House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Friday 24th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Hayman]

That the Bill be read a second time.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I express my gratitude to all noble Lords who are to speak in our debate today. Their commitment reflects the seriousness with which this House views the issues raised in the Bill. It is a brief and straightforward measure and I shall try to be brief and straightforward in what I say. But brevity does not mean that it is insignificant in its content.

I have brought the Bill before the House because I believe that by enacting its provisions we could complete the series of reforms that have been made to the House’s conduct, investigative and disciplinary systems since the events of 2008-09, and fill two important lacunae in the sanctions available to your Lordships’ House.

Noble Lords who were Members of the House at the time of the expenses and cash-for-questions scandals will remember all too well the public opprobrium heaped upon us—upon the House, its financial support systems, those who misuse those systems, often those who simply use those systems, and on the House’s enforcement and disciplinary processes. Some will also remember the conflict and confusion with which the House was faced over the existence or extent of powers to take action in the case of wrongdoing.

I am delighted to see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, in his place today; the whole House owes him a debt of gratitude for his crucial role at that time in clarifying that the House does indeed have powers to suspend Members found to be in breach of the Code of Conduct in particular circumstances, albeit for a limited period, and obviously it is that limited period with which the Bill deals.

Since those dark days, we have in fact made progress in a number of areas. The system of financial allowances has been radically overhauled and made simpler and more transparent. The Code of Conduct has been amended to make clearer the high standards of behaviour expected of Members. We have appointed an independent Commissioner for Standards to investigate cases of alleged wrongdoing. The role of the Committee for Privileges and Conduct has been clarified, and I am delighted that the chair of the Sub-Committee on Lords’ Conduct, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, is to speak in today’s debate. Lastly, the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 has itself made provision for the expulsion of Members who fail to attend the House for a Session or more, or who are convicted of a serious offence entailing a prison sentence of at least 12 months.

My Bill seeks to do two things that would, I contend, complete this raft of reforms. One relates to the issue of suspension. The limitation on the length of a suspension to the remainder of the Parliament in which it is in force is set out in the 2009 report of the Committee of Privileges. As I said, it was based very much on the advice of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. However, although it has proved helpful that that power exists, there remain problems. The basic problem is that a completely different range of sanctions are open to the House to impose at different stages of the parliamentary calendar. Were a Member to be found to have transgressed at the beginning of a Parliament they could in effect be suspended for four years or more. Were the same Member to commit the same transgression at this stage of this Parliament the possible sanction would be limited to four months or less. That is not logical, I contend, nor is it satisfactory for either the House or the person involved.

My Bill would empower the House to make Standing Orders to enable a suspension to be imposed that would run beyond the end of a Parliament and during that time the right to receive a Writ of Summons would be suspended. The House would also be given the power to enact in Standing Orders the ability to expel a Member in circumstances other than the narrow ones set out in the House of Lords Reform Act 2014—non-attendance or being subject to a prison sentence of more than a year.

Expulsion is obviously a hugely weighty and serious step. I profoundly hope that with this Bill on the statute book and the Standing Orders in place this provision would simply lie unused and there would never be conduct that would provoke the possibility of the House being asked to agree to expel a Member. However, it would be irresponsible not to have such a provision in place when all of us can envisage circumstances—it might be repeat offences against the Code or Conduct or sentences for criminal offences that were less than nine months or were suspended—where the House would wish at least to have the opportunity to consider expulsion and to decide whether it would be the right course of action. In such circumstances, I believe that not having that opportunity would provoke significant public disquiet and criticism of the House. That is not just a belief but based on experience. All noble Lords know that the House has come into disrepute and been criticised for that lack of ability. For us simply to throw our hands in the air and say that there was no option of expulsion open to us would not be satisfactory. We have, in this Bill, at this time, the chance—if I can put it that way—to shut the stable door before the horse has bolted; not to be scrabbling around in the midst of a crisis to see what we could do that was appropriate. I hope very much that the House will take that opportunity.

My Bill is enabling, not prescriptive. It does not lay down in detail the circumstances in which these sanctions would be appropriate or specify the processes the House should adopt in its disciplinary proceedings.

We are lucky in this House to have Members with significant and judicial experience to guide the House in the painstaking task of drawing up the appropriate Standing Orders. That in one sense is a lock: getting the Standing Orders right and those being approved by the House, and making sure that we deal fairly and appropriately with the regime. The second lock is the fact that the whole House would again have to agree to a recommendation from the disciplinary committees of the House that such an expulsion should take place.

