House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, as always, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard. I must begin by declaring an interest in that I am chairman of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, which I founded with my noble friend Lord Norton—my very good friend—more than 20 years ago. That is what makes it such a very special pleasure to be able to speak in this debate to congratulate my noble friend and to say that although every Bill is capable of improvement, particularly by an experienced scrutinising body, this is a good start. I hope it will follow the other incremental reforms that have come out of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, namely the Bill introduced by Lord Steel of Aikwood, which brought about provisions for retirement, and the Bill brought by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman—a former distinguished Lord Speaker—which enabled us to take action and to expel those who had transgressed in very serious ways. I hope the Bill will come along.

I am afraid I did not have any text with LOL in it, any more than the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, did, but I had a very good conversation with David Cameron when he rang me. I was delighted to be invited, but I said, “I will be a working Peer. I will come all the time. But I must say that I will regard it as my duty to exercise independent judgment and therefore to vote as I think appropriate.” He said, “Well, you’ve always done that in the other place, so I can’t really ask you to behave differently.” I have taken that as my licence ever since I got here and will continue to do so, because it is the duty of your Lordships’ House to examine critically, to ask the other place to think again and, if necessary—this is the ultimate, and we have not done it since I came here—to give a Bill a whole year before it can come back. There might be one before us at the moment where we have to take that sort of action.

I digress. It is very important that attendance accompanies membership. I would go further than many and say that unless a Member, without good reason or cause, such as serious illness, bereavement or whatever, puts in 20% attendance in the course of a year, he or she should be disqualified from being a Member of your Lordships’ House. You cannot be an effective member of a body unless you attend it fairly regularly and play a real part.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

Will my noble friend give way?

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[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I cannot, really, because there is no time.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My noble friend is very kind. What he is asking for with a commitment to attendance, which I have some support for too, is something we could deal with through our internal procedures. That is not beyond our existing powers to implement now. Now that we also have the power to disqualify on grounds that we might consider fit, we can do all these things.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I will take a minute’s injury time for that. I will not respond because my noble friend, for whom I have a high regard, misses the point. It is very important that we move forward here.

What has disturbed me more than anything has been the cavalier disregard for the constitution by Prime Minister Johnson, amounting almost to a trashing of it. It is very important that a Prime Minister has an ethics adviser and follows their advice. It is very important that we have an appointments commission on a statutory basis. The Prime Minister is in no sense prevented from making nominations but he should listen to the advice of that appointments commission.

My greatest concern of all is the position of the monarch. We have a new King. We must not put him in an invidious position, because he is the fount of honour. He has to award peerages on a recommendation. We should have a real sensitive regard for his position, just as we must listen to what the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, said. When we get this Bill in Committee, which I hope we will, we must try to make sure that there is no opportunity for the courts to be dragged in. That is very important.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, I took issue with my very good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and his letter to the Times. To say that there is broad consensus for an elected senate is not right. To have an elected senate with 400 people elected and 100 appointed will create two problems: first, the clash with the other place by the elected people; and secondly, the 100 who would inevitably be regarded as second-class Members. That is not a good idea.

When my very good friend the Minister comes to reply, I hope she will say that the Government will assist the progress of the Bill through Committee so that it can be critically examined and go to the other place. I think, like the noble Lord, Lord Butler, that it would then stand a real chance of going on to the statute book.

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[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth on securing the Second Reading of his Bill. I commend him on the clarity of his opening speech today, which I think helped us all.

I am grateful for today’s interesting, generally good-hearted and wide-ranging debate, on which the Government, under our new Prime Minister, will of course reflect. I will look at the specific question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, but there is no shift in position of which I am aware. In any event, his comments went rather beyond the purport of the Bill, to which I will now return.

My noble friend’s Bill would make provision for a commission to advise the Prime Minister on recommendations to the Crown for the creation of life peerages. In effect, HOLAC’s remit would be expanded, and there would de facto be limits on the number of Peers that could be created. Having listened carefully to noble Lords’ speeches today, I am afraid I have to conclude that this is an example of the wish to substitute the opinions of the great and the good for those of their elected representatives. Whatever current preoccupations there are, which I understand, I do not accept that that would be desirable.

The changes proposed by my noble friend would present significant constitutional issues, some of which have been left hanging. Constitutionally, the Prime Minister has the sole power of patronage in nominating to the sovereign those to be appointed to life peerages. As someone said, the Prime Minister is the sovereign’s principal adviser and of course is democratically elected. This arrangement has stood the test of time. Prime Ministers are accountable to Parliament for the nominations they make and, ultimately, to the electorate. The Government do not accept that the power of the Prime Minister should be constrained in the way that my noble friend proposes in the Bill.

