ridiculous that we would look at a young person aged 30 being able to sit for 50 years while a highly confident 75 year-old had to go after five. I am in favour of term limits rather than age limits.

Why reform? The House works extremely well: its committees work excellently, the quality of debate is very good, and the way in which legislation is improved is excellent. Unfortunately, for all that great work—and I have nothing but admiration and respect for every Member of this House—there is one fundamental defect. It is the one that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, referred to: it does not have legitimacy. At the end of the day, when you are at the other end and voting out whatever has been done at this end, you will not have heard the debate. You just troop through the Lobby and the Minister’s phrase will be, “We’re the elected House”.

We are not legitimate in the eyes of the press, except on those very rare occasions when we come up with something that they happen to agree with, and we are not legitimate in the eyes of the public. I disagree here with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for whom I have great affection and respect, notwithstanding his regular name-checking of my election to this place the second time around. I have regularly discussed the House of Lords and our constitution with people on the doorsteps in Caithness. I do not pretend that Caithnesians are cleverer than those anywhere else; it is just that people actually care. Without that legitimacy, which I believe will ultimately come only from election, we are always going to have a problem.

I am not that keen on a commission doing everything, because the commission will be composed of the metropolitan Oxbridge elite. Where will the crofters, the carers, the binmen and the fishermen come from? That is what representative democracy actually delivers.

I remain convinced that, ultimately, we should have an elected House. Being elected for one term, with one-third elected every three elections, so that people would be here for 15 years, is the best way to do it, but I recognise that it will not happen in a hurry. Most of all, I am a parliamentarian and I want this House to be strengthened—to strengthen Parliament against the Executive. In a liberal democracy, at the point where we are under threat as never before from the algorithms that are driving us into silos of agreement and taking away from the great market of ideas, we need this House more than ever to function well.

Elections Bill

Viscount Thurso Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a question—and I did not come in to speak either. Since I have been a Member of this House, which is 20 years, there is at least one Member—I think only one—who was here when I arrived, subsequently got elected to the other place and is now back here. Yes, he is here today. At the time that he left this place and got elected to the other place, was he able to vote in the election he stood in? I am not sure what his status would have been.

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

Yes, I was allowed to vote.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Well, that is the answer to my question.

Living with Covid-19

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Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I have said, we have launched the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, which will systematically tackle the top preventable risk factors and associated ill health, such as smoking and obesity, to improve the public’s health. We will also set out a strategy to tackle the core drivers of inequality in health outcomes in a new White Paper on health disparities this year.

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

My Lords, what advice will the Government give to employers? Will responsible employers be expected to provide testing for their employees?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

We will revise the workplace guidance for employers and work with them; again, it will be published shortly, before the full measures we announced yesterday come into effect.

His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Viscount Thurso Excerpts

Monday 12th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Thurso (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am most grateful for this opportunity to support the humble Address to Her Majesty and join the expression of this House’s deepest regret and sympathy to Her Majesty and the Royal Family. All noble Lords who have contributed to this Address have rightly paid tribute to the unflinching support given by His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, to Her Majesty throughout her reign. Without doubt, that support has been a central plank in the success and stability of the monarchy over seven decades. I join all noble Lords in our expression of deep sympathy and sincere condolence to Her Majesty and the family. But in addition, His Royal Highness was a man of an extraordinary range of interests and singular talents, and it is to some of those—particularly on behalf of people in Caithness, where I serve as lord-lieutenant, as well as more personally—that I want to pay tribute.

For some 40 years, the royal yacht “Britannia” came to Scrabster each summer so that the Royal Family could visit the Queen Mother at her home, the Castle of Mey. His Royal Highness, an accomplished artist, often used the time to paint, and, indeed, to this day visitors to the Castle of Mey can see the works he gave to the Queen Mother hanging in the dining room. His ability as an artist was perhaps lesser known than some of his interests but none the less was a vital part of his character.

Another great interest was in innovation and engineering, and he made several visits to Caithness in 1957. One was to tour the new Dounreay, Britain’s first experimental fast breeder reactor facility—a technology in which Britain led the world at the time. His Royal Highness spoke knowledgeably with those on site and was deeply interested in what was happening. My father, who was there, often told me about it. An interest in and support for innovation, engineering and technology were the hallmark of all the work that he did.

On a personal level, I had the great privilege of being His Royal Highness’s host at a reception on your Lordships’ Terrace given by the Institute of Management Services, of which he had been president. The institute is dedicated to productivity and the study of methods of productivity and management. His Royal Highness was a highly engaged president who, as with all organisations he was associated with, took a keen interest in all the institute did. At the time, I was patron and had the task of making a presentation, which I did with what I thought were appropriate words. However, it was clearly too long, and he said loudly, but with a big smile, “Oh bloody well get on with it!”

