House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Lord Balfe Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I add to the many congratulations for my noble friend Lord Norton on getting the Bill this far. I also thank him for the work he does, month in, month out, together with my noble friend Lord Cormack, to keep this issue alive. Reform of the Lords is not just one Bill; it is something that we need to address seriously.

I will concentrate on Clauses 7 and 9, because they open up a number of problems that affect different parts of this House differently. First, the capacity and willingness to contribute is clearly important. I have told this House before that, when David Cameron asked me to serve in the Lords, he was very keen that I would come here, contribute and vote. He was so keen that he did not ask me who I would vote for or in which way, but he was very keen that I do that and I was pleased to assure him that I would.

However, we need to go further. We need to address whether a capacity and willingness to contribute can be squared with the points my noble friend Lord Leigh made about attendance in this House. Attendance must be part of the undertaking of being an active Peer. It is of course different for different groups. If those in the Cross-Bench group want to carry a few passengers when, at the same time, they are limited in numbers, that is up to them, because they would just be reducing their numbers. But if the political parties want to be effective, they have to find a way to get their Members here and voting. That is most important.

I have some concerns about “conspicuous merit”. The only body I know that has that as a criterion is the Order of Merit, which is chosen personally by the sovereign. Face it, most noble Lords would not pass that criterion. I have no particular conspicuous merit. When I was sent here, the then Prime Minister said, “I think we need someone on our Benches who will put in a word for the trade unions, from time to time”. I am not sure he realised what he was letting loose on the House, but that was his criterion in asking me to be here. That is not conspicuous merit.

I notice that, under Clause 9, party leaders will be asked to submit the

“criteria adopted by the party for the purposes of selecting the name for submission.”

Generally, we need people to keep the House of Lords going. Many different criteria could be adopted. For instance, the various leaders of the Labour Party over the years may well have had different criteria in mind when they sent people to this body. Some noble Lords whom previous leaders have sent have made a distinguished contribution to our deliberations; I think, for instance—although she is not here—of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, who participated in discussions on a Bill the other day. She was a Corbyn nominee but she has turned out to be a very effective parliamentarian.

The parties have to be able to say that one of their criteria will be that a person will help strengthen our reputation and have an ability to contribute to the duties of the House of Lords. That, more or less, should be enough, and hundreds of people would fulfil that criterion. I can think of many members of the Conservative Party who are at least as worthy as I am of being here. I was lucky, and just happened to have been in the right place at the right time. We will need a party-political view at the back of our minds when we look at that criterion.

I am pleased to see this Bill here. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Norton and will do whatever I can to help it on to the statute book, but it is a start, not a finish.