Dan Byles
Main Page: Dan Byles (Conservative - North Warwickshire)Department Debates - View all Dan Byles's debates with the Cabinet Office
House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill
Dan Byles Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
As Lord Steel stated when he introduced the first of his five private Members’ Bills on this subject, some six years ago, the years of debate about the long-term reform of the House of Lords have obscured the need for effective, immediate, yet modest, reform. Today, I hope that we can all set aside any differences we may have on long-term, substantial reform of the House of Lords and instead focus on delivering the very modest reform that this Bill delivers—although modest, it is overdue and increasingly necessary. It is important, too, that the House notes that this Bill has broad cross-party support. It has broad support across both Houses of Parliament, in the media and across the country.
Over the past few months, I have engaged widely on this matter, doing my best to ensure that this Bill is not seen as frightening or sinister in any way. I hope that I have been successful, because it is not a stalking horse aimed at any group of peers and it is not certainly not an attempt to close off any potential future reform. I wish to tackle head on the issue of the debate over an elected House of Lords, because this Bill makes no contribution to that debate whatsoever. The Bill does not prevent or preclude further reform of the House of Lords, at any time or of any type. This Bill is simply irrelevant to the debate over election to the Lords, and I believe that any Member, regardless of their position on an elected Lords, should feel comfortable supporting this Bill.
It is fair to say that that Lord Steel’s Bills did contain some controversial features: the establishment of a statutory appointments commission and an end to the by-elections for hereditary peers. My Bill does not reintroduce those proposals, and instead contains three core elements, all of which have already been agreed by the House of Lords during the passage of Lord Steel’s most recent Bill. First, my Bill provides for the retirement or resignation of peers who are Members of the House of Lords; secondly, it provides that those peers who do not attend should be cease to be Members of the House; and, finally, it provides that those Members convicted of a serious offence should also cease to be Members.
Clause 1 provides that peers may retire or resign as a Member of the House of Lords by giving notice in writing to the Clerk of the Parliaments. It will, for the first time, provide peers with an honourable and dignified retirement mechanism. It has been suggested that, in some instances, the honour of serving in the Lords has become a life sentence, and it should not be so. As the Leader’s Group on Members Leaving the House observed in 2011:
“For a conscientious member who has played a full role in Parliament, and takes his or her commitment to the House seriously, an honourable release from obligation could be welcome.”
Currently, there is no mechanism by which a Member of the House of Lords can permanently conclude his or her membership.
A leave of absence system was introduced in 1958 to address growing concern regarding low or non-attendance, but it has failed to meet the objective outlined by the then Leader of the House, the Earl of Home. He said that
“the objective which all of us desire is that we should be, and should be seen to be, an efficient and workmanlike House of Parliament, playing a limited but a definite and valuable part in the Constitution of our country.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 April 1958; Vol. 208, c. 1005.]
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Although my hon. Friend suggests that the leave of absence system is not working, the latest figures that were in last week’s The House magazine show that 43 Members of the other place are on leave of absence, and the Parliament website gives a list of them. So it does appear that at least some Members in the other place are making use of the system.
Dan Byles
Absolutely; in the absence of any method of leaving the other House, the leave of absence system does provide a compromise. However, it is far from a perfect compromise, because one could very well ask: how many peers do we currently have? The 43 peers currently on a permanent leave of absence have a very ambiguous status. Some of them could, in theory, continue to seek a rolling leave of absence each time for 10 or 15 years and then suddenly decide to come back and start voting again.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend consider that the Liberal party has taken leave of absence during this debate?
Dan Byles
My hon. Friend tempts me down a route that I shall avoid.
What is the status of those peers who have been granted leave of absence? Is it possible to replace them? Arguably not, because we could replace 43 peers who, it appears, have now chosen to leave the Lords, but all 43 could come back in five years’ time. So it is a compromise that has gone some way towards addressing the problem, but it is not an elegant or permanent solution.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Is it not the case that in 2011 an informal voluntary retirement scheme was introduced, enabling those peers who so wished to apply and receive voluntary retirement?
Dan Byles
My hon. Friend has me at a disadvantage. My understanding is that there is no permanent way of leaving or retiring from the House of Lords. I am not sure what mechanism he is referring to, but I have been assured by the Clerks of the House and by the Leader of the House of Lords that there is at present no method to leave the Lords permanently.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Blunkett
I will not hold up the hon. Gentleman. I just want to say: stick to your guns, as I believe you are right.
Dan Byles
I thank the right hon. Gentleman. I will certainly take great interest in that scheme at Committee stage and I will be happy to look closely at it, but I have been assured by those who have far greater knowledge of these matters than I do that whatever the scheme is that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) is referring to, it is not a permanent method of retiring or leaving the House of Lords, because no such system exists. It may be a form of extended leave of absence; I am not sure. The Minister might receive some inspiration before he speaks.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
My hon. Friend mentions Committee stage. Have the Government stated that they will make time for a Committee of the whole House to sit to discuss this constitutional Bill?
Dan Byles
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning that. I know that he is concerned about that issue, which he and I have discussed. It is my understanding that there is no intention from the Government—indeed, it is not my intention—that the Bill should be debated in a Committee of the whole House.
We have touched on a matter that will undoubtedly come up later in the debate, so I shall discuss it now. It seems to me that the principle of constitutional Bills going before a Committee of the whole House is absolutely a convention used by the Government for clear first-class constitutional Bills. It is not, in my opinion, an absolute inviolate principle that any Bill that has, or could be argued to have, a slight hint of constitutionality automatically goes before a Committee of the whole House. Clearly a degree of judgment must be applied, according to the degree of constitutional change, if any, that a Bill brings in. For example, it is my understanding that my hon. Friend did not call for a Committee of the whole House for the European Union (Referendum) Bill, which was considered only a few weeks ago and which arguably has greater constitutional implications for the country than this Bill.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I fundamentally disagree. The referendum Bill provides for an advisory referendum that has no constitutional effect. It would require a second piece of legislation to give it any effect. Therefore, of itself, it was not constitutional.
Dan Byles
That is an interesting point for debate, but I would argue that the Bill before us today could well be argued to be far more of an HR Bill—a human resources or housekeeping Bill to tidy things up by introducing relatively modest methods to allow those who wish to leave the other place to do so, and to allow the removal of criminals, bringing the House of Lords into line with this House.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I understand that my hon. Friend does not regard this as a first-class constitutional Bill, but does he regard this as a first-class second-rate constitutional Bill? Will he deal with the difference between this House and the other House, were the Bill to be passed? Someone can be elected to this House and not come here, on the basis that they do not want to—Sinn Fein Members, for example, are in that category, at least at the moment. Would there be a similar position in the House of Lords, if someone decided to join Sinn Fein and said they did not want to come? Would they have to apply for leave of absence, because that would require them to recognise the sovereignty of our monarchy and our system? Has he considered that?
