Parliament: Conventions

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am pleased that the noble Lord is so interested in my party’s manifesto. That suggests he believes it is the only one that really matters. He will not be surprised that I am not going to give him any insight into the content of the manifesto before it is published.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend indicate what the conventions are in respect of the Government’s involvement in private Members’ legislation? In particular, could she explain why the Government have backed a Bill that guarantees 0.7% of GDP for overseas aid, while blocking a Bill that guarantees 2% of our GDP for NATO?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The noble Lord knows that the 0.7% Bill, which was debated in this House on Friday, is, as he said, a Private Member’s Bill, but it represents a policy that was in the Conservative Party’s manifesto at the most recent election.

House of Lords: Governance

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The noble Lord is right to highlight in the report from the Commons committee a recommendation for us to explore the prospect of more shared services. I certainly support reviewing the scope for extending shared services between the two Houses when they would deliver greater value for money and lead to more effectiveness.

It would be premature for me to express a view on having a single department. Let us focus on what is possible and what would make sense in terms of us working together on those shared services. As the noble Lord rightly says, in any such arrangement, as exists already on shared services, the House of Lords must be an equal partner with the House of Commons.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Does my noble friend recall the report from Sir Roy Griffiths in the 1980s on the health service, when he said that if Florence Nightingale were wandering the corridors of the National Health Service with her lamp, she would almost certainly be looking for who was in charge? Would that not also apply if she were wandering the corridors of the Palace of Westminster?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I think that my noble friend is referring to this House specifically. We are a self-regulating House, and we are all responsible for ensuring that we do what we exist to do, fulfil our purpose and serve the public correctly. As for accountability, that is quite clearly shared between me, the Lord Speaker and the Chairman of Committees.

Select Committee Reports: Government Responses

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As the noble Lord knows from the exchange he and I had last week in the debate about the effectiveness of this House, I acknowledged then his strong point that the work of Select Committees in this House is an incredibly important part of our work here. On the Science and Technology Committee, during this Parliament there has been some action by the Government in response to implementing long-term science capital investment, which was a recommendation that came out of that committee.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend indicate whether she might have a look at the experience of the other place and consider whether the authority of our Select Committees might be greatly enhanced if the chairman were elected.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend raises an interesting point, but I do not think that it has been raised particularly extensively by other noble Lords. Probably, one of the reasons for that is because we are all very clear in this House that all the chairmen of our Select Committees, regardless of which part of the House they are from, act very independently.

House of Lords

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Williams of Elvel (Lab)]

My Lords, before I begin, I should say that, although this is a take-note Motion, it is a take-note Motion with a purpose. Most people seem to agree that the House is too large, but nobody seems able to come up with a solution that does not involve the cumbersome process of primary legislation. This afternoon, I want to offer a way forward. That is the purpose of this Motion.

Let us briefly look at the figures. During the past few years, the House has expanded both in “absolute” and in “actual” terms—these expressions and the figures I quote are taken from the recent helpful Library Note and supplements from the Library that I have requested. At 16 December last, the absolute—that is, the total—membership was 847. The actual membership—in other words, excluding those unable for one reason or another to be active Members—was 791. The average daily attendance in the 2013-14 Session was 497. By contrast, in 2009-10, the equivalent first and third values—that is, total membership and average daily attendance—were 735 and 388 respectively. Average daily attendance therefore rose from 388 to 497, which is more than a quarter.

The effect of this increase is not hard to see. The Chamber overflows at Question Time. The House has had to make provision for extra seats below Bar. Many debates are so populated that speaking time is cut down to five minutes or less. Consequently, Peers are put off from putting their names down at all. The rotation arrangements for committee membership to accommodate aspiring candidates is about to become, in my view, too stringent for proper operational efficiency. Division Lobbies are frequently too crowded for comfort. The facilities of the House are strained to breaking point. Accommodation and meeting space for Peers has not kept up with the increase in numbers, leading to business being conducted in the corridors or the Guest Room. In short, the conduct of the House’s business has become disorderly.

