Procedure and Privileges Committee

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, knows that the number of occasions when there are votes between nine and 10 at night is very much a minority of the sitting days of the House. Of course, it is true—we all know this, in the other Chamber as well as this one—that the number of people working is considerably more than the number of people participating in a debate, but I still stand by those statistics. To keep the whole Chamber functioning for the number of people—three, four, five or six—who actually want to take part in the debate is out of all proportion.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

A number of noble Lords have raised the issue of staff in the House, and I am very sensitive to the inconvenience posed to them when we are working late. If it were the case that we had this Motion put forward, that there had been a consultation of staff who worked in the House of Lords, that there was a kind of rebellion and that they were demanding this because we were inconveniencing them, I should be very sympathetic. I am rather nervous of using them as a stage army on either side of this argument, because this has been put forward around the convenience of Members of the House of Lords and not the staff. Until we ask the staff, I do not think any of us should speak on their behalf. It seems inappropriate and cheap, frankly.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I am sorry to be accused of being cheap for discussing this with members of staff. I do not pretend that it was a representative sample or represents the majority—I cannot know that; consult the trade unions, perhaps—but I do know as a matter of fact and common sense that, if you are in a job where you start work at a set time in the morning and do not know from day to day what time at night you will finish, it is generally not a popular working practice. I think we should bear that in mind.

My final point is the same as the one the noble Lord, Lord Young, made—

--- Later in debate ---

I will end by reminding the House that this is not a question of being reactionary or resisting all change. It is a question of adjusting to how the giant Executive—who grow more powerful, complex and intrusive—are curbed and contained. That involves constant tensions and sometimes leads to the Whips putting on very tough voting, or to manoeuvres to avoid voting. All this goes on; this is Parliament’s life. The idea that you can control this by saying, “Let’s start at 1pm and go home at 8.30 pm” is an absurdity. It cannot possibly be done. I beg those who think about these things and want to see the future of this House strengthened, not weakened, by more powerful committees—which we should certainly have—to definitely back the amendment put by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. I want to clarify that it is not because—as has been implied—I want to fetishize tradition or I am frightened of change. You can always look at those things critically. I have just not been convinced by any of the arguments in this document, or that I have heard today, for this change.

It all seems to focus on personal convenience and ease. It really struck me yesterday, when listening to the Question on working from home as a general phenomenon in society, that in this new normal we are asking institutions to reorganise themselves around the convenience of a particularly privileged class of workers. Millions cannot have that privilege. That is a debate society is having.

However, I was rather bemused to see a similar approach in this document, even though we are not talking about working from home. There is a lot of talk of well-being and work/life balance, for example. We were told in this committee report that some of those supporting the change argue that sitting

“should not have to fit around the outside interests of members.”

That is a criticism of somebody like me who has outside interests. Yet we are told that the changes are necessary because we should fit around

“domestic commitments or caring responsibilities”.

That seems an extraordinary shift for this House. As far as I was aware, it was not a matter for criticism to have outside interests, or a virtue to say, “I am going home to my family and caring responsibilities”. I would like to say at this point, as an apology to my family, that I do care for them and I have got them; it is just that maybe they are not as important as some of the public work we are being asked to do.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

That was not meant to be the controversial bit; I might have taken a different approach, had I been at home. My point is that I do not want to be made to feel guilty about having outside interests, because this place, which, frankly, is on shaky enough democratic grounds as it is, should not suffer from ivory tower syndrome. A lot of people here have mentioned outside interests like chairing committees and so on, and these are big jobs, but I am talking about proper jobs. I have a real job; it is not very expert, but it matters to me.