Dan Byles
That would be right. If there were a Sinn Fein peer who did not wish to attend, they would require a leave of absence; otherwise, under the Bill, they would cease to be a peer. I consider that there is a fundamental difference between those who have been elected to this House and those who, leaving aside the small number of hereditaries, are appointed to the other place. They are appointed to the other place in order to provide a service and a duty to their country, and if they are not doing so, it is perfectly reasonable for the House to decide that they should be removed and replaced with someone who will.
The reason why the current system has failed to meet its objectives is that it is neither binding nor permanent. Such an objective could, however, be achieved by the introduction of the retirement scheme provided for by the Bill, and the introduction of a scheme that would address the problem of non-attendance by certain Members.
Clause 2 provides that a peer who does not attend the House of Lords during a Session will cease to be a Member of the House at the beginning of the next Session. The provision will apply only if the Lord Speaker certifies that the peer did not attend at any time during the specified Session, and that they did not have leave of absence in respect of the Session. The provision will not apply where the Session is less than six months. Receiving a peerage is a great privilege, but it is one that comes with a significant responsibility: that of making an active and constructive contribution to the business of Parliament. Those absentee Members who fail to attend are not fulfilling their duty, and it is apposite and appropriate that they therefore forfeit their right of membership.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
My hon. Friend uses the word “forfeit.” Does he anticipate that should a peer, whether it be of his own volition or not, cease to be a Member of the other place, he also ceases to use his title, styles and attributes? Will Lord Smith, on exiting the other place, still be Lord Smith, or will he be the former Lord Smith?
Dan Byles
This Bill does not remove the peerage; it simply removes the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords.
Clause 3 provides that a Member of the House of Lords who is convicted of a serious offence will cease to be a Member. The provision will again apply only if the Lord Speaker certifies that the Member has been convicted of an offence and sentenced to imprisonment or detention for more than one year. If that person successfully appeals their conviction, the Lord Speaker may revoke the first certificate by issuing another. It has long been the practice of this House that those convicted of offences that carry a sentence of more than one year are expelled, and it is appropriate that the procedures of the House of Lords in that regard be brought into line with the procedures of this House.
Clause 4 outlines the effect of ceasing to be a Member—specifically, that the person will be disqualified from attending proceedings of the House of Lords, and that they shall no longer receive a writ to attend the House. Further, it provides that a peer who ceases to be a Member is no longer disqualified from voting at elections, or being elected to the House of Commons.
Clause 5 makes provision in relation to the certification by the Lord Speaker, and clause 6 makes provision in relation to the short title, commencement and extent of the Bill.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
On the issue of former peers being allowed to stand for this House, will there be any period between their leaving the upper House and being eligible to stand? It would concern me if it were possible for somebody to lose an election to this House, go to the Lords and then leave it prior to the next election in order to come back in here. I do not think that ping-pong would be suitable.
Dan Byles
That is a very interesting point. As things stand, the Bill would not prevent that. That is the sort of detail that I would be more than happy to discuss with my hon. Friend, and we could consider whether some small amendment might be made in Committee. I am very keen, though, that the Bill should be kept as simple as possible.
Dan Byles
Absolutely. I think we will leave individuals out of the debate for the time being, but it is an interesting point that I would be willing to discuss further.
I want to make it absolutely clear that the three principal elements of the Bill have already been agreed by the House of Lords, but the provisions have unfortunately faltered on their introduction to this House. Today I invite Members of this House to provide those of the other with the opportunity that they have repeatedly requested to make specific but necessary reforms that will contribute to their enhanced reputation and integrity. The cessation of membership measures will be an important step in enabling those who wish to leave the House of Lords to do so, and in removing non-attending Members. By doing so, the measures will assist in a small way in reducing the burgeoning number of Members of the House of Lords and in enhancing its reputation. The provisions to ensure that membership of the Lords ceases should a Member be convicted of a serious offence will also improve the integrity of that House and of our legislature as a whole.
Dan Byles
There is the wider issue that the other place is too large, but one can only achieve so much in a private Member’s Bill. The Bill is simple, modest and clear and would bring into effect three measures that the other place has already voted for and persistently asked us to allow. Perhaps a future Bill tabled by my hon. Friend could address the over-large number of Members of the Lords.
Some people criticise this House for taking recesses that are too long, but others criticise us for spending too long here legislating, as they feel that less legislation is more.
Sir Peter Bottomley
Has my hon. Friend taken advice from the Clerks, the Clerk of the Parliaments or even you, Mr Speaker, about whether the words
“shall not be questioned in a court of law”
will now be required in all legislation that we do not want questioned in courts of law? It seems to me that if Parliament is sovereign, what a Speaker or Lord Speaker does should automatically not be questioned in a court of law. If we put those words in one piece of legislation, will the courts then say that if they are not in another piece of legislation, they therefore have jurisdiction? That problem probably turns the Bill from a second-rate Bill into a first-rate Bill in importance, but means that it is not first-class any more.
Dan Byles
I am not sure whether to thank my hon. Friend for that last bit, but I am not a parliamentary draftsman and that wording was put into the Bill on the advice of the Clerks. His point is interesting, and I am not qualified to comment on it, but that wording was drafted by the system, so to speak. If we feel that it sets a dangerous precedent that might require it to be put in all future Bills, I would be more than happy to discuss that point in Committee and address it if necessary.
Sir Edward Leigh
I am struggling to know what difference the Bill will make, frankly. Why should anybody retire from the House of Lords when they are going to get no pension, and when they have to attend only once a Session? Would anybody ever retire from this House if there were no pension and they had to turn up only once a Session? Nobody would.
Dan Byles
I could turn that around and say that if my hon. Friend thinks the Bill will make no difference, he has no reason to oppose it. The Lords have asked for these provisions, and I understand that at least five or six noble Lords desperately want to leave. We have already heard that many of them—43 at one point—have requested leaves of absence. There are peers who wish to have the right to leave, and even if only one is released from what has become a life sentence rather than a great privilege, surely we should allow that. It seems a bit bizarre to keep them against their will and send them a written summons every Session whether they want it or not.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that many peers feel a sense of moral obligation to attend, especially in answer to a written summons? They may not be in the best of health, and they may be of advancing years, but even if it is a strain for them they feel a sense of obligation. They may be dissatisfied with their own infrequent attendance and want some mechanism that allows them to retire.