The question then arises: what powers does the House have by itself to deal with the problem without recourse to primary legislation? To this purpose, I have taken advice from the Table and my attention has been drawn to the report of the 1955 Select Committee on the powers of the House in relation to the attendance of its Members. In its report, which was approved by the House, the Select Committee stated in paragraph 2 that the House,

“has full power to do anything which may be necessary to ensure the orderly and decent conduct of its business”.

We should note in passing that what it cannot do is override the Writ of Summons.

My proposal on how to exercise this “full power” in the context of the problem that I have described is in mechanism quite simple but in reasoning rather complex. My proposal is that, on the recommendation of the Procedure Committee, the House should be invited to pass a resolution; namely that, “in order to ensure the orderly conduct of business in the House, attendance at the proceedings of the House shall be regulated in accordance with a scheme established by the House; and, to that end, Peers shall consider most carefully applying for leave of absence under the provisions of that scheme”.

If this resolution is passed it will allow an amendment to Standing Order 22 along similar lines but with the important proviso that, “the House will at pleasure grant leave of absence to any Peer making an application under the provisions of the scheme established under the Standing Order”. The Companion would then spell out in detail the proposed scheme in a new appendix. It will state the intention to ensure that no more than 400 Peers attend the House in each Parliament and that these Peers will be known as “active Peers”. These will be nominated by each of the four groupings—Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Cross Bench—and in addition the non-affiliated, on the basis of the proportion of the existing House held by each grouping, provided that 75% of nominations should be of those with the greatest relative attendance record in the current Parliament.

As to the reasoning behind all this, I will address what I perceive to be the four major areas of difficulty—all of which will merit full discussion in the Procedure Committee. First, there has been recently, after yet another influx of new Peers, renewed and more intense discussion about the optimum size of the House. Without regarding it as an optimum, the firm opinion of those I have consulted is that the maximum actual membership should be no more than 400 Peers. I believe this to be the right number to aim for. It would in practice return us, more or less, to the situation in May 2010—in numbers but with a different composition. It also has the advantage—I agree that this is rather dubious but in terms of presentation it is perhaps convenient—of being just over half the current actual membership.

Secondly, there is the balance of membership between the various groupings. As I said, I propose that the current balance of the House represented by the proportions of the actual membership in each grouping should be reproduced in my scheme. There are many possible variants but neither I nor anybody I consulted could suggest an alternative way of arranging the quotas that would not promote an undignified and bad-tempered wrangle. There will no doubt be disagreement but we are, alas, where we are.

Thirdly, I propose that 75% of all the nominations by grouping should be those who have attended with most relative frequency—relative to the number of days available to them—in the current Parliament. This provision would not only seem to be a most practical approach but will ensure a necessary degree of continuity, in particular to ensure that those who have kept the House active on a day-to-day basis in the current Parliament would be able to continue to do so without hindrance in the next. Moreover, it would be undesirable for the scheme in its trial period to produce a wholly different cast of characters, as might happen if this provision were not included. Nevertheless, political parties and the Cross Benches must have some leeway in choosing Peers who have not qualified as “active Peers” but who, for various reasons, they consider suitable to maintain and enhance the reputation of the House. The 25% provision for nominations at the disposal of each grouping is designed to give groupings that extra ability.

To go a little further, the reason for basing the majority of nominations on previous—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord, and I am listening very carefully to his scheme. However, would not the provision that required 75% to be very active Peers encourage more Peers to be more active and therefore defeat his purpose?

[Lord Williams of Elvel]

I am all for more Peers being more active. We are talking about 75% of those with relatively high attendance records in the current Parliament. This will be debated and decided by the Procedure Committee, but I do not see an argument for resiling on that.

There have been other suggestions. Some have suggested an inbuilt gender balance, some a proper regional balance, some ethnic representation. One suggestion that I heard was that former Members of the House of Commons should not qualify.

