House of Lords: Size

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, it is a very real privilege for me to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and to be the first to congratulate him on the way he has opened this debate. I am tempted, after listening to his compelling and comprehensive speech, to follow the advice that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, gave me last Thursday. “Just say you agree”, he said, “and then sit down”. But, of course, it is not quite as easy as that, as I am not sure that I agree with everything that the noble Lord has said, although I was at a disadvantage by not being part of his group. There is no time to go into that now, but I should like to endorse what I take to be the two main messages of his speech, with which I most certainly do agree.

The first is the message that this House believes that its size should be reduced. What a significant step forward it would be—if we are unanimous on the point about which there is so much disquiet among us—for the House itself to make that very public declaration. The second is the message which is perhaps even more important than the first—that methods should be explored by us to reduce its size. That is more important because it is a statement that we are taking the matter into our own hands as far as it is possible for us to do so. We would be saying that it was not for others to tell us what to do—this is our House, we know best what makes it work and we are best placed to sort the problem out. Of course, we may need some assistance, as not everything that affects the issues which the noble Lord has addressed is within our control, but this is our initiative, and I hope that we can make a declaration that we intend, in seeking a consensus, to get on with it.

I shall not attempt to offer any solutions as this stage—this is not the moment to do that—but I should like to identify what I see as six assumptions that I suggest might guide us on our way. The first is that there will be no change in the role of the House as an advising and revising Chamber. It is on that assumption that any calculations as to what its size should be should be based, when we compare our numbers with those of the other place.

The second is that we will continue to be unsalaried for what we do. That is quite important because, where there is a salary, there is an obligation to turn up and to do what one is paid for. In our case, we benefit greatly from the freedom that many of us enjoy to keep ourselves informed by maintaining outside interests and commitments. This means that at least some of those who make some of the contributions that we value most are not here all, or even most of, the time. That is a factor to be borne in mind.

The third assumption is that we will continue, at least for the foreseeable future, to be an appointed, not an elected, House. The fourth, which goes with it, is that for this reason our going out cannot be considered without considering our coming in. That really is where the nub of the problem lies. An elected House has two characteristics that we do not have: its numbers are fixed and any vacancies are filled by the election process. In our case, as I think the noble Lord hinted at in the beginning of his address, the going out used to be in the hands of the Almighty and the coming in in the hands of the Prime Minister. Now, we can choose our own time for going out, but the system for coming in has not changed. It is to the question of how that system can best work for a smaller House that we will have to direct our attention, as well as to how our present numbers can be reduced.

The fifth and sixth assumptions are that the Cross-Benchers should continue, as at present, to be about 20% of our membership, and I am grateful for what the noble Lord said about that. Also, the way on to the Cross Benches from outside the House should continue to be as at present. It is worth repeating that there are only two ways in, and they are very tightly controlled. The first is the Prime Minister’s list, limited to 10 for the lifetime of each Parliament, for very senior members of the Civil Service, the Armed Forces and so on. The second is by way of the independent Appointments Commission, limited by the last Prime Minister to only two per year. For obvious reasons, we do not receive any appointments by way of the political list.

Speaking as I am, from and not for these Benches, it seems to me that, with us, the potential for an imbalance between those coming in and those going out does not present as much of a problem as it does for the other groups. There is one other characteristic of our Benches to which I would draw attention also: in comparison with the other groups, a larger proportion of our number arrive here at or about, or even after, the time of retirement. Our age and length of service profile, and our attendance profile, differ in some ways from the other groups. I am speaking only for myself, but these two characteristics suggest to me that, as our coming in is so tightly controlled, there may be something to be said for leaving it to the Cross-Benchers to work out for themselves, if given a target at which to aim, how to arrange the going out for our group. But that detail is for another day, and I am happy to support the Motion.