Dan Byles
Absolutely, and as I said, I understand that a number of noble Lords are in exactly that position. I repeat that the Lords have previously passed these measures and sent them to the House of Commons, but the system for private Members’ Bills from the Lords has meant that this House has not agreed them. Why should this House continue to stand in the way of extremely simple and modest reforms that the other House has requested?
Mr Nuttall
When these measures were considered in the other place, Lord Steel’s Bill had the short title House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill, but they are now in the House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill, whose title contains that dangerous word, “reform”. Would my hon. Friend like to comment on why he has not stuck with Lord Steel’s title?
Dan Byles
That is a good question. Lord Steel has made five attempts to bring in some degree of reform. His first four Bills were all called the House of Lords Bill. There is also a House of Lords Reform Bill before the other place in the name of Baroness Hayman. We would need to ask Lord Steel why he made the change for his last Bill, but one can speculate about why he felt the House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill might have sounded less contentious. My view is that we are all grown-up and whether the word “reform” is in the title is not really the point. The point is what is in the Bill.
Christopher Pincher
Does my hon. Friend agree that including the word “reform” in the title of his Bill makes it much more attractive to our Liberal Democrat friends?
Dan Byles
I am not sure I do, because some Liberal Democrats wish to see wholehearted reform and are concerned that a small amount of reform now might delay wider reform later. That is one reason why I was at pains earlier to make the point that the Bill will not prevent any future reform that we wish to bring in, which would stand or fall on its own merits. The debate about the word “reform” in the title is perhaps a red herring, because we are all grown-ups in this place and the other place. We can read the Bill, and we know what it says.
I am coming to the end of my remarks, so if any more Members wish to intervene with a question or a thought, now is the time for them to do so. If not, I will press on to my final words.
If the Bill is supported, it will deliver essential reforms. I urge Members to ensure its swift passage so that we can deliver to the noble Lords the opportunity to reform themselves that they have long been denied. I commend the Bill to the House.
Mr Nuttall
I am extremely concerned about the desire to offer an incentive scheme. The danger is that, far from this being a cost-saving measure, it could end up costing the taxpayer a great deal more than the present system.
I accept, as a ballpark figure, that the scheme might involve several dozen Members of the other place who, for whatever reason, are not regular attenders. However, because peers receive an attendance allowance only if they turn up, all those who have taken a leave of absence or who simply do not turn up are not costing the taxpayer anything. If we offer their noble lordships an incentive to retire, we will enter an arms race of incentives. Although some Lords might accept the incentive, others will say that it is not enough, so people will say that we ought to make the incentives more generous. There are dangers in going down that road.
I can understand why peers might want to retire. As I have often said, a peer who is appointed in middle age or at the end of many years in another career will want to spend 10, 15 or 20 years in the other place. However, many of them will feel obliged to keep soldiering on out of a sense of duty to the other place and to the country. Of course, many of them do so.
Dan Byles
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We must not underestimate the power of the writ of summons. For somebody who has devoted a substantial portion of their life to the service of their country and to Parliament, receiving the writ of summons from the monarch is difficult to ignore, even if they have taken leave and are entitled not to attend. Some people really do feel that they are letting their country down by not attending or not playing a more active role. It seems to me that having a formal retirement mechanism, rather than the informal one that is in place, whereby they would no longer receive the writ of summons but a great thank you for their service and would be allowed to retire in peace, would be an important step.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes an important and worthwhile point. There will be noble Lords in the other place who feel that they have an obligation to continue. One suggestion is that there should be a formal retirement ceremony to mark the service of a peer. There is, after all, a formal ceremony to introduce new peers into the House of Lords. We saw that ceremony only yesterday, when two new peers were introduced. That demonstrates that the figures that I gave from last week’s The House magazine are already out of date because of the new peers who were announced over the summer.
It is reasonable that new peers are introduced from time to time. Inevitably, the numbers will fall over time by reason of death. When there is a diminution in the number of working peers—those who regularly attend and take part in proceedings—because peers have died, it is right that the party leaders should replace them. What is not right—we saw this all too often under the last Government—is the creation of new peers for party political purposes. Currently, the Conservative party has nowhere near a majority in the other place.
The 2011 Leader’s group report, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire mentioned in his opening speech, suggested that it should be considered whether a
“modest pension, or payment on retirement”
would provide peers with an incentive to take up voluntary retirement, while also providing an overall saving to the taxpayer. I am not sure that it would provide an overall saving to the taxpayer. To be fair, such a payment is not suggested in the Bill, but I hope that it is not the thin end of the wedge. We should make it clear that there will be no inducement for Members of the other place to retire.
Mr Nuttall
It would have been helpful if there had been explanatory notes to the Bill that dealt with that issue. I have not seen any explanatory notes.
Dan Byles
If it was felt that something of that sort was necessary, it could be considered in Committee. Originally, the Bill simply referred to “retirement” and I changed it to “retirement or resignation” because I felt that the word “retirement” on its own had a number of implications to do with age, pensions and so on. I made it “retirement or resignation” to make it clear that it was not linked to the end of somebody’s working life and the connotations that go with that.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. It is entirely conceivable that there will be peers who wish to leave the other place for reasons other than retirement. They might wish to pursue another avenue.
It is often said that the other place is full of retired politicians. The last figures that I saw showed that only about a quarter of the Members of the other place had previously been Members of this House. On that basis, it would be a little unfair to describe the other place as being full of retired politicians.
Mr Nuttall
I am grateful for the helpful intervention from my hon. Friend, because I fear that I would not have got very many points for that particular question in the pub quiz.
If I may return to where I was—which was not with the Liberal Democrats—it is perhaps a little unfair to condemn all the Members of the other place as retired politicians, when only about a quarter are former Members of this House. Moreover, they are not retired politicians, because they are still taking part in the political process. That is the crucial point. They may be retired Members of the House of Commons, but it is an entirely noble—I use the word in its fullest sense—calling to be a Member of the other place and to devote one’s working life to the scrutiny of legislation, as they do so admirably.
All too often, certainly when House of Lords reform is being discussed, we look at the problem from the wrong end of the telescope. I am not making that point about this Bill, which is modest in its aims, but generally we look at the mechanics of the Lords rather than whether it is doing a good job in its primary task of scrutinising the legislation that we send to it. The answer is invariably that it is doing a good job.