While we mark his departure with great sadness, we also celebrate the long and remarkable life of a great polymath. We give thanks for a lifetime of support to Her Majesty, a lifetime of service to the nation, and a lifetime of encouragement to young people. His attitude was: get on with it. He made the most of the cards dealt and did not worry about the cards that were not dealt. That is an example to us all, and if we can live by that, it will be a fitting memorial to a long and productive life.

Business of the House

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Thursday 19th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I had already given up my support for proportional representation at that point, but yes, I have known the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for a very long time and I am grateful for his remarks. He mentions my work on preventing sexual violence, which I will continue outside this House, but that is another illustration of the use of LIBOR money. Last month, I was able to announce £1 million of that money going to the London School of Economics to create a centre for women, peace and security. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has just joined us, and I do not think that it is fair to say that that is pork barrel use of money. That is an example of how well used the LIBOR funds are. They are, of course, available only on a temporary basis, so setting up a whole structure to disburse them is probably not the way forward, but I will be able to pass on to the Chancellor what the hon. Gentleman has said.

[John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I join colleagues in paying tribute to the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House for the work they have done, on the House of Commons Commission in particular. Much has been achieved together and it has been great working as part of that team.

Will it be possible to have a debate on the provision of communication infrastructure by BT? It has been suggested recently that that should be hived off from the company. In the highlands of Scotland, in my constituency, I have received 45 complaints, such as that from John Sinclair of Caithness Creels, who has been waiting for more than three weeks to get broadband. The residents of Lothmore have been waiting for up to six weeks to be reconnected. There is a clear shortage of engineers, and BT seems to regard that as perfectly acceptable. I wrote two weeks ago to the chairman, Sir Michael Rake, pointing out the potential reputational damage to BT; I never received an answer from him. The high-level complaints team has however told me that it will look at the issue, but that it might take some time. That is not acceptable from the provider of a national infrastructure and I believe we should be concerned about that.

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and pay tribute to the tremendous work he does for this House, which I have seen at close quarters. We have been able to work together very well in the House of Commons Commission, so I thank him very much for that. He raises an important issue. The Government of course have a very strong record on the development of superfast broadband around the United Kingdom, particularly in rural areas, but he is right about the difficulty in some of the remotest areas. I see that in North Yorkshire, and he highlights the difficulties in the extremely remote areas that he represents. Although there is not time for a debate, I think he has succeeded in raising the matter on the Floor of the House, and I hope that BT will take that very seriously and attend quickly to the matters affecting his constituents.

House of Commons Commission Bill

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Tuesday 24th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

The Bill proves that great things come in small packages. Brevity in a Bill can lead to excellent clarity of statute, a model that anybody forming a Government could look to follow in the future.

I thank the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House for having been able to bring the Bill before the House so that the provisions can be put into statute to enable the next Parliament, we hope, to get a flying start as the new Commission is set up.

I associate myself with the remarks of the Leader of the House and others who paid tribute to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), as I did when we debated these matters. May I assure him that I am called after the railway station, not the railway station after me? It is an excellent report which found an extremely good way forward and has found favour with everybody.

I should make it clear that I do not make these short remarks in my position as the spokesman for the Commission. The Commission’s position is set out in the written statements that I have issued in my name as the spokesman. That makes it clear that progress is being made to have the Clerk in place before Dissolution; and because of the sequential nature, as recommended by the Committee, the Director General recruitment has started but cannot be completed until that recruitment is in place, and that will be an early order of business for the new Parliament. Other than that, I would say that the Commission has sought simply to give effect to everything that was set out in the report as much as it can and as quickly as it can.

Speaking personally, I am delighted to see the Bill before the House. I do not want to go into any of the detail particularly. It does the important job of putting into statute the provisions that needed to be changed in the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978, and we had the chance to debate the other matters earlier.

One small regret is that we did not find room in the Bill for an enabling clause, which would have permitted a future Commission to look at bringing the administration estimate and the Members Estimate Committee together, which was a sort of recommendation—a “think about” recommendation—that would have been useful at a later stage. However, I completely accept that, in order to get the Bill through quickly, that was a provision that had to wait for another time. My worry is that House of Commons Bills do not come along that often, so it may be a very long time before there is a possibility to do that.

