House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Friday 28th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I pay my tribute to my noble friend Lord Steel for his persistence in this measure, but what will history say of the once-leader of the Liberal Party who vowed to change the House of Lords out of all recognition from what we now know but has his name to a Bill that in Scotland would be described in accolade as peely-wally?

I do not like quite a lot of what is in this Bill, as your Lordships know because I have spoken on it many times before, and I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, said about Clause 3. I thought he made a very good case for us looking at that measure again. I see no justification for the 12 months as a cut-off date solely because it follows the House of Commons. It is one of the sadnesses of this House that we are increasingly following the House of Commons, which is not a wise route in which I think we should travel.

It has been mentioned that Dr Russell has put forward a suggestion that the House of Lords could be used as a stepping stone to the House of Commons. I think that she has a point, but a limited point. It is interesting that the House of Lords Reform Bill of 2012 said that there should be a four-year and one-month period before a former Member of the House of Lords was able to stand for election in the House of Commons. My caveat to that is that it should work both ways: a Member from the House of Commons should not be allowed to come here for four years and one month. We welcome some of the ex MPs, but we are hugely distorted by them. After the next election, there will be another influx of MPs. We have had quite enough from former Prime Ministers Blair and Brown and I am sad to say that I must include Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg in that. That has distorted the numbers in this House. We are all concerned with numbers in this House, and it is hoped that resignation and banning the non-attendees will help that number to decline. It will not. I think that it was the noble Lord, Lord Jay, who said that one day the House is going to topple over. I agree with him. The numbers will ratchet up. The age profile changes in this House. As one becomes older one is less able to attend, and Governments seem intent on winning Divisions so they just appoint more Peers. It does not matter which Government; they are all at fault, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said.

There has been talk of retirement. My noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding said that there should be some sort of recognition of that. I immediately became concerned. I thought that this was perhaps a bad route. If we are going to have some sort of recognition of the service of somebody who has had the privilege of sitting in the Chamber of this House, I am not in support of that. Perhaps that is the difference between a life Peer and an hereditary Peer. I quite see that they might be allowed access to the Palace as a whole, but there should be no great ceremony in the Chamber of this House when we have been given the huge privilege—for whatever reason—of sitting in this Chamber. I agree that the introduction is right, but one can either go gracefully and peacefully in one’s sleep, or in other ways, or one can retire, but there should be no great fuss in the Chamber about it.

The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, who I am glad to see back in his place, made his usual rant about the hereditary Peers. Let us look at the statistics. Who are the people who attend the most, who serve on the committees the most, who go into Divisions the most? It is the hereditary Peers. They are the very people that the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, said in his report that the Labour Party was looking for: people who perhaps had jobs outside but who attended on a regular basis. May the life Peers take note.