House of Lords: Lord Speaker’s Committee Report

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I had expected to be the 95th speaker in tonight’s debate, so I am somewhat delighted that I am in fact only the 94th. I have listened to all the speeches today and they have been to the great credit of this House. Like others, I pay tribute to the Lord Speaker and the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and his committee. The report has been described as a “masterpiece”, “skilful”, “ingenious”, “cunning”, “original”, “enlightened”, “eloquent” and “persuasive”. It is of course all these things and more. But we should acknowledge—and it was a mistake of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, not to—that the committee had a clear and focused remit. Issues about what was not in the report are not down to the committee. This House had a debate and decided what it wanted the committee to examine: the size of the House. Any errors of omission are not those of the committee. Also, on the issue of primary legislation, the committee sought to look for a way forward when the Government had made it clear that there would be no time for such legislation, so that is not something to lay at the committee’s door.

As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and others have commented, too often in searching for perfection we reject improvements and progress. This report does not have all the answers to the various issues and concerns that Members of your Lordships’ House and others have about the role and composition of our Second Chamber. It was never able to provide that, and it was never intended that it would.

I agree with the point made by a number of noble Lords that there is not a queue of people outside Parliament demanding changes in the House of Lords. But, if most people are asked to express a view, they often will do so, saying that they want change—although they also readily admit that they do not have a great deal of knowledge about what we do.

It is interesting that in the two countries where the Governments proposed reform of the second chamber, it produced unpredicted results. In Ireland, the referendum to abolish the Senate was lost, and in Italy, the referendum to reduce the power of the second chamber was seen as a government power grab and provoked a constitutional crisis. There is hope for us there. The difference here is that this House has initiated this debate and these proposals. It is this House that is looking at ways to decide whether we can do our job better and have a better reputation. Those are the proposals that we asked the Burns committee to look at.

I welcome the point that was raised first by my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Aberavon and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—that we sometimes look at this issue from the wrong end of the telescope. We sometimes look far more at who should be in the House than at what we do. The focus of the changes and of any reform, the guiding principle, should always be what enables us better to fulfil our responsibilities. The large number of speakers and the quality of the debate today reflects our concerns about our reputation and our ability to fulfil those responsibilities and our constitutional obligations.

Tonight’s debate has been more than a broad welcome. With very few exceptions there has been clear support for this report around the House. Some issues of concern have been raised and I will briefly touch on those. One is hereditary peerages. It does seem nonsense, in this day and age, that we still have by-elections with a smaller and smaller electorate. When I last spoke on this I referred to the by-election from “Blackadder” at Dunny-on-the-Wold. Equally, I am reminded of being on a parliamentary visit with the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, and introducing ourselves: “My name is Angela Smith, I am a Member of the House of Lords and I am appointed. This is the Earl of Courtown, he is a hereditary Peer and he is elected”. Our colleagues did not really understand what we were on about. I hope that as this progresses, the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, will have a fair wind from the Government.

On the issue of the Bishops, I was very interested in the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham, which were very conciliatory. I have to say that I had hoped he would have gone further and recognised that when the other parts of the House reduce in size, the Bishops’ Benches would as well. I’m sure that is a discussion the Bishops will be having and will take forward.

The point was raised that we cannot force retirements and reductions from current Peerages, because they were accepted on the current terms of a life Peerage, but a gradual retirement plan is proposed and new agreements for new Peers to undertake a 15-year term. Having been outed—perhaps over-generously—as one of the younger Members of your Lordships’ House, I can say that I have no opposition to this. When I arrived in your Lordships’ House there was no opportunity for anybody to retire. Then we moved forward in 2014 and voluntary retirement was allowed. Now we are moving forward to a phased retirement for existing Peers. Given that when I started work my retirement age was 60 and it is now 67, I see no objection to having a phased retirement for all current Peers and a time-limited tenure for new Peers.

I recognise the concern that a time-limited term may be a deterrent for some, because of their careers. In part, that has been addressed by the five-year break that the committee recommended. Noble Lords are right to make the point that the Government should always be able to get their business through. It is also right that the Opposition must fulfil their duty. My noble and learned friend Lord Morris understandably thought that arguments going back to 1945 were unpersuasive, but there are more recent examples. We all accept the convention that an elected Government have the right to implement their election manifesto, but there is a danger that this Government have hyped up the problems they have had with your Lordships’ House. I recall that when the Prime Minister called the 2017 election she made reference to the “unelected House of Lords”. What had we done that was so terrible? We had passed two amendments to a Bill and, as always, those amendments were then suggested to the House of Commons, which unfortunately rejected them, and this House accepted that. That is the proper and constitutional role of your Lordships’ House. We propose amendments to the House of Commons for consideration. Our role is that of revision and scrutiny, and the conventions ensure that we fulfil that obligation. The Canadians call it the chamber of “sober second thought”, which I think is a valuable and useful way of putting it.