Frivolous and impractical suggestions apart, the only other attractive criterion for nominations is the exclusion of Peers beyond a certain age. Yet, attractive as the idea may be as a principle, in my view it has three main drawbacks. First, it is difficult—and, if I may say so, idiosyncratic—to argue that the disorder I described earlier is due not to overcrowding per se but to the presence of Peers above a certain age and that therefore an age exclusion would lie squarely within the aim of,

“ensuring orderly and decent conduct of … business”.

Secondly, in order to avoid being unfairly discriminatory in applying only to a particular group of Peers, it would have to apply to the absolute number, the total membership of the House. That being so, new appointees and Members returning from official duties or leave of absence would, as a matter of fairness, be subject to the same limitation as existing Members. In the former case, it is difficult to see how that would fit easily with the Writ of Summons and the Letters Patent—or, for that matter, human rights legislation.

Lastly, it would not properly address the matter of the balance of groupings in the resulting House. The application of a blanket limitation on age would have differential effects to the disadvantage of the Cross Benches, average age 72, my party, average age 70, and the Conservatives, average age 69. The winners would be the Liberal Democrats, with an average age of 67 —the party of eternal youth. I am not sure that that would be entirely acceptable to the House, but, if it were, it would distort the percentage of the groupings and in my view introduce an unstable House.

The fourth possible point of controversy concerns those who are at present entitled to attend but who are not nominated as active Peers. I suggest that they be encouraged to apply for temporary leave of absence. The Select Committee that I quoted and the consequent Standing Order 22(1) make the position clear. Application for leave of absence is an act of individual choice and there can be nothing which smacks of compulsion, but the fact that only active Peers will be entitled to attend and hence eligible to make claims for travel and attendance should be incentive enough if linked to the suggested text in the Companion.

I have used the expression “trial period” because the scheme may, and probably will, need to be modified in the light of experience of operating a House with a finite and defined membership, as opposed to one which is in practice open ended. It may be necessary to accommodate new groupings. In future years, different groupings may wish to adopt different methods of selection of active Peers. The House of Commons may in the end decide what it wants to do with us—perhaps.

I therefore suggest a review as the next Parliament draws to its close. Of course, it may be that the forthcoming general election will produce a House of Commons which is so fractured in composition that it is unable to last the full term of five years. Although I have suggested text for the Companion, I suspect that there may be some provision to allow that to be rolled over if there is an early Dissolution.

I am under no illusions about the difficulty of translating my proposal into action. There will be a particularly heavy burden on the Procedure Committee to analyse and digest both my proposal—which will be formally on the desk of the Chairman of Committees tomorrow morning if this Motion is agreed—and the proposals and submissions which I very much hope other noble Lords will make to it. Nevertheless, the House will be aware that if anything is to happen, it really has to happen before the end of March and the start of a new Parliament. That is why I urge that the committee reports back to the House with its conclusions before the end of February.

Finally, I am under no illusions about the impact of my proposals—or any similar proposals to reduce average attendance—on some valued Members who do not attend regularly and are not chosen by their groupings under the 25% provision. Nevertheless, I believe that it should be done. A House of finite and defined membership will have many advantages. No future Government will be able to pack the House with their supporters. The controversy over “cash for peerages” will disappear since although political donors may be awarded peerages as an honour, there will be no immediate passport to a voting membership in this House. Divisions will no longer depend on who can bus in more of their inactive Members. In short, the House will look more like what it should be, a well informed, experienced and moderate revising Chamber, and less like the caricature which is frequently painted: that of a cross between an old folks’ home for superannuated politicians and a bloated relic from a bygone age.

It can be done. We are always told that this is a self-regulating House—I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will support me—and if we are to regulate ourselves, we should take the opportunity to do so. The means are there; the question is whether we have the will. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Clark, and I am most grateful, as everyone else is, to the noble Lord, Lord Williams, for giving us the opportunity for this debate. I do not think that he has produced a silver bullet; it is more of a grenade. I have a horrible feeling that others may pull the pin out of that grenade and that the consequences may not be quite what he had hoped for.