The 2011 Leader’s group report suggested that it would be worth while investigating whether a modest pension or payment on retirement should be provided. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee took evidence on that point, and the evidence of the Clerk of the Parliaments confirmed that savings could be made. I have some doubts about that, but it is a cause for concern. There is merit in the suggestion that we should have some sort of retirement procedure, whether it is called retirement or resignation—perhaps we could call it a leaving party. If that idea took off, it could mean a boost to the economy with House of Lords retirement parties, and give all hon. Members a new diary engagement at the end of each Session, as various Members of the other place retired or resigned.
We have had considerable discussion about what sort of scheme should be in place, and what use retired Members could make of the facilities. It has been suggested, for example, that the retired or resigned Members could still be entitled to make use of the facilities, and it might be worth looking at that idea. It is not an idea that I would favour, because in my view if someone has left, they have left, but it would perhaps be one way to encourage people to resign or retire.
Clause 2 relates to non-attendance and provides that if someone does not attend during a Session, the Lord Speaker can certify that they
“did not attend at any time during the Session, having regard to attendance records kept by officials of the House, and…did not have leave of absence in respect of the Session, in accordance with Standing Orders of the House.”
My concern about that provision is that it is not entirely clear what “attend” means. For example, if someone attends the building, but does not take part in proceedings on the Floor of the House, does that count as attendance?
Mr Nuttall
I was coming on to that point, but it does not explain whether attending the proceedings of the House covers, for example, somebody who wishes to attend and listen to the debate, but then decides that they do not want to take part in the vote.
Mr Nuttall
I am grateful for that intervention. I think the vast majority of peers, as the figures demonstrate, take an active part in the proceedings of the other place. As with any large body, there will always be one or two Members who fall outside the general norm. The old adage says that difficult cases make bad law. We should not form our laws around one or two cases; we should look at the majority.
There are a lot of other things we could do to deal with non-attendance. Frankly, if peers are not attending, they are not causing any problems—they are not taking up any space and not making use of the facilities. I understand that there are one or two Members who, apparently, use the facilities but do not attend. Quite how that works needs to be considered, but I am sure there are other ways to do it. For example, it would be easy, even if the clause became law, for Members who wanted to retain their membership of the other place to take advantage of their membership without playing a full and active part. They could turn up on the first day of the Session, take part in a Division, thus ticking that box, continue to come and go as they please and not take part in anything else. Human nature being what it is, there will always be one or two who do that if such a provision is introduced. It would perhaps become known as “the Byles attendance”. They would do their Byles attendance day, get their mark and think, “Phew, that’s dealt with clause 2.”
Dan Byles
I would hate it for anybody to think that any measure in the Bill, with the possible exception of the references to criminality, is accusing any Member of the House of Lords of gaming the system. That is not the intention. The Bill does not suggest that people are trying to pull a fast one; it is simply that some people want to leave and should be allowed to leave, and that some people have no interest in attending and therefore should be moved on so they can be replaced by somebody else. Of course, my hon. Friend is right that there are always ways of gaming the system, but the Bill starts with the premise that we are all hon. Members and noble Lords and will probably not be gaming the system.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I need to make it absolutely clear that no one is suggesting, and I am sure that none of the hon. Members who have intervened is suggesting, that any noble Lord is taking advantage of the facilities of the other place without playing a full part in proceedings. What we are doing is looking at hypothetical cases that might happen, which is right and proper when we consider legislation of this nature.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) for promoting the Bill. I hope he did not mind my intervening on him and suggesting that it would make very little difference. His reply was interesting; he said, “It’s going to make so little difference, it’s not worth opposing,” which is an interesting constitutional innovation.
I think that my hon. Friend is going about this the right way, though. We are all familiar with the dictum that when it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. I think we can add to that: when it is necessary to change, it is necessary to do so very slowly. That is a gradualist, Conservative, Tory—high Tory, if I may say so—notion of constitutional reform, and Edmund Burke would have been proud of him today. Edmund Burke, incidentally, was known as the “Dinner Bell” during his time in the Commons because his speeches were so long and so boring, but that certainly did not apply to the crisp way in which my hon. Friend introduced his Bill and replied to all our many points.
What I like about the Bill is that it establishes the notion that it is possible to reform the House of Lords gradually and to remove its greatest faults without suggesting that we need an elected House of Lords. I am personally convinced that this is the way forward. It was a very good point made earlier that it is extraordinary that those most hellbent on creating an elected House of Lords, based on proportional representation to ensure that no one party can dominate it, are the same people who, precisely because they want a radical reform, insist on killing off every single modest reform ever attempted. That is an extraordinary constitutional notion.
With this extraordinarily modest Bill, we are just trying to take one or two steps, and if it becomes law, there is no reason why we could not take two or three further steps next year. Of course, I do not think the Bill goes far enough. It does not get to the kernel of the problem, but that is not a good reason for denying my hon. Friend’s Bill progress today.
I want to make a few points about how we could solve some of the House of Lords’ major problems. If the Bill were to become law, what would it achieve? It would allow people to retire. My hon. Friend made a fair point when he asked why anyone should not be allowed to retire. No one would suggest that the provision on retirement is a wrong notion in itself. We all know, however, that it is already possible to take leave of absence. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) has intervened to make that entirely justifiable point. There are no incentives to retire, because there is no pension and because people can take leave of absence. Even under this Bill, Members of the House of Lords would have to turn up only once a Session to retain their membership. It is therefore hard to imagine why anyone would choose to retire. However, according to my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire, there are four or five people in the other place who wish to do so. Fair enough—why should anyone stop them? The fact that only a few people want to do something is not a reason for opposing their right to do it. So I have no problem with that provision.
I do not think anyone has a problem with putting the House of Lords pretty much on a par with the House of Commons in terms of criminal convictions, although I think that too much is made of this point. Just as there are probably very few people who would choose to retire from the House of Lords, because it is unnecessary to do so, there are also very few people who have been convicted of relatively serious criminal offences.
Sir Edward Leigh
Indeed. So that provision would hardly make any difference.
The main problem with the House of Lords is that there are too many people there. It is not that the Benches are overcrowded or that people have to turn up early to speak. The problem with having too many people in the House of Lords is that it gives too much power and patronage to the Government. The Bill will make absolutely no difference to that. That is not a reason to oppose it, however.