The only other point that I would make, since it has been mentioned both by the shadow Deputy Leader of the House and others who have spoken, concerns election remuneration. It is important that these posts be elected by the whole House so that the whole House has confidence in each of the Members. I also feel, as I mentioned before, that the four posts should be equally remunerated. The reason for that is that I have not the slightest doubt that both of the posts that are currently not filled by Chairmen of Committees, where there is no question on this, will end up with Cabinet-style portfolios, and should end up with Cabinet-style portfolios. One of the most obvious places for this to happen is around human resources, change and diversity. It is an area that we do not scrutinise particularly well. One of the commissioners should take specific responsibility for that, and one of the commissioners who has done so extremely well in this Parliament would have been the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran). There is a strong case for using commissioners—not saying that commissioners should not do the work, should just turn up and make some decisions, but actually saying that this is a new Commission, operating in a different way, and these commissioners should be used to undertake work.

Apart from that point, this is an excellent Bill that puts into effect the recommendations of the Governance Committee, and I, too, commend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thomas Docherty]

That is something that we will look at. My position is that the current arrangements for the Select Committee Chairs have worked well in this Parliament and they should continue in the next Parliament.

It is critical that there is no ambiguity about the position of the parliamentary Labour party. We do not believe that the other commissioners should be paid, because the work is no more onerous than being a member of the Finance and Services Committee or the Administration Committee or the Foreign Affairs Committee, and they do not receive payment. My understanding is that the Commission meets once a month and it would be slightly strange if the only member of the Commission who was not receiving an additional payment ended up being the shadow Leader of the House, because the shadow Cabinet are not paid. The Commission itself does not have an onerous meeting schedule—

[John Thurso]

I quite understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, I just fundamentally disagree with it. It is not in the Bill, so we can leave it until later.

[Thomas Docherty]

Perhaps that is a sign of our democracy at work.

As I say, that is the position of the parliamentary Labour party. We are absolutely clear. We want to see more cost-saving measures. We welcome the steps that the Commission is taking in looking at the shared services. That was something that came out of the Governance Committee’s report. We are clear: my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and I have said on more than one occasion that it is absurd that we continue to have two catering operations and two research operations. We already have shared services. I know that the right hon. Gentleman has done a lot of work on this. In the next Parliament the goal should be to reduce the costs of our democracy, not to drive them up further.

House of Commons Governance

Viscount Thurso Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I have added my name to the motion and speak in support of it. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), and his Committee and staff, on their excellent work. Before he set off, I thought to myself that the Committee would be jolly lucky to get the report in on time and that it would need an extension, but not only has the right hon. Gentleman beaten the deadline, he has done so with a well-crafted report that I would describe as an elegant package that has precision where required and sufficient imprecision where that is helpful. As other hon. Members have pointed out, one has only to look at annexes E and F to see the difference between what was and what is proposed, and the Committee is to be congratulated on its work.

Let me make it clear that I speak for myself and not as spokesman of the House of Commons Commission. The Commission awaits the verdict of the House, and we have provided for a meeting on Monday to take forward what is decided. At our meeting last Monday, we made an assumption that the House might like to approve the report, and everything is ready to fire the starting gun. The need for speed that was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) has been prepared for, but my comments reflect my thoughts on the report and do not come from the Commission.

I want to mention the quality of the staff. As I said when I gave evidence, since I have served on the Finance and Services Committee I have engaged with staff on a great many levels, and I have been impressed by how much they want us to succeed in what we do. I know that the report has been welcomed by members of staff, and I think they would like us to get on with delivering it. I sense great good will and desire on the part of our staff for the matter to be sorted out so that they have that governance structure. Clearly, this process started with a hiccup, but as the right hon. Member for Blackburn said, the report does not concern itself with that but looks forward. That is commendable and is perhaps a case of “per ardua ad astra”—we have had the hardship, let us now shoot for the stars.

The report suggests a package of measures. I am sure that each of us has bits that we would have done slightly differently, but this package is workable and can be put into place, and it is therefore important that we accept it as a package. I particularly like the way that the report first sets out clear principles, and secondly encourages us to move towards modern best practice. It also encourages us to retain what we value about the way this House is run, and to understand that in taking the best from the governance of other organisations, we must also preserve that which makes this House the successful legislature it is.

I wish briefly to mention three specific areas: the arrangements for the new Commission, restoration and renewal, and bicameral services. I will begin with bicameral services, having had the happy memory of serving on a sub-Committee of a Committee in the other place 20-odd years ago, when the prevailing notion was, “Who on earth are these people at the other end, and how do we keep them out of our House?” In the past couple of years there has been a welcome change, and I was pleased when the Audit Committee, which twice a year meets jointly with the House of Lords Audit Committee, proposed some form of joint procurement. That idea was taken up by Members of the other place, and we now have a joint procurement service. That demonstrates that with good will and agreement, such things are not only possible but can happen quickly.

