Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Jeremy Quin

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

T5. Will my hon. Friend please update the House on what progress he has made in creating a single point of complaint for users of public services?

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)]

I am delighted to say that last week I published the draft Public Service Ombudsman Bill, which will modernise the complaints system for public services. As my hon. Friend says, it sets out how we will create a single point of contact, make the system simpler and more efficient and give the new ombudsman a wider role in championing improvements in complaints handling.

House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Jeremy Quin

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)]

It has been an honour to listen to this well-attended and, at times, feisty and passionate debate. I must admit that I am somewhat surprised at the SNP’s obsession with this particular issue and that they would choose this subject for their Opposition day debate. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) noted, we could have discussed other issues. I lost count of the number of times that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) talked about ermine.

Let us look at the public mood on this matter. A YouGov poll of June 2012 asked a simple question on the proposition:

“Reform of the House of Lords is vital: it should be a priority to change the system”.

Only 18% agreed, with 20% saying the House of Lords should be left alone. The overwhelming majority—52%—said that it was not and should not be a priority. The 2015 Conservative manifesto agreed with this principle by saying that it was “not a priority” in the next—meaning this—Parliament.

As the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons said at the beginning of the debate, the House of Lords has begun reform in the last few years. Important reforms have been introduced and they have been successful because they have been driven by the Lords themselves. Since the introduction of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, for instance, peers have been able to retire simply by giving written notice to the Clerk of the Parliaments.

[Jeremy Quin]

The Minister has referred to reforms that have taken place over the past few years. Does he share my concern about the possibility that the motion, as drafted, could reduce the number of appointed peers to less than the number of hereditary peers?

[Chris Skidmore]

That is an interesting point, which I do not think has been made before in the debate. The motion could, in fact, suggest that the number of elected peers remain at 93, which would cause something of a constitutional abnormality.

Since the introduction of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, peers have been able to retire. Such retirement is permanent, and cannot be rescinded. More than 50 peers have chosen to retire, including 16 so far in 2016. That important reform has had an impact not just on the numbers in the House of Lords, but on the way in which it operates. The Act also provided for peers to be expelled for non-attendance, and the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015 gave the Lords new powers to expel its members for serious misconduct. The cost of the Lords has also been reduced by 14% in real terms since 2010.

Let me now deal with some of the excellent speeches that have been made today. I welcome the return of the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) to the Front Bench. We once engaged in a debate together in Westminster Hall, but I am glad to see him back in the Chamber, and I am glad to see the rest of the shadow ministerial team as well.

When speaking of the number of peers who had been created, the hon. Gentleman conveniently forgot to mention that it was a Labour Government who created 408 of the current number. More recently, Labour used a peerage to appoint Baroness Chakrabarti to the shadow Cabinet. It is a shame that the hon. Gentleman decided to undermine her position here today.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath made a fiery speech highlighting the essential fact of the British constitution—what matters is what works—and the vital role of the institutions that make up our Union. He also cited a key fact about boundary reform, pointing out that the call for equally sized constituencies had been a clarion call since the Chartists and the People’s Charter of 1838.

My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), my excellent predecessor, said that he was even willing to put his own marital relations at risk for the sake of his belief in reform of the House of Lords. He also said that boundary reform to bring about equally sized constituencies was an essential priority.