Our debating these important constitutional points today gives us an opportunity to say that the Government are in a difficult position on this matter. They introduced a massive Bill last year that would have fundamentally changed the relationship between the two Houses of Parliament. It would effectively have created an elected House of Lords and put people in there for a 15-year term. Such a dramatic, radical step would have offended many Conservative sensibilities, and the Government failed to achieve consensus on the Bill. They also tell us constantly that they are worried about the other place because there are too many people there, yet they go on stuffing it—I use the word advisedly—with more and more political placements. It has reached the stage where even someone like me could hope to go to the House of Lords.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
May I join everybody in thanking my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) for bringing forward the Bill? I add particular thanks for his great courtesy in discussing it with me before today, and informing me of some of the intentions behind it; I am enormously grateful for that. Madam Deputy Speaker, may I thank you for allowing me to catch your eye? I sat in my seat for the whole of the two days of discussion on the House of Lords Reform Bill, but Mr Speaker and the Deputy Speakers were like the deaf adder who stopped up her ear and charmed I ever so wisely, so I was unable to be called in that debate. But there is a great joy about Fridays, when there is less in the habit of deaf adders and more ability to speak about these great issues.
I begin by speaking on and complaining, criticising and carping about the process that is being used for a constitutional Bill. As I understand it, the Government have no intention of allowing time for this Bill to go into a Committee of the whole House and I will, therefore, if Second Reading goes through, move in accordance with Standing Order No. 63 for it to be so committed. The question of whether a Bill is of constitutional importance of the first order, which is how “Erskine May” refers to those Bills that should go into a Committee of the whole House, seems to me to be extremely clear: something that affects the membership of either House must, by definition, be a constitutional issue of the first importance.
This Bill may be accused of being a tidying-up measure. It may be said to be a matter of HR, but the question of who has the right to determine legislation is at the heart of our constitution and to put the Bill through using a process that does not give it the scrutiny of the whole House—the ability of every Member to attend the Committee—seems to be wrong. It might be being done just to save the blushes of the Lord President of the Council, who was not enormously successful with his previous effort, but it is disappointing that the Government are supporting the Bill but not allowing it sufficient time and the proper scrutiny that it needs.
As we have discovered in the course of this debate, there are some issues that need clarifying. They may, to some extent, be pedantic points, but the history of constitutional change is that it is often the technicalities—the pedantic points—that leave the greatest problems for the future; they are the unintended consequences or the change in the constitutional arrangements that was not intended.
The Bill tries to deal with problems that are not exactly new. I managed to find a reference in 1298 to the difficulty of getting Members to attend this House, rather than the other place. In those days a surety was required to ensure that Members turned up. The sheriff of Sussex required that the two deputies of Chichester should have surety and they simply ignored him. Some deputies from Bedfordshire were bound over in eight oxen and four draught horses. Now, some hundreds of years later, instead of demanding oxen and horses as surety for peers to turn up, we are going to say that they should be excluded.
On the face of it, that does not sound unreasonable. Surely, if someone is a member of a legislature, they should want to be actively involved, but can we not think of circumstances where that may not apply—where there may be good reason for non-attendance? What if a peer—if we go back to the second world war; this did happen—were to be a prisoner of war and were absent from the House for the whole period of that war? Think of peers who were captured at Dunkirk and were not able to come back until 1945. There is no exception under the Bill that would have allowed them to resume their peerage. There is for criminals, but there is none, as far as I can see, for those who are absent.
Dan Byles
My hon. Friend is aware that the Lord Speaker can certify leave of absence. The Bill does not state that that peer must turn up in person to request it. I would trust the Lord Speaker that should Lord Cormack be captured and interned overseas in a prisoner of war camp, he would probably be issued with leave of absence.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
That makes the whole process arbitrary. If there is no requirement to apply for the leave of absence, that is tantamount to saying that if the Lord Speaker’s chum is absent, the Lord Speaker will give her chum a certificate, but if it is somebody that the Lord Speaker does not like, such a certificate will not be given. So we are saying that the Lord Speaker will determine who sits in the House of Lords. That cannot be right.
Dan Byles
To be clear, the Lord Speaker can issue leave of absence only in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House. Perhaps my hon. Friend’s beef should be with whether being interned overseas by the enemy of Her Majesty is currently in the Standing Orders of the House of Lords and whether it might be put there, rather than with the Bill. If there is a legitimate reason for a peer to be absent, that should be reflected in the Standing Orders of the other place. That would enable a certificate to be issued.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
But the Bill does not say that. If it is a matter for the Standing Orders of the House, that is a completely different kettle of fish.
The Bill is clear that peers must attend the House unless they have leave of absence, and it has to be assumed that leave of absence must be applied for and is not arbitrary, but there might be circumstances in which peers cannot apply for leave of absence. It is possible to envisage circumstances in which they might not wish to apply for leave of absence but, for sensible political motives, do not want to attend the House. For example, if a Government obtained a majority in this House on a very small minority of votes in a general election, which is not impossible, and then used the Parliament Act aggressively to overrule the House of Lords, a peer or group of peers might say that democracy had been abused and that they would not attend until after another general election. Would they then be excluded for making what might be a perfectly valid political point?
In this House we have the Sinn Fein Members, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) mentioned earlier. It is hard to see them accepting peerages in the first place, but let us imagine that as a result of the peace process a member of Sinn Fein accepted a peerage. If they then decided that the peace process were not going the way they wanted and that they had gone too far and had to withdraw from the House, would we then take the constitutional step of expelling them, or would we say that it would be better for them to remain? The difficulty with that, and the reason I am not in favour of the clause, goes back to the point my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire made about that being done through the Standing Orders of the House. Attendance or non-attendance is a matter for each House to decide for itself; it should not be determined in legislation.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I will come later to the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, which is how those enemies of the King were expelled—I believe that they were a couple of royal dukes and one other rather more obscure peer who had got caught up with the Austrian army.
The House of Lords does not have the right to expel its Members, unlike the House of Commons, and for good reason. The House of Commons has that power, and always used to use it in relation to those who went to prison, but Members who are expelled can immediately stand for re-election, so the expulsion can be tested by the electorate. That seems to me to be an important safeguard.
The relatively modern Representation of the People Act 1981, which allows for the automatic expulsion of MPs imprisoned for more than a year, was intended to deal with an immediate political problem relating to the hunger strikers. As Members will remember, Bobby Sands was elected while on hunger strike in prison. It was enormously politically awkward for the Government that Members of Parliament were dying on hunger strike, so a law was rushed through to debar automatically people from standing for election to this House if they were in prison. That undermined the right of this House to regulate its own business. It was a bad emergency Act carried out for a political purpose, rather than a high constitutional one.
