House of Lords: Allowances

Lord Graham of Edmonton Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monson]

My Lords, I agree with a great deal of the argument proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, although I do not claim overnight allowance. I agree with his argument about fairness—or absence of fairness, as the case may be—and with his contention that the proposed changes will not, as is hoped, satisfy elements of the media or the public.

I turn briefly to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. Can the Leader of the House confirm that the proposed £300 and £150 are maximum daily allowances and that if a Member on a particular day felt that the amount of time, effort and expense incurred justified only a slightly smaller claim—say £120 or £100 —he or she would be free to make that claim and would not be faced with a choice between £150 and nothing at all?

[Lord Graham of Edmonton]

My Lords, I support the recommendations and fully recognise that colleagues on all sides of the House are not only entitled to but are justified in making their comments, especially from their own experience. I have been a Member of this House for more than 25 years, and until the past 18 months I never dreamt that there were different interpretations of the rules. I am not an expert, but I was told what I could claim and I have claimed it. Yet I have been astounded to find that colleagues, whose integrity I do not impugn, have interpreted the rules differently.

Colleagues in the House have gone through the past 18 months fearing that they will accidentally find themselves in trouble when they are not trouble-makers—and I very much sympathise with my noble friend Lady Symons. That is in part due to the various anomalies and blemishes in our arrangements, as has been explained by various experts and keepers of our conscience, from the Clerk of the Parliaments downwards. I pay full tribute to all my colleagues around the House. I look at the Leader; he and I have sparred for 25 years. None of us has lost any weight, we are still standing, and we are still here. From the Leader downwards—I say that with no disrespect to anyone—colleagues have had not only to wait until today but to grapple with finding a solution. What we have before us is their idea of a solution. I am sure that the Leader and his colleagues will understand that there will be a need to revisit the issue in light of what has been said by a number of colleagues.

As far as I am concerned, I am not wedded to either the past or the future. I accept that what we are looking at is the product of our good friends who help to lead us in one way or another. However, we are entitled to dignity and respect from outside the House for what we try to do. We know that it is terribly difficult to measure who is a good Member, who is not and who attends every day. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, said that he is able to give 60 or 70 days a year here and, when he is here, he makes his presence felt. But others are able to attend more or less every day. We are all on the same level as far as integrity is concerned, and we are all entitled to weigh up our responsibilities in light of the great honour given to us by our party leaders, et cetera. The one thing that sticks in my craw is that collectively colleagues from all around the House, who without exception are good and honourable, have had to carry the burden of a nasty campaign waged through the press. At the end of the day we know that, whatever decision we take, we will be subject to exploitation and criticism by the press and others.

We are here to look at the benefits of the proposals and the extent to which our colleagues are saying, “This is what we think is a fair and equitable system”. I respect very much the point of view put by my noble friend Lord Tomlinson and others that noble Lords will lose out. As far as I am concerned, we will all be winners if we accept the Leader’s recommendations, and I wish them well.

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

My Lords, before the Leader of the House concludes today’s debate, I wonder whether the House might feel that it is time now for me, on behalf of the House Committee, to attempt to address those points which noble Lords have addressed to the committee’s report rather than to the Leader’s two resolutions. I shall attempt to deal first with the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Methuen. As the noble Lord described, that amendment would extend the £150 allowance for certain types of mandated business in the second category in Annex A of the report while away from Westminster on the days when the House is not sitting.

The House Committee took the clear view that now was not the right time to expand or uprate the entitlements on business away from Westminster. Therefore the range of entitlements is exactly the same as at present. For the types of business in category B, I point out that up until a few years ago, when they were reviewed by the House Committee, there was nothing paid at all. Category B was then included; it includes such things as CPA and IPU business. Members are currently reimbursed the relevant categories of expenses only in respect of days when the House is sitting. This sort of activity has been quite clearly distinguished from travel as an official representative of the House or a committee where Members are acting on our behalf. The noble Lord is asking for the current policy to be expanded, and on the grounds of cost and principle the committee does not support such an expansion at this stage. I emphasise that these categories and rates were reviewed relatively recently by the House Committee and that they will probably be reviewed again in due course.

The noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, made an interesting point about all-party groups—particularly on all-party country groups. Those have never been included in any category for allowances. It could be limitless if we were to include that sort of thing and, as I have said, we felt that this was not the right time to expand the entitlements and that we should try to keep them the same.