House of Lords: Size

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I also welcome the debate. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and agree with much of what he has said.

There is general agreement—and has been for some time—that this House is too large and increasing frustration on the part of many Members that nothing has been done before now to address the problem. We need now to think about how we deal with the problem rather than arguing whether or not it is one.

A basic fact that I would put in people’s minds is that, according to the Library, 845 people are entitled to sit in this Chamber. The average attendance in 2015-16 was 497. It is not always the same people, of course, but that gives you some idea that we have people who can contribute regularly and people who cannot.

We can criticise how we got here. We know that there was a surge in the influx of Liberal Peers, and that the former Prime Minister pushed every boundary in terms of appointments. I do not want to go into that—tempting though it is—but a couple points have to be made clear. If we are to take steps to reduce the size of this House, we cannot have a Prime Minister of any Government using that as an excuse for stuffing it with more of their appointments. Secondly, we must maintain the principle that no Government have a right to a majority in this House. That would undermine its purpose.

In June 2014 I had the privilege of introducing a debate on the role of this House. The debate arose out of a report written by a working party of Labour Peers. That debate showed that there was widespread support for taking some action on these problems. I remind the House of the basic concept we put forward in that report: there should be a distinction between working Peers—not full-time, of course, but those who regularly take part in the proceedings of the House, speaking, debating, serving on committees, asking Questions—and those who for whatever reason cannot contribute regularly. No one would suggest that those Peers who do not or only rarely contribute should lose their titles. Indeed, there is a possibility of a formal distinction. Maybe we could use a title such as “Peer emeritus”, but certainly a distinction should be made. The essence of the problem is that we have a lot of people who are appointed as Peers but do not see it as their responsibility to be active Members of this House.

Mention has been made of the appropriate numbers. We have to have sufficient Peers to fulfil all the roles suggested and outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. The doomed Clegg Bill suggested 300, but that was generally thought to be too few. We in our working party suggested that 450 might be sufficient to make sure committees could function properly, but certainly, whatever the figure—there is scope for discussion—this place should not be larger than the House of Commons.

There are other ways of looking at this issue that have not been mentioned. An obvious point would be to support the Bill proposed by my noble friend Lord Grocott and end by-elections for hereditary Peers. Some of us would go further and end hereditary peerages altogether and the Bishops’ Benches, but that would require legislation and is just a personal view.

We could and should look at retirement age. Our working party suggested that we should retire at the general election after we reach the age of 80. There was a suggestion of limits on the length of time we spend in this House—maybe 15 years. It has a disadvantage: it might deter younger people. We thought about whether there should be an attendance requirement. This is not a full-time job, but it may not be unreasonable to suggest that we should attend and contribute 60% of the time the House is sitting.

None of those suggestions deals directly with the problems of ensuring proper political or regional balance, or balance of gender or ethnicity, but none of those problems is insurmountable. There can be solutions if there is a will and determination.

I hope this debate is not simply one to allow Members to let off steam. Unless this House can take steps itself to deal with its own problems, we may face more difficulties in future. It is a critical time in politics. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, this House has a significant contribution to make, but people will look at what we are doing only if we put our own House in order as well.