Procedure of the House (Proposal 1)

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I know the concerns that are being expressed principally, although not exclusively, on the other side of the House. They basically imply that we are in danger of ending up with a situation like that of the Commons Speaker. I sympathise with those concerns. We do not want a Speaker in the sense of someone who has to adjudicate constantly on points of order and decide on balance whether difficult issues should be debated and so on. We do not want to go in that direction for all sorts of reasons which I think are well understood. However, I strongly support the proposal because I do not think there is any risk whatever of that happening under this change.

Indeed, I would offer as a kind of reassurance to those opposite that all these kinds of anxieties were expressed five years ago when the Speakership in its present form was established in this House. It was pretty vehemently opposed in all sorts of ways, while all sorts of forebodings were expressed as to what it would result in. I put it to the House that those forebodings have simply not been fulfilled. The Speakership has worked extremely well. I think that should be of some reassurance to those who feel that something serious, even cataclysmic, will happen if we support this proposal.

My main concern for wanting to be assured that this proposal will go through, and why I support it, is the issue that has not been mentioned. We are here to serve the public and part of that is for our procedures to be intelligible. Let us leave aside the term “self-regulation” at the moment—if there is regulation in any debate or at Question Time, it comes spasmodically from the government Front Bench. That is totally unsatisfactory for the reasons given by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, and for the practical reasons given by my good and noble friend Lord Rooker that you physically cannot see. In no Chamber anywhere on this planet or at any time in this planet’s history has the person responsible for order had half the audience sitting behind them. We are an absolute one-off on that, which is the position that we are in at the moment.

I simply put it to the House that we should do as every other representative organisation that I, or I guess anyone else in this Chamber, have ever had any experience of by having the person with a kind of responsibility for easing things along sitting in the centre and at the front—so far as there is a front here—of the audience, which would make it immediately intelligible to people watching in this Chamber or on television. It is such a minimal change. It does not advocate any new powers; it simply says that the power should be transferred from somewhere that—let us be blunt—does not operate that wonderfully at present. I defy anyone to say that it is a model in how it operates at present that others should follow. It is a small change in the right direction without any fear that has been expressed or any likelihood of being justified in the exercise. I urge the House to support this unanimous proposal from a committee on which I was very proud to serve. It was a very diligent committee that took evidence from everywhere across the House, and we should let this proposal go forward.

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, I suppose that all of us come to these matters very much with our own experience, so it is perhaps no great surprise that a very distinguished Leader of your Lordships’ House should take the view that things should stay with the Leader, and a very distinguished lady who was Speaker in another place should feel that the Speaker is the more appropriate person. I therefore confess to having a good deal of sympathy for what the noble Baroness said, as I found myself in that situation some time ago.

Of course, the way in which one conducts oneself as a Speaker is not identical in different Chambers. Whatever the sense of authority might be in the other place, in the place in which I served there was the idea that the Speaker should exercise authority over some of the Members of that place rather than facilitate and persuade them. I need only state that idea for noble Lords to understand my point. In fact, I took as my guide Speaker Lenthall, who when confronted by the monarch and asked to identify Members of the other place said that he had neither eyes to see nor lips to speak other than the House gave to him.

That is what we are talking about. We are not talking about an end of self-regulation because we are not talking about new powers for anybody. We are simply talking about an element of the responsibility that lies currently with the Leader of the House to be taken not by the Leader but by the Lord Speaker, who has been elected by noble Lords. It is not a change to the procedures, the authority or responsibilities. It is simply that a different person undertakes those responsibilities on behalf of the House and in sympathy with the House—not exercising authority over the House.

We should not think of this as an end of self-regulation or even a change to self-regulation. This is simply a question as to who is the most suitable person and in the most suitable place to undertake this. I have no criticism of my noble friend the Leader of the House, who conducts himself with great decorum and a good deal of subtlety and has helped us through the difficult expansion of our numbers and the pressure on the work of the House. I must say, however, that there are some points of difficulty in our work, particularly at Question Time.

--- Later in debate ---

[A noble Lord]

Never!

[Lord Alderdice]

Never. However, I appreciate for many other noble Lords coming into the House from other places—many of them not political chambers—it is not a great encouragement to involve oneself in the business of questions. I take very seriously what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, says about the number of people who engage at Question Time not being entirely satisfactory.

We might, by this very, very modest change, be able to send a signal to ourselves and others that we want to see a greater involvement of the House as a whole. I accept that there is no ideal place to sit in this Chamber to see everyone. The Lord Speaker would obviously have some difficulty seeing those who are in wheelchairs but, as has already been observed, the Leader of the House has considerable difficulty seeing those who sit behind him, so there is no ideal place.

However, some things have been adduced in the debate that really do not apply and are actually a protection against the slippery slope over which noble Lords have great anxiety. There is no need with this particular change for technical advice to be provided to the Lord Speaker. There are no points of order, and no complicated questions of procedure apply in this case. Therefore the experience that I had to have, as indeed do Speakers in other places, of having a Clerk either in front or beside to give the kind of technical advice that is not easily facilitated in your Lordships’ House, simply does not apply with this very modest change. All that is being asked for—

[The Countess of Mar]

What would the noble Lord suggest should happen if people from those Benches, his Benches or this Bench got up at the same time and would not sit down?

[Lord Alderdice]

I am very grateful indeed to the noble Countess for raising that question. I think my noble friend the former Leader of the House raised a very interesting question that I saw raised a few eyebrows. He indicated that that responsibility lay with the leaders of the groups. I am not sure that I have observed the leaders of the groups and the Convenor intervening in that way. That would be a move away from self-regulation of the Chamber as a whole. The Lord Speaker move that is being proposed would not change that question; it would simply change identification of the groups, not the sides of the House, whether we are talking about the Convenor of the Cross-Benchers, Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats or indeed the Bench of Bishops.

However, if the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Wakeham and pointed to by the noble Baroness were to be adopted and it was for the leaders of the various groups to indicate which of their colleagues should address the House, it would become extremely inappropriate for the Leader of the House to undertake that as the leader of the Conservatives. If it were to be taken in that way—and I am not sure that we actually are in that position—it would be even clearer that it should be the Lord Speaker who undertakes that. However, I find myself somewhat doubtful that that really is the way the House sees itself functioning. I think it wants to hold to a degree of self-regulation whereby the House as a whole calls for the Peer they wish to hear. That is really the preferable position for us to hold to, but there does seem to be a little uncertainty.

In conclusion—

[Noble Lords]

At last!

[Lord Alderdice]

I am grateful for the indulgence of the House. In conclusion, this is the most modest of changes, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, says, would be much more comprehensible to those outside—and we hope that an increasing number is observing our procedures—and would in no way take away from the self-regulation of this House.

[Lord Wright of Richmond]

My Lords, in the light of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, I shall speak a little more softly than usual. I regard this proposal as a sad reflection of the decline in standards of courtesy, of self-regulation, of discipline and of brevity in this House, and I shall oppose it.