House of Lords: Allowance

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I realise that I am unlikely to win the popularity stakes in your Lordships’ Chamber by the comments that I am about to make—but, having exhausted all other opportunities available to persuade those who hold offices in this House to change this system of allowances, I feel that I have no other alternative but to say a few words in this debate.

In 2010, shortly after I was introduced to your Lordships’ House, the system of allowances was changed. I have to say today that I am opposed to this Motion on two grounds. First, I am opposed to the increase; that will certainly not make me very popular. I do not believe that £300 tax-free, available to every Member of this House indiscriminately, is justifiable in terms of public opinion or the public purse. Secondly, I am opposed to it because it entrenches the discrimination that was introduced into the system in 2010.

For those Members of your Lordships’ House who have been introduced since 2010, I will remind the House of what the allowances were back then. The day allowance, which is effectively the equivalent of the £300, was £86.50. It was introduced for the majority of Members of the House, who went from £86.50 to £300 overnight. There was an office allowance—a secretarial allowance—of £75, available to all Members, and there was an overnight allowance of £174 for Members who lived outside London. That was a total of £335.50 for those Members who could legitimately claim the overnight allowance because they lived outside London and were paying sometimes up to £200 a night for a hotel in London.

In 2010, that was changed to £300 for every Member of the House, available every day that the House sat. The Members who lived outside London received a reduction of £35.50; the Members who lived inside London—even with the ending of the secretarial allowance—received an increase of £138.50. That system continues to exist today and is entrenched by the report of the House of Lords Commission that is in front of us. It was basically introduced because leaders in your Lordships’ House assumed that it was impossible to police a system that relied on the trust of Members living in London not to illegitimately claim an overnight allowance to which they were not entitled. So those who were legitimately incurring costs through living outside of London were effectively penalised because people who lived in London—it was perceived—could not be trusted. That is a shocking state of affairs: it should have been dealt with long before now.

There have been assurances again and again over the last eight years that, if there was any change at all to the allowance system, the first change would be to rectify this anomaly. The impact of this anomaly is clear: there are Members here today, in your Lordships’ House, who have moved their residence from outside London to inside London solely for financial reasons, because of the impact of the allowances scheme. People who were introduced in 2010, 2011 and 2012—because they lived outside London and because of the desire of the then Prime Minister and others to bring in more people from outside London to your Lordships’ House—have moved to London since then. There are Members here who have an incentive to move to London, when the incentive should be to increase the geographical diversity of this House: to get people here from the devolved Parliaments who have not served in Westminster and to get people here who spent their working lives in Northern Ireland, Wales, the north of England, the south-west and Scotland. This system acts as a disincentive to that objective. All the political parties say that they have that as an objective, and yet they will not take the one simple step, based on receipts, that would make a difference. So I am opposed to this report because it entrenches that discrimination: it is an unjust system and it is a disincentive to greater diversity in this House at a time when, I hazard to suggest, it is deeply needed.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, you can agree with my noble friend on the anomaly he highlights and the unfair system that penalises those who live—and remain living—distances from London, and still be in favour of passing the Motion this afternoon. They are not mutually exclusive. It is perfectly feasible to recognise that after eight years, a modest increase in the allowance is justified whether the media mislead the public or not about your Lordships’ House, and to want to look at changes in the future. I encourage my noble friend to support what is put forward by the Leader of the House this afternoon and then to work with others on seeing whether we can have a watertight system.

There are many other anomalies. One of the things we should greatly encourage is to get the work of this House better known and better connected across the United Kingdom. One small measure in that regard would be to pay the same allowance for activities outside this House that are paid when they take place inside the House. In other words, we do not discriminate, for instance, against committees that take themselves out of London to find out how the real world lives out there.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I back my noble friend Lord Blunkett, and I have total sympathy with the concerns that were raised by my noble friend Lord McConnell and, indeed, by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, although perhaps he did so in a gentler way. As Members on all sides will know, I have raised this issue on a number of occasions. I pay tribute to the Lord Speaker—I hope that this does not sound too gratuitous and crawling; it is absolutely genuine—who agreed to meet a deputation of all parties and the Cross Benches, which I had the privilege of taking to him to make the arguments, including the argument my noble friend Lord McConnell made. The Lord Speaker has been working with deft diplomacy behind the scenes, and the result is what we have achieved today. It is the first step towards getting these considerations dealt with properly, and I look forward to meeting the Lord Speaker afterwards, with a deputation, to raise other issues that need resolving, particularly those raised by my noble friend Lord McConnell. I hope that on that basis, my noble friend will not vote against this. As my noble friend Lord Blunkett said, it is a small step in the right direction.