This is not a new idea. Provisions similar to those in my Bill were included in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill of 2010 but lost in the wash-up and therefore not included in that Act, and in the Government’s own House of Lords Reform Bill of 2012, from which the provisions of my Bill are taken word for word. Equally, and as another guarantee of draftsmanship, the consequences of expulsion laid out in the Bill are taken from the 2014 Bill that was brought in by Mr Dan Byles in another place.

The view was rightly taken that these processes are for the House to lay down after careful consideration. I have no doubt that the House would behave with its customary sense of justice, its care and responsibility, both in drawing up the relevant Standing Orders and in considering any recommendation for expulsion or suspension brought before it under those orders, as it has in the past with recommendations for suspension.

I return to my original words. This is a brief Bill. It could, with good will and a little support from the Government, become law, even within the short time available in this Session. I hope that the Minister will indicate that support today, because this Bill could contribute a small piece of the jigsaw in the painful work of rebuilding trust in Parliament and its institutions.

I end with the words spoken by the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford, last December when bringing in his own reforms to the Code of Conduct. He said that,

“ultimately, the reputation of this House rests in all our hands, which is why I believe that noble Lords will want to support steps to strengthen the sanctions available to us”.—[Official Report, 17/12/13; col. 1143.]

I am introducing this Bill as such a step and I commend it to the House. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful for the support that I have received from all Benches of your Lordships’ House and for the seriousness with which Members have addressed the Bill. I was slightly worried on several grounds when the Minister wound up: at one stage I thought that he was inviting me to retire by the end of the Parliament. I do not think I am minded to do that with so much unfinished business before us, not least in this area.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I must congratulate the noble Baroness. She talked about completing a stage of House of Lords reform. What a wonderful phrase—the thought that we might ever complete a substantial phase of House of Lords reform. I suspect I will retire before we have done that.

[Baroness Hayman]

It is the never-ending story of British politics. However, I turn briefly to two points made by noble Lords. One was made by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne. I quite understand his desire that we should not create rules so inflexible that injustices take place. That is less of a difficulty with a Bill that enables the House to make Standing Orders, which can themselves give the degree of flexibility referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. We then have the next lock of the House itself needing to make a resolution in individual cases. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, will not feel that it is necessary to try to amend the Bill, but that he will be engaged in the process that several noble Lords have mentioned of drawing up the Standing Orders, the procedures and the processes that would be necessary after enactment, which we all recognise should be taken very seriously.

Several noble Lords referred to the need for other measures of reform. It is well known that I share a desire to reform this House substantially. That does not mean I support an elected House—I do not—but I believe that there is a lot that we can do. I considered bringing the remains of the Steel Bill: an individual Bill on a statutory appointments commission, a cap on the size of the House, and even—dare I say it with the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, present—an end to hereditary Peer by-elections. I did not do any of those things because I believed that I should, in these circumstances, bring forward something that was deliverable and that could, in the terms of a Private Member’s Bill, become law and make a contribution.

The Minister said that it might be difficult to get people to focus on Lords housekeeping. I, too, take issue with that designation of the Bill. He might find it easier if he put it to colleagues that it was a Bill dealing with the reputation of Parliament, because that is what I believe it is and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, and others made that perfectly clear.

I am slightly surprised that the Government have “no settled view”, to use the Minister’s phrase. They had a settled view when they drew up these proposals and put them in the Bill in 2012. Of course, I am willing to consider and discuss what might be in the Standing Orders but I assume that that work has already been done in government: if it is necessary then it would have been done as the back-up to these proposals when they were put forward in the 2012 Bill.

The advice that the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, gave us was absolutely central. Although the Minister seemed to be willing the ends in a very generalised way, willing the means was not so specific. I shall certainly take up his offer of conversations—he did not say that the door was closed. I hope—and today’s debate has given me encouragement for this because I do not think that anyone expressed any doubt about the importance and necessity of the Bill—that we can deliver it up in good time for it to become law if the Government give it time in another place. That is the simple demand that, with the authority of those who have spoken today, I shall be taking into those discussions. I hope that, in a short period of time, the Government will reach the conclusion that it is in all our interests so to do.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.