House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts

Friday 29th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, for his sponsorship of the Bill. I, too, will speak strongly in favour of it. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to the Bill. It is a contribution to Lords reform that does not inhibit any of the more radical reforms proposed this week but means that we would not need to wait for the long drawn-out debate on the Lords Reform Bill in order to achieve sensible reforms to our practice.

I recognise that I am among the few Members of the House who are not personally affected by the Bill. As the Explanatory Notes say, rather darkly,

“provision is made elsewhere about retirement and discipline of Bishops”.

It sounds rather like a Star Chamber from somewhere or other.

I welcome the proposals in the House of Lords Reform Bill that will bring Lords Spiritual under the tax-deeming, disqualification and disciplinary proceedings of the House, but that debate is for another day.

Meanwhile, I speak as one of the few Members of the House who can and will retire, a provision that Lords Spiritual have found helpful and purposeful in renewing the contribution of this Bench—and which, incidentally, keeps us below the average age of the Members of this House.

This simple Bill provides a necessary reform. It enables those who wish to do so to retire, which must be in the interests of the whole House. It is right, too, that those who deliberately play no part in the proceedings of the House should no longer be Members of it. There may be entirely honourable reasons for this. Members may have moved on from the responsibilities that they had which enabled them to make a contribution to our debates. That is the basis of why Bishops retire. When we cease to have the responsibility for our dioceses that is the reason why we are in this House, then we cease to be Members of it. That seems both sensible and a right use of the provisions of the House.

We should all be reminded of our responsibilities. I rather regret that Clause 2 cannot apply to Bishops if they never attend the House, although I do not believe that any of my current colleagues would be caught by it.

In welcoming Clause 3, I press again the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, and ask the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Steel, to comment on why it applies only to those sentenced to imprisonment for a year or more, which is a substantial sentence. It is difficult to justify membership of this House with any period of imprisonment. I would like to see the clause toughened, particularly as there is a lack of confidence in our society in Parliament and its Members. Alongside that, like the noble Lord, Lord Wills, I would prefer to have some kind of mechanism for appeals, not only for sentences from outside the UK but for those within it, where a Peer has acted outside the law for reasons of ethical conviction.

We shall have plenty of opportunity to debate major issues around the nature of this House when we are presented with the House of Lords Reform Bill, if it ever gets here. Meanwhile, let us demonstrate our conviction that some reform is right—and maybe even achieve it—by getting behind this excellent Bill.