House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Lord Grenfell Excerpts

Friday 28th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grenfell (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sorry to miss out on that viscountcy, but a barony gets you quite far in Paris, anyway—at least these days it is not to the guillotine.

When I was studying modern languages at King’s, Cambridge, some 58 years ago, I struggled through the plays of a 19th-century Viennese dramatist and poet called Franz Grillparzer. That is not an exercise that I would recommend to any first-year undergraduate —it is pretty painful. Recently, I came across an English translation of his rather remarkable play “King Ottokar’s Fortune and End”, which is about the founding of the house of Habsburg. I quote the king:

“This is the curse upon our noble House, to strive half-heartedly by half measures, to bring about half of what must be done”.

This House’s attempts at reform have fared rather better than that, but one has to say that Grillparzer’s anguished words are not wholly inapplicable.

However, this Friday morning we have before us a Bill that is living proof that we have not given up, despite the frustrations and reverses that have punctuated our slow but visible progress towards a reformed House. This, as the noble Lord, Lord Steel, says, is a modest Bill which is limited in scope. However, it would not be before us at all but for the noble Lord’s persistence and skill, which has brought us to the point where the House of Commons could see the wisdom of incremental reforms as a means of keeping the momentum of progress alive. We are hugely in his debt and we are profoundly grateful also to Mr Dan Byles in the Commons for having picked up the torch and steered this Private Member’s Bill through its legislative stages in another place.

I pay warm tribute to two other noble Lords, around whom a body of opinion of Lords reform has coalesced into what I would call the sensible tendency. I speak of the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Norton of Louth, who founded some 12 years ago the all-party bicameral campaign for an effective second Chamber, a group at whose creation I was proud and privileged to be present. Under the guidance of these two noble Lords, the group has worked tirelessly to keep the debate on reform going along sensible and practical lines, scrutinising carefully the legislative efforts to reform this House and putting forward ideas that carry much weight in the continuing debate. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, has been a very active contributor to the work of this group, which in turn has eagerly supported his legislative initiatives.

As I said at the start, the Bill before us is a modest Bill, but it does take us forward and its Second Reading deserves our enthusiastic approval, following which this House should ensure its unqualified and unamended passage to the statute book. For me personally, its first clause—on resignation—is poignant, as it seeks to set in statute the scheme set out in the Companion to the Standing Orders, of which I am only the fourth to take advantage. I noticed in the Times that one of the four, Lord Hutchinson, is 99 today. On behalf of all of us, I send him warm birthday wishes. However, it has struck me as strange that we had to wait until the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, in 2011 to give Peers the right to retire permanently from the House. That right is now about to be enshrined in statute. If it results in a gradual reduction in the size of the House, it will be a convenience not just to Members wishing to retire, but to Parliament as a whole, on which the burden of an overpopulated second Chamber weighs ever more heavily. The right to retire will not of course reduce numbers to the level to which we must surely come over time. However, combined with the provisions of Clause 2, relating to non-attendance, it will take us slowly but surely in that direction.

Clause 3, relating to Members convicted of a serious offence, is eminently sensible, clearly drafted and just. I will comment no further on it. Clause 4, on the effect of ceasing to be a Member, clarifies what has hitherto been a rather confused and uncertain set of terms. The purpose of Clause 5, relating to the Lord Speaker’s certificate, is self-evident, but since we are mentioning the Lord Speaker’s role, might I slip in here a plea that the role of the Lord Speaker generally ought to be reviewed by this House? That is in fact overdue, since such a review after five years was called for in the legislation establishing the office of the Lord Speaker in 2005.

The need for a review happens to be one of the recommendations contained in a report to Labour Peers on the future of the House and its place in a wider constitution. A group of nine Labour Peers, which my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton and I had the honour to co-chair, has worked for over a year to produce a report enshrining 22 recommendations with full supporting arguments, which we presented to the whole body of Labour Peers this last Wednesday afternoon. It will shortly be available to the whole House.

I should begin by saying that none of the 22 recommendations flies in the face of provisions set out in the Bill before us today. To the contrary, our recommendations on retirement and non-attendance chime well with Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill, although in each case we have gone further than the Bill down the same path. We have explored in detail how to reduce the size of the House, on the principle that size must follow function, and we have carefully addressed questions of membership and methods of appointment, with a strong recommendation that this House be a House of fully participating working Peers, while recognising that that does not necessarily imply a full-time job.

We have agreed a pretty comprehensive set of recommendations, but we have not included any recommendation regarding the big issue of whether the House should be an appointed House or a fully or largely elected body. That was not because we feared to enter that divisive debate but because a consensus would not have been possible, given the divisions of opinion in our group. More importantly, we feel that a reform of such magnitude and constitutional significance can be addressed only in the context of a reform of Parliament as a whole. Reforming the composition of the Lords is only one on a list of issues on the governance of the United Kingdom that need to be addressed in the next Parliament. We believe that such big issues will never be resolved without consensus being reached away from the political ferment. That is why we are recommending the establishment of a constitutional commission to report within two years of its inception in order to make legislation possible during the next Parliament. In the mean time, we want, as this Bill does, the House to continue to reform itself through long and short-term improvements, such as those that we set out in our report to Labour Peers. Some could be implemented quite quickly; others will require legislation. Some are radical, but all are viable.

