Interim Report: Leader's Group on Members Leaving the House

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Desai, who has almost made my speech for me, but as a member of the working group, I wanted to add a few words about how I have approached this matter. I start by saying that it has been a pleasure to serve on the group. We are very ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, and have very good support from the staff here.

The group is working well together. We are committed to this House, to its work and to its Members, and we seek to arrive at a set of proposals which can command confidence and a broad base of support. We are considering the reduction of the size of this House as it is currently constituted. Although reform of this House is, in a way, the elephant in the room, we, like the noble Lord, Lord Desai, do not believe that this is a matter that can be left for resolution until that time.

There is no doubt from our consultation, both formal and informal, that there is an overwhelming view in this House that ways have to be found to allow Members to retire from this place. In some cases, this is expressed in humane terms: to give people who feel that they can no longer contribute a means of taking permanent leave of absence. The growing size of this House has led many Members to reflect on how its size can be made more manageable, encapsulated in a recent Sunday Times cartoon, which showed a tin of sardines, with one of them saying, “It is like the House of Lords in here”.

We have received more than 80 responses, but it is always difficult to know what to infer from the people who did not respond—whether their silence is an indication that they are happy with the size of the House. I think not; informal views, as well as those responses to the consultation, suggest not. There were many comments to the effect that there should be no further creation of peerages. With the new intake hotly tipped to be announced next week, that seems a forlorn hope. In any event, although there is an issue about the number of new Peers coming to this House, I do not think that any of us can really contemplate trying to pull up the drawbridge. If our main and enduring purpose here is to provide expertise, we have to ensure that the expertise is up to date.

Suggestions on how to deal with the issue can broadly be split into two categories. The first is what I call “compulsory redundancy”, although that is not a term I would use formally. There were suggestions that people over a certain age, or who had a certain length of service, or who fell under a qualifying attendance threshold could be disqualified. Some noble Lords thought we should have elections based on the precedent set by the hereditary Peers. Perhaps predictably, for each of those suggestions, there was a persuasive counterargument showing why it would not work.

The second set of suggestions favoured a more voluntary approach with provision for permanent leave of absence in which Members could retain not just their title but the ability to come into the House and use some of the facilities, as the outgoing hereditary Peers were able to do. Many Members took the view that realistically this is not an option that would be taken by large numbers of noble Lords—the point made very effectively by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. If the aim of the House is to reduce the numbers significantly, this option would probably have to be encouraged by agreeing a modest pension or a one-off compensatory payment based on recent attendance, although whether, in the current financial climate, it would be possible to match the reality with noble Lords’ expectations, I am not sure.

My definite preference is for a more voluntary approach. I believe it sits better with the ethos of this House to find its own solutions to the problem. Evolution has always worked better than revolution with regard to this House and might be more swiftly agreed than something more prescriptive. I hope noble Lords will give particular attention to the innovative suggestion of what we call “associate membership” of the House. This would be entirely voluntary and would enable noble Lords to continue to use the House facilities, retain membership of all-party parliamentary groups and be considered for Select Committee membership where their expertise would be useful to the House. Organisations such as the CPA and the IPU could decide whether Peers could continue membership of those groups. Associate members would be able to speak in debates. The main difference would be that they would not be able to participate in the legislative process. According to the House booklet, The Work of the Lords, legislation now takes up 55 per cent of our time. For the sake of space, if nothing else, I think that associate Peers would not be able to participate in Question Time.

I genuinely believe that this idea has much to commend it and would like to hear from other noble Lords. It is a way of reducing the overall size of the House in a way which keeps the expertise and is not unduly harsh on people who have given many years of active and loyal service to this House.