House of Lords: Lord Speaker’s Committee Report

Lord Armstrong of Ilminster Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Armstrong of Ilminster (CB)]

My Lords, it is a truth universally acknowledged that there are too many of us. It is good that your Lordships should be, and should be seen to be, addressing this problem for yourselves, without waiting for a Government to introduce legislation. Given the pressures on the legislative programme, that might be a very long wait.

The Lord Speaker’s committee, under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Burns, has produced an admirable set of proposals for a system that will over time, and without legislation, reduce the size of the House from over 800 to a steady state of 600 Members. The proposals are skilfully designed, well balanced and well articulated. The debate today shows that they have the positive and, as nearly as possible, unanimous support of the House. My noble friend Lord Burns deserves signal recognition for his services—not punishment, such as being in charge of the EU negotiations, but some real honour, like a portrait in the dining room or perhaps the renaming of a Committee Room.

This House is rather like a water tank. If you want to control the level of water in the tank, you have to balance the inflow and the outflow. The Lord Speaker’s committee makes proposals which would enable the House to control the outflow, but the inflow is altogether outside our control. It is entirely dependent upon the exercise of the Prime Minister’s prerogative to recommend the creation of peerages. Not all Prime Ministers, especially one or two recent Prime Ministers, have had sufficient regard to the effects of their recommendations upon the size of the House. The efficacy of the committee’s recommendations will depend on the willingness of the Prime Minister and her eventual successors to comply with the committee’s suggestions for limiting the numbers of new peerages created. I dare say that in this regard the present Prime Minister will be readier to set an example to her successors than to try to create a binding precedent. But I have no doubt that her response will depend at least partly on the strength of your Lordships’ commitment, as demonstrated in this debate and in the subsequent passage of changes to standing orders and other changes which will be required to put them into effect.

In this connection, I have one small suggestion to offer. As the committee recognises, one of the purposes for which the Prime Minister may need or wish to create peerages is to ensure that the Government have representatives on the Front Bench in this House in sufficient quantity and, if I may respectfully say so, of sufficient quality to speak effectively for the Government over the whole range of government business. This is of importance and value not only to the Government but also to the proper discharge of the House’s responsibilities for the scrutiny of legislation.

It might help the Prime Minister to accept the proposed limits on the numbers of new peerages she is able to recommend if she were free to appoint new Peers outside these limits when they were needed to serve as Ministers or Front-Bench spokesmen. This would be on the understanding that, when they came to stand down as Ministers or Front-Bench spokesmen, they would be required to take voluntary retirement from membership of the House—while retaining their titles—unless the Prime Minister confirmed their continuing membership within the limits of the numbers of new peerages to be recommended.

I hope that by this debate, your Lordships are demonstrating your strong support for the Burns committee’s proposals. For my part, when the time comes, this turkey will vote for Christmas, if with a twinge of regret. None the less, it will be senza rancor—without rancour—and with gratitude for having been given the opportunity of enjoying the privileges of membership and sharing the pleasures of sodality in your Lordships’ House.