I have been in this House for 15 years, which I think was the term set by the royal commission in which the noble Lord, Lord Butler, served and which the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, chaired. After 15 years in this place, which is half a year longer than I was in the House of Commons, I am just beginning to work out how it works. I am not sure whether 15 years is long enough for me but it may be long enough of me for your Lordships. I really love this place because, as I think I have said before to the House, as I get older I find that I am less and less certain about many of the things that I was certain about. In this House, I find that if you are uncertain about things and they are debated, it is a very good way of setting your mind straight because people speak according to their beliefs and convictions.

One of the things that worries me about the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Williams, is that they might give more power to the Whips. As my noble friend the Chief Whip will testify, I am not always entirely in line with what he would like me to do. This is one of the things that has gone wrong in the other place. Some years ago, I was in a taxi and the taxi driver said to me, “Do you miss that place?”. I said, “The place I miss no longer exists”, and he said, “No, I mean the House of Commons”—he obviously thought that I had gone completely gaga. I said, “I know that you mean the House of Commons”, but I meant that the House of Commons that I remember was a completely different place. I now see Members who are directed into what they say. From all parties, they go on programmes and repeat the same fatuous lines. The result is that we now have an electorate who are absolutely tearing their hair out with rage at what they regard as the breakdown of the political process.

Whatever is said about this place, and there are lots of rude things said about it, it is not one where people are in fear of saying what they think. That is because I know that there is nothing that the Chief Whip can do to me—nothing which I would care about. I do not want anything from him and I know that I have been appointed for life. One of the joys of this place is the independence that comes from having that appointment. I think that my noble friend Lord Deben would say that he was in the same camp as me, except perhaps even naughtier than me from time to time.

Having said all that, though, if we do not put our own House in order, I fear that others will do it for us, and a great institution would be lost at the very moment when I believe this is about the only part of our constitution, as far as Parliament is concerned, that is working relatively well. The problems actually lie in the other place. What are you to make of a Deputy Prime Minister—I am sorry that there are no Liberals speaking in this debate who could defend him—who describes this place as a thousand Peers who get £300 every day for doing nothing? That is such a travesty. It absolutely plays to the gallery and reinforces a view that is damaging. I would not mind that kind of ill informed criticism from the other place if the other place were doing its job, but it is not. We on this side of the House had a manifesto commitment that we would end the automatic timetabling of Bills. Presumably, that has been a casualty of the coalition. Because of that automatic timetabling, this House is overwhelmed by the volume of legislation that needs to be dealt with, so we need Peers in numbers to deal with it.

There have been various proposals to reduce the size of the House. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Williams, suggested that it should be reduced to around 400. The Library Note on attendance says that there has been a bit of an increase: in 2013-14 the average daily attendance was 497, while in 2009 it was under 400. We already have an active House of 400 or 500. That is attendance, by the way, which is not the same thing as an active House. That is people turning up and claiming their allowances, or turning up and voting and perhaps going away. The actual active involvement in the House is considerably less than that.

I do not think that the problem is that we have too many people participating, although I entirely accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, that perhaps we need to look at our procedures. You do not actually need to limit speeches to two minutes in a debate if you make more time for the debate, or if you alter your procedures so that people cannot put their name down right until the last minute. I wonder if we might take a leaf out of some of the good things that have happened in the other place since I left it, such as the control of the business being more in the hands of the House than in the hands of the Whips, or indeed whether we should look at whether the question of how many committees we have should be more in the hands of the House. Perhaps we might even elect the Chairman of Committees, as they have done in the other place—I can see that the Chief Whip is beginning to think of something that he can do to me. Still, we need to look at our procedures.

The coalition agreement, which contains the extraordinary and ridiculous commitment that we should alter the size of the House to reflect the proportions elected at a general election, is mathematically illiterate. It would mean an exponential increase in the size of the House—I do not know, perhaps some of our friends on the Liberal Benches can help me with this—or does it mean that, if at the next election there is a great reduction in the number of Liberal MPs and the Liberal vote, colleagues here will be applying for a leave of absence? I think not. It is an unworkable proposal, and I think that it comes from the Deputy Prime Minister who is absolutely determined to destroy this place. He is doing so, too: he refused to allow us, as a self-regulating House, to bring forward the reforms that were contained in the Steel Bill, which was more and more watered down, and talked about not having “reform-lite”. To me it smacks of Caligula appointing his horse as consul in order to destroy the institution; they are deliberately allowing this House to be more and more ridiculous, and it behoves us to take more action to change that.