The House of Lords has never been able to expel Members, although it can suspend them and still retains a vestigial right to imprison them during the course of a Session. The reason is that it was always thought that it would enhance the powers of the Crown too greatly if it, by using a majority that it could cobble together through its patronage in the House, could remove obstreperous Members. The only way to remove peers was by a specific Act of attainder—as Members will recall, such Acts were used against people such as Stafford, who was expelled from the House and his titles struck down—or by bringing an action against a Member for treason. His titles would technically cease just before his execution; they would go with the Act of Parliament or the impeachment for treason. So there is a process to expel peers, but the reason it is very long and difficult is the fear that the prerogative power and the patronage of the Crown would be used to determine the membership of an upper House.
That is the historical context on why peers can only be suspended and not expelled. The Lords does have that power to suspend, in accordance with its Standing Orders. Much preferable to the clause on removal for non-attendance would be entirely to delegate that to the Standing Orders of the House of Lords, whereby a peer who was absent for a certain period would have to make a submission to return, would have to explain the reason for the absence, and would be suspended for the rest of the Parliament if those explanations were not satisfactory to the Lords. That would allow for the flexibility that would be needed in the case of a prisoner of war, somebody who was kidnapped, or somebody who was imprisoned in a foreign country. One can envisage that, say, in the case of a peer who had been involved with the Greenpeace demonstration in Russia, found guilty of piracy and sentenced to 15 years in prison, the House of Lords might want to waive proceedings on the absence ground even if it had already done so on the criminality ground.
Dan Byles
My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. I have been pondering whether, if a noble Lord were convicted and sentenced to more than 12 months imprisonment overseas and the Lords decided that that was an exceptional circumstance and not to remove them, the absence clause would accidentally catch them. That might need to be discussed further in Committee.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. It is conceivable that the peer in prison would be able to apply for leave of absence, but it is also possible that such facilities would not be made available. It would depend on the country in which he was imprisoned. The absence and attendance point is really a matter for the House of Lords under its Standing Orders. The Lords can deal with it perfectly adequately, and there are disadvantages to legislation.
The main disadvantage to legislation on the internal workings of either House is that it brings in the courts, contrary to the Bill of Rights, which is absolutely clear that no court is allowed to second-guess any decision or activity of the proceedings of either House. What is not clear is what counts as a proceeding. That has been discussed in the courts, leading to the Act of Parliament in the middle of the 19th century that allowed parliamentary publications to be covered by the exemption because there was a doubt as to whether privilege extended to what was in Hansard and therefore whether we might be free to say things in this Chamber but nobody was then free to report what we had said. That was clarified by an Act of Parliament to make it clear that even if Hansard is not a proceeding in this House, it is still covered by privilege. The courts are entitled to investigate areas that may not be proceedings or to determine whether something is a proceeding.
The courts intervening in the legislature involves a fundamental constitutional principle. We have always tried to avoid it, because it delegates ultimate control of the political nation to an unelected judiciary away from the democratic arms of the state that are here in Parliament assembled. I accept that the House of Lords is not democratically elected, but it comes with the certificate, in effect, of the House of Commons and is controlled through the Parliament Acts, whereas the judges are not. It also used to be the case that if either Chamber were interfered with by the courts, the ultimate arbiter of the proceedings in either House would be the House of Lords, which was the highest court.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am all in favour of people turning up, but I made the point that there are valid reasons for not turning up as well as spurious ones. Of course there will be idle peers. It is even conceivable—although not in this current Parliament—that there have been idle Members of the House of Commons. You rightly look deeply shocked at that thought, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it must have happened on occasions. That does not mean that we should go around expelling Members of either House without knowing the full reasons for their actions, and it should be done under the auspices of the House. This House, through its Committees, has the ability to expel Members if it feels that is the suitable course of action. I cannot recall any example of a Member of this House being expelled for idleness. Some have been expelled for criminality, for treason or for libel, but I cannot think of one who has ever been expelled for idleness in the hundreds of years of the existence of the House. Penalties and fines have been introduced for non-attendance, but not expulsion, and it would be excessive to legislate for the House of Lords to expel for non-attendance when we are not willing to take it on ourselves.
Peers should of course obey their writ of summons and the Lords could introduce Standing Orders to cover that, but resignation would be improper. Having taken on a lifetime promise, people should not abrogate it willy-nilly. Retirement would be sad, because the Lords is the last representation in society of the elderly, and they are an increasingly important part of our society and deserve to be represented in the political nation. One of the great things about the Lords is that those of us who are little younger can wander over there and see some of the infirmities of age that are becoming such common issues across the nation. It helps bring those to the centre of the political debate and informs legislation on disability. The older people in the House of Lords have a deeper understanding of such issues than perhaps we do. That is valuable and I would strongly oppose any move to compulsory retirement. I would be cautious about clause 1 because it would open the way to that, and indeed that is what some of the promoters of earlier Bills probably wanted to see. Some people want a compulsory retirement age for peers.
Clause 3 is eminently sensible. It is a lacuna in our system that someone can serve a prison sentence and still be a Member of the House of Lords. They cannot invoke their privilege to attend the House of Lords when they are serving their prison sentences, but the day they are out they can come in.
One little point worth making is that I have checked two of, I believe, three peers in this situation, Lord Archer and Lord Black, neither of whom have participated in the House of Lords at any point since their convictions. There is, therefore, already a self-denying ordinance, which is attractive because our constitution works as much by convention as it does by statute law. We should not undermine the importance of that.
I have no objection to and indeed would be in favour of a more formalised rule. Having said that, the nub of the problem with a peer going to prison is as much to do with the title as with the ability to be in Parliament. I suggest that most people are not aware of the reasons why a knighthood can be removed and a peerage cannot be removed when somebody goes to prison. Equally, I would not like to make it easy to remove a peerage. It needs to be a difficult process because of a peer’s position as a legislator and the desire not to allow malign Governments, which do occur from time to time, to abuse a power that has been introduced for a very good reason. I would therefore like to see a different approach based on the Titles Deprivation Act 1917.
The 1917 Act—it is fascinating that we were three years into the war before we decided to do anything about this—set out the circumstances under which somebody could be reported to a Committee of the Privy Council for their peerage and title to be removed, which were that they had to be residing in an enemy country or fighting for the enemy in the current war. That had the advantage of essentially being a judicial process. I would argue that the deprivation of titles ought to be more a judicial than a directly internal matter. It is taking away not just something from a proceeding in Parliament; it is taking away an honour that it is used outside Parliament, is relevant outside Parliament and, in the case of an hereditary peerage, cascades down through the generations. This would allow, and I think the 1917 Act sets out a very good formula for doing it, the two members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council required to be on the Committee to consider whether somebody’s offence was serious enough that they should be deprived of their title, and therefore the rights and honours that go with it.