I turn to the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which, as currently constituted, is an independent advisory non-departmental body. It offers the Prime Minister advice on the probity of those nominated for life peerages alone and makes recommendations to the Prime Minister in respect of Cross-Bench Peers. That is a valuable function, as many have said. Although the commission’s role is advisory, the Prime Minister places great weight on the commission’s careful and considered advice. However, I emphasise the word “advice”. The role of the commission is to advise the Prime Minister on those nominated for a life peerage and make recommendations in respect of Cross-Bench Peers. He in turn has constitutional responsibilities in relation to recommendations made to the sovereign—in particular, to ensure that the sovereign is not himself drawn into controversy, a point emphasised by my noble friend Lord Cormack—and in relation to the electorate, as already mentioned.

I turn to the detail of the Bill. It would place HOLAC on a statutory basis and strengthen the commission’s role in the appointments process in two key respects. First, it would require the Prime Minister to refer the name of an individual to the commission before recommending them for a life peerage. Secondly, it would require the Prime Minister to wait until the commission had advised on whether a nominated individual met specified criteria before recommending them to the Crown. I believe that seeking to substitute the Prime Minister’s judgment for its own could prevent a recommendation contrary to the commission’s opinion. That could be the effect of the changes.

The principal criteria for appointing new Peers in Clause 7 of the Bill are described as “conspicuous merit” and

“a willingness and capacity to contribute to the work of the House of Lords.”

The average attendance for the 2019 to 2021 Session was 352, as has been referred to. Many distinguished figures—many are here today—come to the House but do not contribute every day. They contribute in their areas of expertise and bring experience and knowledge from a wide range of occupations. It is unclear how “conspicuous merit” would be interpreted: how would the commission identify individuals who meet this standard? The value of this place is that Members who are not full-time legislators have a range of experiences, and to set a high and arbitrary bar could see a loss of this expertise.

I would add that the quality of contribution, not just the quantity, is important, and that is what we should focus on in thinking about these matters.

The Bill represents a constitutional change, vesting more power in an unelected and ultimately unaccountable body to restrict the ability of the Prime Minister to make recommendations to the sovereign, and indeed allowing it to come up with its own additional criteria for appointing new Peers. This is a wide power, albeit one that is subject to annulment by a resolution of either House. In other words, the Prime Minister, although still responsible constitutionally for making recommendations to the sovereign, would be restricted to an unacceptable extent by the commission in giving that advice. Accountability for decisions to nominate individuals for peerages rightly rests with the Prime Minister, who is accountable to Parliament and, ultimately, the electorate.

Clause 3 would require the Prime Minister to have regard to three principles when determining whether to make recommendations for new life Peers. First,

“not less than twenty per cent of the membership of the House of Lords shall consist of members who are independent of any registered political party”.

Secondly,

“no one party may have an absolute majority of members in the House of Lords”.

Thirdly,

“the membership of the House of Lords must be no larger than that of the House of Commons.”

I do not believe that such a significant change in the constitution can be the subject of a Private Member’s Bill. It ought rather to reflect political discussion, and preferably consensus among the political parties.

I also observe that my noble friend seems to be proposing some sort of cap on the number of political appointees to this House. For centuries, our democracy and politics have been based on a party-political system—that is a fact of life. With the greatest respect, even those who sit on the Cross Benches are still political to some degree—they may not be party political, but they bring a different perspective.

On the size of this House and the idea that it should be no larger than the House of Commons, is the Prime Minister to wait for 100 Peers to retire or die to be able to make new nominations? I think that everybody agrees that new appointments are essential to keep the expertise and outlook of the House fresh. How to achieve a reduction in size is not straightforward; indeed, transition would be “troublesome”, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Burns.

To conclude, the constitutional position—

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Before my noble friend concludes—she is concluding rather early—there are ways that could be employed. The first is my suggestion about a percentage attendance. Secondly, some Members of your Lordships’ House Are on leave of absence for years. One is on a leave of absence in California and has not been here for five or six years. Anybody who takes a leave of absence for other than health reasons, and who is away for more than one Session, should be told to go. Would my noble friend respond to those constructive suggestions?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. Clearly, the process of encouraging appropriate resignations, making use of the leave of absence provisions and the various changes that have been made to the way that we run this House in recent years, can indeed be useful. I am sure that, in further discussion of the Bill, some of these possibilities will be considered.

I come to the final point. The Prime Minister is ultimately responsible to Parliament and the people for any nominations that he, or she in the past, makes to this House, and the Government do not see the case for changing this. However, the Government consider that the House of Lords Appointments Commission performs its role well, as it is currently constituted, and is extremely grateful for the work that it does. The fact that Members of this House are appointed from a wide range of backgrounds is testament to its success. It will, and should, continue to advise on appointments in the same way that it does now. However, as will be apparent, the Government have reservations about the Bill we have debated today, and I look forward to hearing further from my noble friend.