I therefore welcome the proposal that the Procedure Committee should look at possible changes that we can make ourselves. However, the most important change that we can make is how we ourselves behave in this House. We have to take a decision: are we too old? Are we not able to put in the time? Are we not making a proper contribution? Should we really have claimed allowances on that occasion? These are the things that are down to the personal responsibility of Members. The other thing that needs to be done, while we are talking about reform, is that the other place and the Government should show more respect for this House. For example, Ministers in this House should be paid, not expected to find their remuneration either from the allowances or from their own pockets.

On the issue of retirement, I would like to mention one story. As many noble Lords will know, in her latter days when Baroness Thatcher used to come to this House, she was increasingly frail. One day I said to her, “Margaret, you know, you don’t have to come to this House so often. You’ve done your duty by your country; you’ve been Prime Minister. People love to see you but you mustn’t feel you’ve got to come in”, whereupon she set upon me and said, “Michael, when we were appointed to this House, it became our duty to come here. It’s our duty to do so until the day we die. Now, how often do you come here?”. I think that that sense of obligation is being released by the introduction of the procedure that, although I regret to see him retire, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has taken advantage of today. Let us see how far that innovation will bring about change.

There are ideas that are worth looking at, such as ending the hereditary by-elections. I agree with my noble friend Lord Jopling that there should be a cap on the size of the House. I do not know how we would do this, but I think there ought to be a stronger Appointments Commission that made sure that appointments to this place were seen to be sensible; that would be important for the protection of the political parties as well as of the reputation of this House. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Butler, I think there has been a conspiracy to make this House look ridiculous by people who wish to destroy it.

Lastly, while we are on the subject of reforms to this House, I know I should not mention this because no doubt I will be mocked for doing so, but the size of the House adds to pressures on facilities. Whoever is running the catering facilities, though, really ought to get real and recognise that the catering exists to service this House, rather than the House being a franchise that is given in order to run the catering. For example, being told that you cannot book in the tea room, as the noble Baroness, Lady Oppenheimer-Barnes, told me the other day, unless you are there at 3.30 pm when actually you want to be in the Chamber for Questions, indicates how that has gone wrong. There is also the issue of facilities being closed down so that there is enormous pressure on the remaining facilities. It is down to us ourselves to get a grip and reorganise our affairs to take account of the reality of where we are now.

Implications of Devolution for England

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend accept that these proposals, together with the proposals for further devolution in Scotland, are regarded by many people outside this place as having been conceived in panic, delivered in haste and furthered by political expediency? Will she not therefore reconsider the Government’s view that there should not be a constitutional convention to look at this matter on the basis of consensus between the parties, which is the basis upon which we should make constitutional changes? The only beneficiaries of this approach have been the nationalists, who are surging in the polls, and this is not a moment to divide the unionists.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I shall try to make this as clear as I can. We are not ruling out a constitutional convention at all. There are clearly matters that some people would like to see addressed in a constitutional convention. We are saying that, in the light of greater devolution to Scotland, there is a need for us to address the issue of English votes for English laws. This is not being rushed into; Parliament has been looking at it for a very long time. We have some clear options, which we are inviting people to debate. We feel that that should happen without delay and that bigger issues beyond that should not be a reason to delay getting on with something that is very important to the people of England.

Business of the House

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

That Standing Order 46 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with on Tuesday 9 December to allow the Childcare Payments Bill to be taken through all its remaining stages that day.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I do not want to detain the House, but may I ask my noble friend if there will be another opportunity to debate the Autumn Statement? Does she really think that it is acceptable for speeches to be limited to five minutes on such an important subject?