Dan Byles
I am listening with fascination to my hon. Friend, who is making some very interesting points. On his last point, is he not in danger of slightly contradicting his earlier point about allowing courts to interfere in this place? I understand the distinction he has made in saying that the removal of a peerage is about much more than just sitting in the legislature, but it does include sitting in the House of Lords. Under his proposed method, the courts would make a decision that would lead directly to a peer being removed from the House of Lords.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I would say it was analogous to an election court, where, if election fraud or misbehaviour during a general election was shown, a court would determine whether the seat had been won in a valid manner, because it is a second degree from the court’s action. The court’s action, or the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council’s action, would be to remove the title, and it would follow from that that there would a removal from the House of Lords. I feel it would also allow a proper flexibility to consider the circumstances and would not, as was brought up by another hon. Member, mean that a judge, in passing sentence, would know that a 365-day sentence disbarred and a 364-day sentence did not, and that this must add to the weight of sentence. What if the situation were that a judge, in handing down a sentence, said, “If you were Joe Bloggs, I would give you a year in prison, but because you are Lord Bloggs you will receive an additional punishment on top of a year in prison. Therefore, I am going to remit part of the sentence.” What then? How would the Act apply to that? It would have been a year, but it is discounted. There are issues relating to suspended sentences.
We ought to be careful about unintended consequences. I am particularly concerned about the ability of foreign courts’ judgments to be recognised and to disbar people from peerages. I assume this is done in relation to Lord Black of Crossharbour and that his conviction in the United States is viewed as having tainted him in such a way that his peerage should be removed. I have great doubts about the judicial process used against Lord Black of Crossharbour, whom it is not my intention to defend particularly. Somebody he worked with was threatened with judicial, criminal action that would, if he had been found guilty, have led to an exceptionally long sentence, but which, if he turned evidence against Lord Black, would give him three weeks in a country club; and he took the latter option, as we might all have done.
That is how American justice and plea bargaining works. Even if they think they are innocent, people are under such pressure to accept the low sentence they would get with a plea bargain and the consequences of protesting their innocence are so great, that they find there is an injustice against them automatically. Worse than that, the prosecutors use them effectively to bribe witnesses into saying that the other chap, who is not co-operating, did it. By protesting their innocence, the other chap—Lord Black, in this case—risks a very long sentence that we should not take any notice of in this country. Indeed, I think it is restrained of him not to use his vote in the House of Lords. I would not think it improper of him, because he has not been found guilty of any offence in this country.
Hon. Members might think that view is very little Englander, but I happen to believe that the standards of justice in the United Kingdom are higher than those in other countries. That does not mean to say that all other countries are unjust, but other countries’ systems have injustices within them, and this issue of plea bargaining in the United States is one that is particularly egregious. But it is not just the United States, which is a close ally and has a common-law system, a system that we understand; the system on the continent is not one that we understand or are used to as Britons. It has the Napoleonic code. As Geoffrey Boycott so memorably said when he was in front of a French court, it is all in French—of all the audacities! They have different sentencing processes as well, so a crime that in this country might be viewed as a relatively modest offence could be seen as a very serious one in a foreign country or could relate to things that in this country are entirely legal. For example, in some countries, homosexuality is still illegal and is persecuted strongly. Are we to say that a peer caught out in those circumstances should be disbarred from the House?
I accept that there is the exceptionalism, but that is the wrong way around. If somebody has been through a British court and had judgment against them, that is a perfectly rational basis for determining their membership of a British Parliament, but if some foreign court has found against them, it does not seem to me to raise the same issues. Some foreign courts are willing to try people in absentia; others—the Italian courts come to mind—are extraordinarily political in how they approach prosecutions and sentencing. In that respect, I have some sympathy with Mr Berlusconi, whom I think was persecuted by extremely left-wing judges who wanted to use a legal mechanism to get him out of office, which they succeeded in doing. I will not stand up for his moral conduct, however; that is a different matter entirely, and a direction in which we do not want to go.
Russia has arrested these Greenpeace protesters for piracy, and piracy is an extremely serious crime. I understand that it carries a 15-year prison sentence. It is highly unlikely that the UK would have treated those people in that way. Now, I cannot imagine that peers would go hurling themselves about in boats in that fashion; it is far too energetic and not a sufficiently noble activity, and the ermine might get in the way—not to mention that their coronets would be falling into the sea as they climbed up the oil rig—but it is not inconceivable that a peer might be caught out in such circumstances.
On a further point, we are seeing in the affair over European opt-ins and opt-outs the EU’s increasing efforts to create a body of criminal law across the EU. I must confess that I would oppose the Bill even more strongly if I thought that the EU would be able to determine the membership of either Chamber. Part of the expression of our nation’s liberty is our free ability to decide who rules us, and that free ability comes through these two Houses of Parliament, in which no foreign court should ever be given an automatic say. It would be different if someone were found guilty of an offence here but, as I have said, the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 provides a clearer, more suitable model that does not risk bringing the proceedings of the House under the eyes of the courts, because it would be the title of the peerage itself—the honour—that was in question, not the proceedings.
That leads me to my last point, which relates to clause 5. Subsection (2) states:
“A certificate may be issued on the Lord Speaker’s own initiative.”
We should be very careful about this, on two grounds. As I understand it—I am sure hon. Members will correct me if I am wrong—there are two instances in which the Speaker of the House of Commons may issue certificates. The first is under the terms of the Parliament Act 1911, to enable a Bill to be passed without the assent of the House of Lords. The second is under the terms of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, following the passing of a vote of no confidence in the Government to enable an election to be held.
Proposals to involve Speakers in tendentious political matters should always be a matter of concern to us. Speakers in the Commons have a long-established history of being independent arbiters of the businesses of this House. Actually, it is not that long. They have been independent for only about 150 years; before that, they were much more party political. The Lord Speaker is an innovation, a post created to replace that of the Lord Chancellor, and it is a very different role from that of the Speaker here. It does not involve keeping order or calling speakers. The Lord Speaker is a more ceremonial post, created to ensure that the House may legitimately sit. The Lord Speaker does not order the business. The House of Lords is self-regulating, rather than regulated by a Speaker.
