House of Lords

Lord Cope of Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cope of Berkeley (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that the thought behind this Motion so well moved by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, will have wide support in your Lordships’ House. Most if not all of us regret the consequences of the great increase in the number of active Members of the House. Those consequences of course include: time limits on speeches that curtail debate, making it much more difficult to have a proper debate across the House; the competitive nature of Oral Questions; the pressure on facilities, particularly on days when the House is very full; and, perhaps less obviously but definitely, the weakening through overload of the House’s long-appreciated ability to absorb some of the more rebellious Members of another place into its culture of reasoned debate rather than point-scoring, and of cross-party respect, friendship and so on. I think that we all agree that the House cannot go on growing as it has been doing.

I spoke of the number of active Members having increased. Others have made this point. Of course, there were far more Members when I first came to your Lordships’ House before the 1999 reforms. However, many of them were far less active. There are various reasons for that but it is partly because the nature of a peerage and hence of this House has changed progressively over the past few decades. Being “raised to the peerage” is, we all recognise, both an honour and a job. The job is as a legislator, watching and guiding the Government. The job element has become much more emphasised. These days, most new Peers selected for membership of the House either by the main political parties or by the Appointments Commission, as was suggested just now, are grilled—that is not too sharp a word—as to whether they will be able to play a full part if they are appointed. That is from the point of view of both their expertise and also how much time they will have available and so on. Therefore, most arrive here having assured those who helped to select them that they can and will work hard at the job. They duly do so when they get here, working much harder than many Peers did in years gone by. So we have these difficulties flowing from the larger numbers and greater activity of Members. The problem is how we get to a substantially smaller figure.

Of the various solutions, I am not attracted to term limits or age limits. We have daily examples here of how either would weaken the House by the removal of experienced Members. We can all think of examples from all parties. The first suggestion usually made when this comes up is that fewer Members should be appointed—“Pull up the ladder”, as it were, and, “We have enough”. However, can that potential solution—in the form of a moratorium as suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, just now—survive when the coming general election seems likely to produce such a different result in detail and maybe overall from that in the past? After all, this House will have to reflect at least to some degree the new political situation that will result from the general election. In any case, the House needs new Members. Many new Members make a valuable contribution. Each of us would judge slightly differently who makes the best contribution and who is less satisfactory, but we need new blood—as has already been said.

We come to the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel. His starting point was the necessity or desirability of finding a solution which could be implemented by this House without the necessity for statute. I must say that I agree with that element. If we can find a solution that this House can implement, that is desirable. Part of the answer may indeed be, as others have suggested, modifications to our ways of doing things, but I do not think that the full answer will lie there, although improvements may be made.

A key element of the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Williams, is, after all, that once the proportions have been decided by his method or some variation of it, Members would voluntarily go along with it: that those who were, as it were, required to resign or take leave of absence would indeed do so. I am not sure what would happen to those who resisted the blandishments to retire or to stop coming and insisted on coming. The writ would apply and they would presumably still be able to come. I do not think that this House would be able to stop them from answering the writ if they insisted on doing so, although their colleagues did not wish it as a result of the arrangements made.

Of course, the House prides itself on its self-discipline and self-regulation. After all, we can already volunteer to leave the House. We have had the announcement today of Lord Jenkin of Roding taking retirement under the new arrangements. Lord Grenfell did so a few months ago. I do not think that many of us would have thought that either of them had come to the end of their useful contribution to your Lordships’ House, but they clearly felt so. I hope that each of us will realise when it is time for us to retire. The time will come for each of us. Of course, the grim reaper may arrive before we have come to that conclusion, or before we should have come to that conclusion, but we are getting older. This way to reduce the number by voluntary retirement is beginning to have effect. A dozen Peers have so far resigned under the various arrangements available, and another 50 or so have taken leave of absence. Without them, the situation would be considerably worse. We should not ignore that in considering the way forward.

If legislation is available, the solution put forward by my noble friend Lord Jopling some years ago and repeated by him very clearly today is the best way forward. It would require legislation and it would require a slight delay of the House before State Opening; but, particularly when there is a change of government at a general election, the speed with which the whole machine is supposed to turn around and point in another direction—I speak of government as well as of Parliament—is hasty by comparison with other countries. To take the American example, the election takes place in November but the new President does not take office until well into the new year. That is much more common in other places.

My noble friend’s solution draws on the immediate precedent of the cull of hereditary Peers in 1999 and the longer-term precedent of the removal of the Irish Representative Peers which took place in 1920. From the point of view of the House, the system used in 1999 worked well. We finished up with 90 elected Members, whom I think were the best, broadly speaking. Of course, they were topped up by a number of hereditary Peers who were given life peerages, so the number in the end was more than 90. The system of selection worked well because Members were selected by the different party groups, for the most part, but also because we know those who make the most effective contribution. That was a good thing to do. However, I entirely acknowledge, as my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said, that it was very unpleasant at the time—particularly so for those involved, the hereditary Peers, as opposed to life Peers such as me.

The advantage of my noble friend Lord Jopling’s solution is that the House would reflect the most recent election result and that the choice of whether existing Members remained in the House would lie with the other Members of the party. It would reflect the voting of the nation while continuing some of the essential and desirable characteristics of your Lordships’ House at present.

All those suggestions need further consideration and further detail to be worked out, so I very much support what my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said about referring the matter to the Procedure Committee with an options paper. Clearly, the options should include the proposals put forward so well by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, this afternoon. Time is of the essence. If it can be done without legislation, as the noble Lord, Lord Williams, suggested, the House should do its best to do that and implement it to show that the self-discipline of the House extends even to this major consideration of the future of the House, because it is necessary to reduce the size of your Lordships’ House.