Two adjectives sum up my personal view of Lords reform, which I dare to put before your Lordships as I take my leave of this House. Reform is better if incremental and it must be proportionate. There is much that this House can achieve if each improving reform builds on and is consistent with that preceding it. The reforms may sometimes appear to be piecemeal, but that is acceptable provided that the pieces fit into a well thought-out mosaic. If the House is certain of its role, the best methods of fulfilling that role can be devised and agreed only on that basis. The reforms must be proportionate to the needs; the pieces must fit into the mosaic. To my mind, the pieces composing this Bill do just that.

None the less, over the years I have formulated an opinion that politicians are not very sound on proportionality. There is a tendency to take too large a hammer to too small a nail and vice versa, perhaps because proportionality can have varying definitions. At the risk of sounding too light-hearted on such a weighty matter, may I illustrate the problem with a little anecdote? At the beginning of the 20th century, the famed writer of theatrical comedies, Tristan Bernard, was walking down a street in Paris when a removals man crossed his path coming out of a building. The man was carrying a grandfather clock on his shoulder, with which he managed to knock the distinguished playwright off his feet. Bernard hauled himself out of the gutter, brushed himself off and said to the man, “Why can’t you wear a watch like everyone else?”. That is proportionality. I hope that the reformers of the House will devise reforms to fit its functions, with reforms that are neither too grandiose nor too timid, but are right for the role that this House must play in the governance of the country, recognising always the primacy of the elected House.

With the indulgence of the House, may I seize this last opportunity to thank all noble Lords, on all sides of the House, for the immense pleasure of their company during the 18 years in which I have been privileged to serve here, first as a hereditary Peer and then as a life Peer, and as a regular attender and participant in our work? I have learnt enormously from noble Lords’ wisdom and have been flattered by their friendship. I also extend my warmest thanks to the whole staff of the House—that wonderfully helpful and kindly band of men and women, of every rank, who have made my life here as a Member so agreeable and so easy to live.

Many colleagues have asked what I am going to do next, as if a quiet retirement was something still properly hidden in the mists of the future. I recall what Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher had to say when he left Lambeth Palace:

“Who knows whether in retirement I shall be tempted to the last infirmity of a mundane mind, which is to write a book”.

I assume that he fell for that temptation, but I confess that I never read those particular fruits of his far from mundane mind, so I shall ponder on his words none the less. In the mean time, I shall follow my own personal credo, which is, “Live with your memories and not on them”. I shall have myriad pleasant memories to live with, thanks to your Lordships and to this great House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, I will make only a modest contribution to this debate. As far as House of Lords reform generally is concerned, my view happens to be that we should move to a largely if not wholly elected Chamber. I accept that that is on the whole a minority view, certainly on this side of the House, but that is my view and long has been. I also believe that if we were to have such a Chamber it should have powers not dissimilar to those of the other place, and I can well see that there would be objections to that coming from there. Be that as it may, House of Lords reform generally is back on the agenda, it would seem.

As the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, reminded us—and I share the dismay that he will be leaving us so soon—the Labour Party has apparently published a new policy on this matter. It comes from the pen of the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, and his colleagues, I understand, but I presume that to be Labour Party policy, or the bones of Labour Party policy, when we get to the next election. I express one dismay about that: yet again the Labour Party seems to be disconnecting itself from the views and wishes of the people. A few weeks ago, Labour Peers assisted in the failure to pass the European Union (Referendum) Bill, which would have allowed the people to express a view on that matter. Now apparently they are proposing a Chamber of largely appointed Peers, which, again, does not seem to represent the essential Labour principles to which we had assumed they were attached.

[Lord Grenfell]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord but I should correct him on one point. This is a report from a group of Labour Peers to their fellow Peers; it does not mean that it is Labour Party policy. It is the views expressed by a group of Labour Peers of what we think might be, and would like to see as, Labour policy. The other point is that we are certainly not recommending an appointed House. We deliberately avoided trying to find an answer to the knotty question of whether there should be an elected or appointed House. That has to wait, in our view, for a constitutional commission.

[Lord Trefgarne]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that clarification. I am particularly grateful because, referring to one sentence in the report—I assume this likewise to be in error—the Daily Telegraph says:

“All hereditary peerages would be abolished and no more should be created”.

Apparently that is not the view of the noble Lord’s committee and I am happy to hear it.

Turning to the Bill, I broadly support what is proposed. At one of the earlier stages—I forget which one—I referred to the problem of overseas convictions of Members of your Lordships’ House. That matter has been dealt with and I am grateful for that. Therefore, I, likewise, hope that the Bill will proceed to the statute book fairly swiftly.

Finally, I would like to refer to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral. I am so sorry he is not in his place. He described at some length his wish for some financial arrangements. I think he was saying that they should perhaps not come from public funds but from some other source. I am obliged to remind your Lordships that in 1999, 600 or so hereditary Peers left without so much as a penny. I say to my noble friend the Leader: if support for departing Peers is to come from public funds, I should be very much opposed to that, or if it is to happen it will have to be backdated to include the 600 or so hereditary Peers of 1999, which I dare say will create problems in the Treasury, even more than there are at present. But it would not be just to provide Peers who are allowed to depart now on a voluntary basis, or even on a compulsory basis, with financial recompense when in 1999 not so much as one penny was provided. Of course, I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was proposing, which I think was a private fund of some sort, and that would be a different matter. But I hope that departing hereditary Peers from 1999 might likewise be considered for support from that measure.

I, too, share the hope that the Bill will shortly reach the statute book and will do nothing to prevent that happening.