The value and strength of these proposals is that they do not challenge the established constitutional position of the primacy of the Commons or increase the democratic legitimacy of your Lordships’ House. Nothing changes in that regard at all. With appointments reflecting the results of each general election and 15-year terms, there will be a gradual change in the political balance of this House. That is reflected on page 9 of the report:

“Appointments after Labour came to power in 1997 gradually rebalanced the House, but they did not become the largest party until 2006”.


That was nine years later. The problem has arisen now because the Conservatives from 2010 to 2014 became the largest party, even though there were two parties in government. When the Liberal Democrats moved from the government side to the opposition side of the House, there were more Conservative appointments to make up for the fact that the Opposition were larger as well. That is partly why we find ourselves in the current position.

The Leader of the House referred to retirement. The point has been made that Members are very reluctant to retire when they believe that all they do is to create a government vacancy. If we look at the number of appointments to your Lordships’ House since David Cameron became Prime Minister, and those who left the House through retirement or perhaps enforced retirement, the Conservative appointments total 109, and those who left total 63—a net gain of 46. On the Opposition side of the House, there has been a net loss of 17, with a net gain of 24 for the Liberal Democrats. So the current position is not serving your Lordships’ House terribly well.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, had very legitimate concerns about the geographical location of where Peers come from. That does not change under this report, but it perhaps offers, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, indicated, an opportunity to redress that issue.

Other comments were made that this is a part-time House. This is not a part-time House. This is a full-time House, but we do not expect every Member of your Lordships’ House to be a full-time Member. Other noble Lords referred to the issue of a working Peer. We value the notion that some of our Members are full-time and here every day, but others bring their expertise with them and contribute to the House. A working Peer is not necessarily somebody who is here all day every day, but someone who plays a full role and contribution in your Lordships’ House.

On two further points, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde—I always like the new reincarnation of the noble Lord—was the main proponent tonight of the status quo, but he made the case for change in doing so. He opposed the idea of a cap. The issue of why a cap is so important has been dealt with by a number of noble Lords. But he also made the case for Prime Ministerial patronage. Nothing in the Burns report removes Prime Ministerial patronage. In fact, Prime Ministers may have more appointments to make, as there is a turnover of Members leaving the House and new Members coming in. I grabbed the Hansard before we came back after the Statement. He said:

“It may happen only rarely, but to remove the ability of the Prime Minister to threaten to increase the number of Peers”.


It really is a disgrace when the Prime Minister thinks she can bully this House into doing her bidding through threatening to increase the number of Peers—

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, this is the lesson of history. This is exactly what happened in 1911. It is that ultimate power of the Prime Minister representing the House of Commons to be able to threaten the House of Lords with an influx of new Peers which encourages us to behave in an entirely constitutional way. Once you have removed that threat, it changes the relationship between the two Houses, and it increases the power of this House, which I do not think was the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Burns.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I know it is usual to thank noble Lords for their interventions, but I genuinely do so on this occasion. He has made my case. I have been threatened twice since I have been leader about the introduction of new Peers: once on the tax credits Bill, as the noble Lord will recall, and on Brexit as well. On neither of those occasions has that had any impact whatsoever on my behaviour as leader or on the behaviour of my party. What does make a difference is that we understand the conventions of this House and we understand the limitations of the role of an unelected Chamber. The noble Lord says, “We have got to have Prime Ministerial patronage so that we can hold a sword of Damocles and threaten the House of Lords”, but this is not the way Prime Ministers should operate. They should operate on persuasion and discussion and the conventions of this House, not on threats. So I thank the noble Lord, but he has just made my case for me and I am grateful to him for doing so.

Just briefly on other concerns that were raised: there were those in favour of a retirement age and those who were against a retirement age. There will be no consensus on that issue. There will be different views. On the age profile of this House, it is worth noting that the three party leaders in your Lordships’ House are younger than the three party leaders in the other place.

Some thought the proposed progress was too slow; others thought it was right; others thought it was unnecessary to do anything at all. Tragically, some thought there were too many former MPs in your Lordships’ House, and some thought, understandably, that there was an overrepresentation of Liberal Democrats.

Some thought it was wrong for the appointment of new Peers to have any link with general election results. If you make the calculation, appointments are made on five-year cycles so there is not an immediate change in balance but over time there is a rebalancing of the House. That emphasises our differences from, rather than similarities with, the House of Commons.

Finally—I can see the Chief Whip looking at me closely, but I am trying to summarise, in the absence of any other party leaders doing so, some of the 93 wonderful speeches we have had—the question has to be: are any of the objections that have been raised insurmountable? In the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, are any of them fatal to the proposals? I do not consider that they are but there is one insurmountable issue: the role of the Prime Minister and of the Government. This will work only if the Government play their part. It is not about giving up patronage or appointments but about showing some restraint, as it used to be. I really believe that if this Prime Minister made that point, it would be very difficult for future Prime Ministers to renege on that.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the committee for their work. If the House and the Government are to show respect for the work they have done, we will take this forward. I noted that a number of noble Lords quoted from songs and plays. I will quote Elvis Presley, when he sang, “It’s now or never”. He added:

“A little less conversation, a little more action, please”.