But we all should want to be in the real world outside this House as much as possible, volunteering and putting our finger on the pulse of society. We are not democratically elected, but we should at least pay some attention to the world outside, which is why I completely back the important points about school visits—but not just these. I like it when this place is a-buzz with visitors, and I have tried to invite people from all walks of life into this place to talk and lobby. They are not official lobbyists but ordinary-voter types who might have an opinion that you might want to hear. We should be doing this. So we should not be “accused” of having outside interests; and you cannot have those, or a job, or do any work, and get in by 1 pm; it just does not work like that. But I can do three days’ work before 3 pm.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

The noble Lady’s argument is very London-centric, if she does not mind my saying so. You cannot have an outside interest in Newcastle, Stoke, Scotland or anywhere else and function in this House as well.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

As it happens, this particular Lady no longer lives in London, so it is not that London-centric. I try to do lots of things wherever I am.

The report says:

“earlier sitting and rising times would allow a more normal working day”.

I emphasise that, as has been said very well by the noble Lord, Lord Moore, and others, this place should not be normal. It is a great privilege, but it is not normal. The report also says:

“Earlier rising times would allow members to get home at a safer and more convenient time”.


I thought a number of things about this, because a number of points were made about being a woman and so on. I hate late Sittings and having to hang around until midnight, but who cares? I am, by the way, an old woman—I say that for Hansard—but what can you do? Thinking about the public’s response to this place, I remind noble Lords that some people work nights and really long hours servicing this society, working in sewerage, rubbish collection and all the rest of it. They get night buses, late Tube trains and so on; they cope, and we can too, so I do not agree with those points.

Finally, on the 8.30 pm finish, one of the things I regretted about coming here—there have been other things at times—was that I have to turn down a lot of public speaking in the evenings because community groups and political meetings all start at 6.30 pm, 7 pm or 7.30 pm and I cannot guarantee that I will be there because of the timings. If we were arguing to change the sitting times so that we could all be part of the public square, be participatory, do community work and so on, that would be good—but 8.30 pm does not work on any level. You cannot speak at anything; all you can do is go home and put on the telly. So it seems to me that this is much too focused around our convenience, and my instinct is that working late into the night and starting later, if we have external or outside things to do on either side, is all to the good. When we say, “We’re working too hard”, just do not say it too loudly in front of the public—come on.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the change. I am disappointed by some of the contributions, although I have enjoyed the mostly good-natured spirit of our debate. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about Parliament and this House. I have been privileged to be a Member of this House for 25 years now. What I have observed and experienced is that the best changes have been made incrementally and have been piloted, which is why I would support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Young, should we reach that point.

My noble friend Lord Grocott has described some of the history of the changes to this House. When I arrived in 1997, very late sittings were commonplace—up to 2 am, 3 am or 4 am, two or three times a week. However, my noble friend Lord Grocott then became Chief Whip and introduced more civilised hours, so we moved to this position of finishing generally at 10 pm. Governments of all hues have generally abided by the spirit of that convention, which is why I do not think that the transformative decision to end at 8.30 pm two nights a week will suddenly hand huge power to the Executive. When we moved debates from Wednesday to Thursday, the House continued to operate effectively.

As for personal convenience, there is of course some personal convenience in ending at 8.30 pm rather than 10 pm. However, this House is not working after 8.30 pm at the moment; my noble friend Lord Grocott has already described the figures for noble Lords working in the Chamber after the dinner break. We have all experienced this House being almost empty except for the Front Benches of the three main parties. Do we really think that the edifying sight of a House with about seven or eight noble Lords present at 8.45 pm does us credit? Surely, now is the time to move to more social hours of working.

I heard with great interest the description by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, of Select Committees and the problems they would have. However, having observed the Select Committee schedules on page 23 of our business papers today, I note that 10 of them across this week will meet during the Chamber’s sitting hours, so the noble Lord’s argument really does not stack up. It is just pure luck whether you are on a committee that sits outside the Chamber’s working hours or not.

In the end, I think incremental change is the best way we can move. Moving by an hour and a half two days a week is not revolutionary; it is incremental. I was not going to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Young, but he made a persuasive case that, in view of the clear disagreements among noble Lords, if we are to make a change, it is best done over a short period, which then allows for a review. I hope the noble Lord will press his amendment.