Procedure of the House: Select Committee Report

Lord Brabazon of Tara Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Chairman of Committees]

That the Report from the Select Committee on Members Leaving the House (5th Report, HL Paper 151) be agreed to.

[The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara)]

My Lords, I shall speak only briefly to explain the process whereby this report from the Procedure Committee has been put before your Lordships.

As noble Lords will be aware, this report arises out of the report of the Leader’s Group on Members leaving the House, which was chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral. The group’s report was published in January, an interim report having previously been debated on 16 November 2010. I am delighted to see the noble Lord in his place, and I understand that he may speak later and respond to any points of substance that are made by noble Lords. I shall not comment on the substance of the report, although I will of course do my best to answer any outstanding questions at the end of the debate. On the same day as the group’s report appeared, 13 January, the noble Lord the Leader of the House published a Written Statement indicating that he would ask the Procedure Committee to bring forward proposals to implement the Leader’s Group recommendations. This is what we have done.

The most important parts of our report are Appendices 1 and 3. Appendix 1 proposes text for inclusion in the next edition of the Companion to the Standing Orders describing a revised leave of absence scheme and the new voluntary retirement scheme. Appendix 3 proposes amendments to Standing Order 22, which governs the leave of absence scheme.

Before concluding, I draw the House’s attention to one aspect of the committee’s report that is not found in the Leader’s Group report. It is our recommendation that the Procedure Committee should appoint a leave of absence sub-committee to advise the Clerk of the Parliaments on the operation of the leave of absence scheme. The sub-committee, chaired by the Chairman of Committees, will be made up of the Chief Whips and the Convenor of the Cross Benches. It will help to ensure that the new strengthened rules on leave of absence are applied sensibly and fairly. It could, for instance, recommend in particular cases that the three months’ notice period for terminating leave of absence be abridged in accordance with what will become Standing Order 22.7.

I hope that the appointment of this new sub-committee will be welcomed across the House. I beg to move.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, the report by the Procedure Committee simply demands that leave of absence be pursued more rigorously, which I am sure will be welcomed in the House but is unlikely to make a noticeable contribution to reducing our numbers. However, the committee under the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, set up by the Leader of the House, recommended that,

“the House should introduce arrangements to allow Members to retire from membership of the House on a voluntary basis”,

and accepted that legislation would be necessary to achieve this.

The committee further argued that a reduction in numbers would result in an overall saving to the taxpayer and that part of that saving should be used to offer a modest pension. It called for this to be investigated in detail, but this has not yet been followed through. Perhaps in reply we could hear whether the House authorities intend to take actuarial advice on this matter, as recommended by that report. Because we are unpaid, it cannot be a pure pension and therefore requires a new statutory provision. The Chairman of Committees may be aware that a Private Member’s Bill awaiting Committee provides such statutory authority.

When this was previously discussed, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said that any such payment,

“would … not be understood by the British people”.—[Official Report, 16/11/10; col. 675.]

Of course, if he is talking about extra money from the Treasury, he is absolutely right, but I suggest that if it is money from savings of expenditure within the House of Lords budget, contrary to that view redundancy pay is well understood in the country at large and accepted as saving money. The current redundancy lump sum permitted tax free is £30,000, which is less than the annual attendance payments for those who come to this House, say, 75 per cent of the time.

Therefore, I hope that in due course, the Government may come forward with a modest payment proposal of a lump sum of, say, £30,000 to those choosing to retire after, say, 10 years’ service or having reached the age of 75, provided that they have had an attendance record of at least 50 per cent in the previous two Sessions. Those in the business world tell me that a modest lump sum of that kind is much more attractive than the financial sum appears. One can imagine Members of your Lordships’ House discussing with their spouses whether they might buy a new car for their retirement or go on a world cruise and listen to lectures by the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood—or choose another one to avoid that peril.

In any event, that a scheme is needed to get the numbers down is not in doubt. Of course, the Hunt committee was right to suggest that if that were pursued, Members who chose to retire should enjoy the same use of House facilities as former hereditary Peers do. I hope that this matter will be pursued as recommended by the Hunt committee and not simply neglected and brushed aside by this report, which we nevertheless welcome.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral deserves the gratitude of the whole House for the report that he provided as chairman of the Leader’s Group, which has now been turned into a report of the Procedure Committee and has been introduced by the Chairman of Committees.

My noble friend Lord Hunt is entirely correct that, up until now, the only way of leaving the House permanently, if I can put it as indelicately as this, is through death. In recent years, more and more noble Lords have indicated an interest in being able to retire from the House before death. In the course of the past two or three years, my noble friend Lord Steel has championed his Bill, a part of which provides for permanent retirement from this House. My noble friend Lord Hunt has found a way of doing so with honour and dignity and I commend the report to the House.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, quite rightly raised the question of a legal underpinning for what I hope we will agree today. While it is unlikely in the extreme that any Peer who applied for permanent voluntary retirement from the House would ever wish to come back, given the performance that we will go into, there is at least that possibility. Therefore, if a suitable legislative vehicle appears in the next few months or even years, we will take the opportunity to give that legal underpinning.

There are one or two other outstanding matters, such as the power to suspend Members of this House, for which we also wish to find a legal underpinning. We are very aware of these issues. They may not have the highest priority, but we should look at them.

The second issue that has been raised is that of a financial contribution for Peers leaving this House. I was entertained by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, who raised the spectacle of numerous Peers waiting for some sort of handout from the taxpayer. He asked for some clarity on this. Let me be utterly clear: there is no prospect of any public money being made available for Peers wishing to retire from the House. The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, spoke with great sense when he said that it is a great privilege to be a Member of this House. It is voluntary to attend. A generous but hardly excessive allowance is made available for Peers who come. If you do not come you do not get anything. If you wish to retire, you do not get anything either. That is the way it is going to be. Whatever business cases are made to me or to the Treasury, they will be greeted with a thumbs down. I urge noble Lords who think that their time has come and they are ready to retire to do so quickly and take advantage of this scheme.

My noble friend Lord Elton also raised an important point about Members who attend the House rarely but when they come make an important contribution. They should be much valued Members of this House and should be encouraged not discouraged. I am nervous of the line taken by the noble Baroness the Convenor, although I understand why she took it. She said that some Members of the Cross Benches had not appeared for 10 years. If they have not appeared for 10 years, they should be encouraged perhaps to take up permanent retirement, but they should not be encouraged to stay away by being given a handout from the taxpayer.

A number of other issues were raised that are more properly to do with long-term reform of the House, which we discussed at length last week. The House of Commons is discussing that today. We have another debate to carry on so I will not add any more save to say that I lend my full support to the report and I thank on behalf of the House my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral and his committee for their work.

[The Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, I think that everything that can be said about this report and a lot not within this report has been said. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, gave a very good summary of it including an example of someone who might well wish to avail themselves of the opportunity for voluntary retirement. The Leader of the House has made the position clear so far as the financial aspects are concerned. Therefore, there is little left for me to say other than that I beg to move.

Motion agreed.