House of Lords: Size

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, realistically there is to my mind only one answer to the central question raised by today’s Motion: yes. Swollen as this House now is, not least through a whole host of new appointments by Mr Cameron over recent years, we are plainly too large and we are widely mocked on that account.

There may be those who say—the noble Baroness our erstwhile Leader, whom it is a great privilege to follow, may be among them—that this is not a real problem; rather, it is a problem only of perception. They say, “Make clear what we do: our valuable work in scrutinising and revising legislation. Indeed, what an advantage it is to have a number of Members who seldom appear, rarely therefore claim allowances or clutter up our facilities, but who contribute usefully on those occasions when their particular expertise is required”, and the problem disappears. If only that were so; I fear that that is cloud-cuckoo-land. Unless we reduce in size, certainly to a number no larger than the Commons, we will continue to be regarded and portrayed as absurdly overweight and our reputation will thereby suffer. We must therefore now explore the methods by which we can achieve such a reduction. Plainly, this is not the debate and today is not the day that we should be committing ourselves to precisely how this can be done and which of us should be culled.

I certainly agree with the views expressed by a number of those in the group of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who wrote a letter published in the Times on Saturday. They said that the Commons must remain supreme as it alone has the democratic mandate; that no single party should command an overall majority in the House; that party strength should “broadly reflect” electoral results—failures as well as successes; and that at least 20% of our membership should be Cross-Benchers and thus independent of any party affiliation. That much seems to me reasonably clear. But how precisely within those basic parameters we should reduce our numbers—with perhaps some transitional arrangements—must be for a smaller body within the House to explore. Given that the recommendations of such a body will need to be as authoritative as possible, surely the best body would be a Select Committee, as already suggested. Indeed, I would go further and say—although he may not forgive my doing so—that it should be a Select Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, who made such a conspicuous success of his committee’s consideration of the tricky questions that arose under the Trade Union Bill.

I add only this. It seems clear that we shall not achieve our ultimate aim of reducing in size unless and until two basic conditions are satisfied. First, the Government will not assist us in our proposed reform unless we ourselves reach a substantial consensus as to how to achieve it—as I say, I hope that will be by a Select Committee. Secondly, there never will be such a consensus unless and until the Prime Minister’s prerogative and powers of patronage to continue flooding us with new appointments is abridged, curtailed or attenuated, call it what you will. That would probably be best achieved by legislating for a cap on our number, perhaps one flexible enough to cater for a limited number of fresh appointments to meet any immediate ministerial requirements.

For now, however, I hope that your Lordships will pass the present Motion with acclaim. The public should know that it is not our fault that the House is so overlarge and that we ourselves wish it were not so. I hope, too, that the House authorities will immediately then appoint a Select Committee to report speedily upon how best to achieve the slimmed-down House that most of us desire.