House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords, I agree entirely with my noble friend’s opening remarks about how we can do better. Indeed, I also think that we must look beyond our own internal arrangements. Fortunately, the constitution unit at University College has turned its mind to this, and I am grateful to it for its briefing.

I agree with other noble Lords that the key to this is to get a grip on our numbers. We have to cap the size of the House and to have a timetable for a gradual reduction in size. How do we do that? We do it in two parts, one requiring legislation and one not. Without legislation, the Government could announce a numbers cap and a reduction timetable, reduction being achieved using the same procedure as we used when the hereditaries left. At the same time the Government would introduce a formula for sharing out new appointments between the parties and the Cross-Benchers, all of this to be managed by the House of Lords Appointments Commission. It would call on parties for nominees as and when vacancies arose. Yes, that would mean that the Prime Minister and party leaders had to give up some of their powers of patronage. The Appointments Commission would be responsible for ensuring not only political balance in the House but that there was regional, gender, professional and minority balance too.

All that could be done without legislation. However, legislation would be required to end the hereditary by-elections and to limit future appointments to the House to, say, 15 years with a possible additional five. Legislation would confirm the right of Peers to retire. Legislation would also be required to remove those convicted of serious offences—a reform long overdue.

Controlling our numbers would not only help to inform the other changes that noble Lords have been discussing but would refresh the House in an orderly way. All this, though, is not enough because it looks inwards and serves ourselves. We are not here to serve ourselves; as my noble friend Lord Filkin pointed out, we are here to serve the public, and surely a crucial part of doing that, especially for an unelected House, is to inform, to explain and to be transparent, as the Government are trying to be.

Who knows that the third week in November is Parliament Week? How many of us are going to participate? Yes, 40 of us are going to visit schools on that Friday, but is that enough? Surely, in a modern unelected House, every noble Lord has to be involved in explaining and informing.

My noble friend is right to ask how we can do better. The answer lies not only in internal change but also in external change. For your Lordships’ House, the two must go hand in hand.