Business of the House

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, has my noble friend the Leader of the House noted that it is possible now for Members of this House to retire permanently? Indeed, two Members have done so. That would solve the problem of the large and increasing population of the House and the difficulties that have resulted. Indeed, I wonder whether my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Steel might like to take advantage of that opportunity.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, does the Minister appreciate the illogicality of the proposition that has been put forward? There are nearly 200 Cross-Bench Peers in this House who are independent minded, as the Minister will know, who may vote one way or the other. It would make more sense for the parties to try to win over, by logical arguments, the votes of the Cross-Bench Peers rather than striving to pack the House with Members already committed to one side or the other.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I believe in deferred gratification, and I am prepared to defer some more gratification until next week when we have the debate. In the past nine minutes, we have had a good illustration of the range of views on retirement in this House. I would not want to personalise the very fair general point made by my noble friend Lord Tyler in the way that he did. However, it is true that that scheme is available for any Member of Your Lordships’ House who would like to take a permanent leave of absence. I can refer any noble Lords who might be interested in looking at it to page 22 of the new Companion. In the conversations that I have had about retirement, the views expressed to me in the Corridors and around the place have tended to be affected by the age of the noble Lord to whom I have been speaking—and the age of retirement suggested is normally a couple of years above the age of the particular noble Lord to whom I am speaking.

The point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, about membership representation on particular Benches was a slight case of pots and kettles, if I may say so. I think that he conveniently forgot the important contribution made in this House by Cross-Benchers when he looked at his percentages. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, rightly reminds us of the extremely important contribution that the Cross-Benchers make at all times.

On the specific point of numbers, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, knows probably better than I—since he is a great expert on all these matters—the form of words that the coalition Government set out. No precise figure has been set but the general intention is clear.