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston)]

My Lords, yesterday we repeated the Autumn Statement and had an opportunity for questions to my noble friend on that Statement, and now we have the debate today. We have had frequent debates on the economy, and I would expect to see that continue. I am not in a position to confirm when there will be another debate, but I am pleased to see that there is a great deal of enthusiasm for today’s debate. I wish everyone participating in it a very successful debate.

House of Lords: Procedures and Practices

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am saying to the noble Lord that we are all responsible for ensuring that people have an opportunity to ask questions at Question Time. It is important to state that this House is usually keen to hear from those who are not frequent askers of questions, if other noble Lords who are more frequent in the asking of their questions are more readily willing to give way to them. That is what the House is usually keen to see.

While we are on the subject of Questions, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, asked why we have so few Urgent Questions allowed. The Government always consult the Opposition on which Commons UQs to repeat here, and every one that the Opposition want repeated is repeated. If he has any questions on that, I suggest that he raises them with the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, referred to my noble friend the Chief Whip’s decision yesterday to go ahead in any case and repeat the Autumn Statement but I think that that was vindicated, not least because of the contribution made today by my noble friend Lord Forsyth, who was asking for more time for debates on the Autumn Statement. We are here all the time to try to ensure that noble Lords are able to debate and determine the topics that they wish to consider.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Does my noble friend not think it extraordinary that on a matter as important as the Autumn Statement the Opposition should not want the opportunity to criticise the Government? Or is it that they just had nothing to say?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I could not possibly comment. My noble friend the Chief Whip felt that the House as a whole, regardless of the Opposition, wanted the opportunity to ask questions, so he went ahead as he did. I am sure that many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Forsyth, were grateful to him for that decision.

I move on to the category of points raised under the heading, “Arrangement of Business”. As the noble Lord, Lord Butler, acknowledged, we have already changed an awful lot in this Parliament to make our work more relevant and accessible to those who want to engage with it. We have indeed created more opportunities for Back-Bench debates on matters of interest, including the introduction of topical QSDs, which allow time-sensitive issues to be debated quickly, and we have significantly increased the availability of QSDs more generally. We have also devoted more resources to ad hoc Select Committees so that a wide range of cross-cutting topics are able to be scrutinised in detail by noble Lords.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, asked about co-ordinating sitting times with the Commons. Where we can, we do. In the main, our sittings are aligned because the two Houses work closely together. However, as my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said, we are a separate Chamber with our own priorities, and it is right that we organise our sittings to meet our overall needs.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, also asked about the notification of business. The forthcoming business document produced by the Government Whips’ Office gives a three-week forecast of business in this House, and, clearly, we work hard all the time to ensure that we provide as much information as possible.

The role of the usual channels was raised by several noble Lords, and I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, for his comments about how the usual channels work in the interests of the House as a whole, not against them. I dispute the point that the noble Lord, Lord Butler, made. Indeed, we have tried, through the usual channels—whether by ensuring that we schedule business so that we have the right people on the Opposition Front Bench in place to challenge the Government, or by beginning to publish more business calendars on government Bills—to make sure that those who want to engage with our business are able to do so because we provide enough information in advance about what will happen and when.

The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, made an interesting remark about the digitisation of our amendments. That might lead to complications, but on the general point that she makes, a lot of departments are trying to do that now to ensure that there is greater clarity on how amendments affect legislation.

The proposal for a Back-Bench committee was looked at and voted on by this House—I dispute the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Butler, described that process. The point is that everyone in this House is able to table Motions for debate themselves, without anybody else deciding it. Any noble Lord can go into the Table Office and table a debate, and they are now looked at in the order in which they were first scheduled.

Noble Lords raised several other things—

EU Council

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I have tried to make it clear, both in the Prime Minister’s Statement that I have repeated and in the responses I have given to points made today, that the Prime Minister has been very active in taking a leading role in Europe, both on the specific agenda items that I have talked about and in saying that we believe, as do others, that the European Union needs to reform. The Prime Minister is absolutely clear that there are real benefits to this country from being in Europe and he has spoken loudly about those benefits.