When the post was introduced, the Lords were extremely concerned that the Lord Speaker might model him or herself—it has been “herself” so far—entirely on the Speaker of the House of Commons and might interfere in a way that is necessary only in a lower and less orderly Chamber. Of course, such interference is unnecessary when you are in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, when we are all beautifully behaved, particularly on Fridays when everyone arrives with their shoes nicely polished. The better-behaved House of Lords resented the idea that it would need a Speaker of that kind, and I would be concerned about raising the profile of the Lord Speaker, contrary to what was promised when the lord speakership was introduced. I would also be concerned about the risk of bringing the Lord Speaker into the political arena and giving them a role that might not be purely administrative.
It is interesting to note that in the House of Lords Act 1999, the responsibility for issuing certificates was given to the Clerk of the Parliaments. That indicated that it was a purely administrative activity, but the power given to the Lord Speaker in this Bill would appear to involve judgment. Judgment begets politicisation, and it also begets challenge in the courts. I repeat what I said earlier about the risk of legislating in a way that would bring the right of the House to govern its own affairs into conflict with the courts. We do not want to get into that position, because the ability of either House to operate independently is essential to the free flowing of our democracy. Once the House of Lords’ procedures had been intervened on by the courts, it would not be long before the same happened to our procedures. A precedent would have been set. The more we use the ancient right of either House to regulate itself, and the less we legislate and involve the courts, the better it will be.
The Bill is genuinely good in parts, and I am very sympathetic to the idea of excluding criminals from Parliament. I am not unsympathetic to imposing some kind of sanction on people who do not turn up. I am, however, against the bits on retirement and resignation. One of the bits that I am in favour of ought to be achieved through the procedures of the House; the other bit ought to be done through a different form of legislation.
I shall conclude where I began by being strongly critical of the Government’s treatment of this first-class constitutional Bill.
Dan Byles
With the leave of the House, I should like to sum up. I was not aware before I moved Second Reading that I would be rowing into the Bermuda triangle, as I was told earlier. It has been noted that I have in the past rowed across the Atlantic ocean in a wooden rowing boat in 101 days, so I like to think that if any of us can navigate our way through this particular Bermuda triangle, I will have as good a crack at it as anybody.
I thank all the hon. Members who have taken part in the debate for their thoughtful contributions. One of the features of Friday sittings is that those who come to take part are often the most knowledgeable about these matters and therefore perhaps make the most helpful contributions. I have listened carefully to many of their contributions, and I thank them for the positive tone. Everybody has been gracious about the purpose behind the Bill. I do not detect that any of those who intervened with legitimate concerns and issues have done so with the intention of undermining or killing the Bill. They are genuinely raising points that they feel will make the Bill better and I thank them for that.
It remains my intention to find the best path forward to achieve the measures in the Bill. I remind the House that these are measures that, in one form or another, the Lords have voted on and called for. No Bill starts out perfect. I very much hope that the Bill will progress to Committee and that I will be able to learn the lessons of much that has been discussed here today, table some sensible amendments in Committee to put at ease the minds of colleagues who have spoken, and enable them to support the Bill as it moves forward.
I want to respond to one or two points that were made. Rather than respond in an intervention, I have made a note of them. I am conscious of the ping-pong concern of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), which is an interesting point. It is probably not an easy point to get around. Unless one were to bar former peers from standing again for the House of Commons, which would remove for life a right that every other non-peer in the nation has, I do not think there is an easy solution. I would be interested to look into whether a time bar solution could be achieved and would be legal.
The ageist point is interesting too. Between my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, I am between a rock and a hard place. Apparently, to resign is sordid and nasty and one should not even consider resigning from the House of Lords, yet to retire is ageist, so quite what the right word is I do not know. I come back to my perhaps naive plea earlier that we should be grown-ups about what we are seeking to achieve without being too pedantic about the wording.
Dan Byles
Absolutely. I believe that Lord Steel, on his fifth attempt, started using the term “cessation of membership.” Perhaps they have had these discussions as well and that might be what we do.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset suggested that no peer was ever removed for idleness—
Dan Byles
Sorry. He said that no Member of Parliament was ever removed for idleness, but an idle Member of Parliament must face the electorate, whereas there is no such sanction for an idle peer. My hon. Friend is in danger of being slightly inconsistent. On the one hand he upholds passionately the honour and privilege it is to receive the writ of summons and the need not to give it up lightly, yet on the other hand the idea that a peer can choose to turn up only once a Session seems to be acceptable to him.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I think that that particular aim of the Bill would be better achieved through the Standing Orders of the House, rather than through legislation.
Dan Byles
I am very sensitive to that view and understand it. We face an interesting dilemma. I would like the Lords to be able to regulate themselves much more in those ways, yet there are constraints on what they can do in that respect, and they have asked us for those measures previously by passing them in their own House and then sending them to us. Once again, we are between a rock and a hard place on the best way to proceed.
I am also very conscious of the concern my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) expressed about the possibility that we might end up seeing financial inducements and what they might look like. The Bill certainly makes no argument in favour of that.
I take issue with the suggestion from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch made that the non-attendance issue is purely about presentation. He seemed to suggesting, “One can already have a leave of absence, and that does not cost anything, so what does it matter?” Actually, the status of a peer who is on leave of absence is a very grey area. They could be on leave of absence for 10 years and then come back, so can they be replaced? What if we ended up with half of all peers being on leave of absence? We could not replace them with new working peers because we would not know if any of them were ever going to come back. I understand his point, but I do not think that it is purely about presentation, because there are also practical implications. We need to know whether someone is a Member of the House of Lords or not and whether they are going to be taking part in business.
Dan Byles
I have a great deal of sympathy with that view. Again, so as not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, I did not include something on that in the measure. We might get on to my hon. Friend’s Bill later today, when we can discuss that point.
I will mention the foreign courts issue briefly, because it has been raised a number of times. I have discussed it prior to today with a number of hon. Members. I am very sensitive to the question of whether a conviction in a foreign court should deprive a peer of the realm of their place in the House of Lords. I do not think that it is as clear cut as saying, “Let’s simply make it UK courts.” It would be very difficult if a peer was convicted of an offence in Australia and New Zealand, or somewhere that has a relatively unimpeachable judicial system that compares to our own, and sentenced to two years imprisonment, if that offence would warrant a two-year sentence here. There would be no way to remove them, whereas they would have been removed if they had been convicted and sentenced for the same offence in the UK. Again, I am open to discussing whether the wording in the Bill is exactly right and seeing whether there is a better way of doing that. I am sensitive to people’s concerns about the foreign courts issue and have heard them loud and clear.
I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and colleagues and sincerely hope that they will be able to support the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I wish to move, under Standing Order No. 63, that the Bill, having been given a Second Reading—I am clarifying that for my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope)—be committed to a Committee of the whole House.