Public Expenditure: Members of Parliament

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Grocott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what would be the net cost implications for public expenditure of reducing the number of MPs to 600 and introducing 300 directly elected Members into the House of Lords.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, it is difficult to attribute the exact savings from having 50 fewer MPs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McNally]

Our best estimate is £12.2 million annually, subject to decisions made by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. Estimates on Lords costs will be given when the House of Lords reform Bill is published.

[Lord Grocott]

I am at least grateful to the Minister for enabling me to win my bet, which was that he would not answer the Question. I suggest that he looks at it like this. Will he confirm that on 5 July, his leader, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that the savings from reducing the number of MPs by 50 would be £12 million a year? Introducing 300 directly elected Members of the House of Lords, who of course would have much bigger constituencies, must therefore be at least six times that, at £72 million. Maybe the Minister’s departmental computer could confirm that that would mean a net cost of £60 million. At a time when the Government are looking for any possible cuts in public expenditure that they can find, and given that none of these reforms have any support among anyone out in the real world, why does the Minister not do the common-sense thing, save the money and scrap the lot?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I am rather hurt by the assertion that I did not answer the Question. The noble Lord has confirmed what my noble friend said in another place; that the cost for 50 MPs would be about £12 million. That is half the Question answered; that is five out of 10—a lot better than I used to do in some exams. On the second half of the Question, where the noble Lord is giving numbers for a reformed House of Lords and calculating on his own bases, we will have to wait for the Bill. He and I will then make calculations and be able to assess the cost. I am not in a position to answer both halves of the Question at this moment.