However, the situation in which we find ourselves with the budget on this occasion cannot be as the noble Lord describes. Why are other European leaders also surprised to find themselves in receipt of a big bill, as the UK was last week? I will see whether there are any specific further data that I can share in response to the noble Lord’s point, but I say to him that people in this country see the benefit of Britain’s place in Europe. They see that it has an important place in achieving some important international objectives, whether about Ebola or climate change. However, those successes and important advances do not come at any price. The way in which the European Union sometimes behaves and operates means that it lets itself down in the eyes of the people who have to fund its membership.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, describes as a “kerfuffle” is about £1.7 billion? We have not got any money. We are borrowing money in order to pay our bills. Surely the point is that the European Union is spending too much. It simply cannot issue continuing demands as it has and argue that that fits some formula or other. Will my noble friend note that the Opposition have singularly failed to indicate whether they would pay this money or not? The truth is that they are a pushover as far as this is concerned. Is my right honourable friend the Prime Minister not right to try to get the European Union to put its house in order and live within its means, as everyone else has to do?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend is absolutely right on every point. I would add that we should remember that it is not clear for what purpose the European Union needs this extra money, and that this is an organisation whose accounts have been qualified for many years.

Leader of the House: Cabinet Membership

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Leader of the House will be attending Friday’s Cabinet meeting as a full member of the Cabinet.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Baroness Stowell of Beeston)]

My Lords, I will attend Friday’s Cabinet, as my noble friend and predecessor Lord Hill would have done, and will be able to participate fully in Cabinet discussions just as he would have done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I am sure that I speak for the whole House in congratulating my noble friend on her appointment, and I am sure that she will do a brilliant job as the Leader of the House. The Companion to the Standing Orders, in paragraph 4.03, on page 61, says:

“The Leader of the House is appointed by the Prime Minister, is a member of the Cabinet, and is responsible for the conduct of government business in the Lords”.

It says so because it is vital that the Leader of the House has the authority of a Cabinet Minister, especially given the large volume of legislation that comes from the other place undebated and unconsidered. She needs the authority to be able to say to other Cabinet Ministers, “This will not wash”, and to say to the Prime Minister, “I think you need to think again”.

Can my noble friend reassure me that the Prime Minister will bring the situation into line with our Standing Orders and with the guidance in the Companion? Is she really happy with a situation where, for the first time in the history of this House and of Cabinet government, there is no Cabinet Minister in this House? What sort of signal does that send to the Civil Service and others about the authority of this place in its important duty of revising legislation?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, my noble friend raises a number of important points. Clearly he is right to question whether the Leader of the House of Lords is fully equipped to do that job. I am absolutely confident that the Prime Minister has given me the authority I need to represent your Lordships in Cabinet. A few months ago, in answer to a Question on another topic, I said that sometimes I liked to think of myself as an action woman. I like to get things done. I do not need status in order to get things done. I have the authority I need and I shall be judged on the work that I do.

Living Wage

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I certainly agree with the noble Lord that we are encouraging more employers to be productive. Much work has been done to that effect but I point out to him that the minimum wage is now increasing faster than earnings. The rise of 3% in the adult rate will mean that low-paid workers will enjoy the biggest cash increase in their pay packets since 2008. A rigid formula does not allow for changing economic circumstances, for example imposing a target set by politicians. That would result in job losses if it is set too high and lower earnings if it is set too low.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that the most important thing is take-home pay and that therefore the Government’s efforts to reduce the burden of tax on the low aid are what matter? Does he not think that an Opposition who refuse to deny that they would increase national insurance if they were in government have a cheek talking about the effect on living standards of taxation?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My noble friend makes some good points. The only real way of achieving sustainable increases in living standards is through focusing on economic growth, employment and reducing taxes for the low paid, as he said. Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the IMF, said recently that the IMF had,

“underestimated the growth of the UK economy”.

In a significant turnaround, the fund’s latest assessment found that the UK economy had rebounded strongly.