Obviously, both Houses are sovereign, but if one looks at the history, they have never been particularly sovereign in facilities, but rather in legislature. The fact that different services have been built up in different ways over the decades, or even over a century, is not by design but rather by accident. Therefore, provided that the sovereignty of the two Houses in legislation and how they operate as legislatures in a bicameral system is preserved, it makes great sense to have joint provision or commissioning of services that will provide efficiencies for both Houses. I look forward to that happening, and see no reason why, with good will and dialogue, that cannot happen reasonably quickly.

Restoration and renewal will be a mammoth capital project with many noughts at its end—I have no idea how many, but there will certainly be a lot. I had a tour of the archives in Victoria Tower a few weeks ago, and we must understand that whatever happens and whatever option is chosen, that whole archive will have to be decanted. That will need a high-grade provisional archive, which prompts the question of whether we should move it twice—out of Victoria Tower and back again—or move the archive once and let it stay there. I have no idea what the answer to that is, but such questions will have to be considered.

Anybody who has done the tour of the subterranean areas of this place will be surprised to discover that one can go from one end of the building to the other in an almost straight line—I think it is the only place where one can do that. People would also be surprised at the complexity and amount of redundant services that date back 30, 40, 50 and 70 years, although nobody knows if they are actually redundant.

The magnitude of the task is immense. The important point is that I do not think that either of the posts that will be put in place should be asked to deal with that or have the competence to deal with that. The competence the director general will have is to advise the Commission and the House on how best to commission it. That is why I believe that the proper road map going forward is: first, for the core decisions to be made by the two Houses and for the two Houses to agree; and, secondly, to set up a form of governance rather like, as I suggested, the Olympic Delivery Authority, such that we get the expertise required to deliver a project with clear accountability and governance. We should not expect a new director general to come in and, in addition to running the place, also be the best project manager in the world, because that is simply not going to happen. Clarity on that is very important.

We will need to accept—and I think we do—that there are many different ways that restoration and renewal could go. The choices need to be made from facts, when the facts are revealed and the small committee that has been recommended will be set up in the next Parliament. Ultimately, once the strategic decisions have properly been made by the Members of each House, we will need to put in place a delivery mechanism.

I am in complete agreement with the arrangements for the Commission, which is not surprising since most of them were in the evidence that I gave to the Committee. It would be rather odd if I disagreed with what I had said at that time. I particularly felt that widening it to include external members and bringing on to it executive members were critical to creating a modern form of governance. I feel that the way in which the Committee has gone about looking at that, reading its evidence and the solution it has come up with for a wider commission, together with an executive committee as a sub-committee of the Commission, is absolutely an appropriate way to go forward.

I agree, too, with the Committee’s recommendations in respect of the four Back-Bench commissioners. I agree that they should be elected as that is a tremendous step forward. I also agree, as the right hon. Member for Blackburn said in his opening remarks, that they should all be remunerated. The reason for that is twofold: they should all be equal and they should all have portfolios. Clearly, there is the Finance and Services portfolio, which I hope will become a finance committee portfolio. There is the Administration Committee portfolio. I have always thought that there is a very strong portfolio for a commissioner to have responsibility for staff, human resources and diversity, and to take that on. I think that some of the comments that have been made today might support that. I also think that a commissioner should take a lead role in strategy, which would also encompass restoration and renewal. Many plcs have strategic committees, not a formal committee, to take on that role.

One of the arguments against that, of course, is that Chairs of Select Committees are remunerated—hence the remuneration for Admin and F and S—but that members of Select Committees are not. I suggest to those on the Front Benches that that is the wrong parallel to draw. The right parallel is with the Panel of Chairs. They are all remunerated to some degree for their work. I think the commissioners are quite separate from members of Select Committees. I think it is perfectly appropriate that those who also Chair a Committee should do that, but I believe it is important to ensure that the four commissioners are of equal rank, should all be elected and all be remunerated. On that basis, they should all have work to do. I would like to see that going forward, because that was an important part of the recommendations. The motion as written—carefully crafted—does not preclude that. I have no problem—the motion is right to suggest it—with people being elected to specific posts. I am quite happy with that, but when the four are elected by the whole House they should be remunerated and have proper work to do.

I again commend the report to the House. The right hon. Member for Blackburn and his Committee have done an excellent job. It is a real blueprint for a form of governance that the House will be able to be proud of. The duty of an existing commissioner in the dying days of his office, as it were, is to ensure it is delivered. I am sure my fellow commissioners feel the same way.