House of Lords: Membership

Lord Hughes of Woodside Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Lords Chamber

As for the assertion that a retirement scheme is already in place, which only two Members have taken up, it is not a retirement scheme at all. It is simply an extension of leave of absence and those two Members who think they have retired will find that they get in the post a Writ of Summons for the next Session in two or three months’ time. The Chairman of Committees and his committee are trying to reduce the amount of postage and costs to the House—as they told us by sending us mail on only the second day. Yet here we are sending out mail to people who think they have retired.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

On a point of clarification, is it not the case that next Session we will not get a Writ of Summons? That comes only after the end of this Parliament.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

If that is right, I accept the correction, but the basic principle is correct. Members have not retired; they have simply got leave of absence. That is the point I make. It is technically correct to say that the Bill does not reduce the numbers in the House, but that is not a valid point. What it does is to give this House the statutory authority that the original report, by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, said we needed to devise a scheme of retirement. All sorts of schemes have been put about. If these were not times of austerity, we could have had a retirement or resettlement grant, or the opposite—a cut in the allowances paid to Members who have served over a certain number of years or reached a certain age. We could leave it to each of the parties and groups in the House to come to some arrangement. We could even have an age cut-off in our Standing Orders. All these are possibilities, but there is no point in debating them because we do not have the power to do any of them

All we ask of the Government is to let us have the statutory authority to bring to an end the present law, which says that, whether you like it or not, you are a Member of this House for life and that this the present situation. As for the sentence that only future criminals would be removed from the House of Lords, what does that mean? Are the Government seriously suggesting that the Bill should contain retrospective legislation? It simply does not make sense. This Written Answer was in the name of my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire. He is not just my noble friend in a technical sense, he is a very old personal friend, going back to the time before either of us was anywhere near the Palace of Westminster. I know that he is a highly intelligent man. He could not possibly have written this stuff. These phrases and assertions appear time and again in the briefing given to the Deputy Prime Minister when he appeared before the Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee and in letters that he wrote to me and to others.

Somewhere in the machinery of Whitehall, these arguments are being put about, which are unsustainable. The House should reassert what it said back in September and say bluntly to the Government, the House of Commons and the public that we are keen to see this modest housekeeping change so that we reduce our numbers and our costs; and say to the Leader of the House that we wish him all the best in trying to get these measures through to the Government. I beg to move.

Amendment to the Motion

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am a great admirer of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, who has given great service to our nation and to this House. Although I agree with him that the two new Members who have been announced should be given the warmest of welcomes—we all agree with that—I regret to say that I cannot follow the logic of his other remarks. I wish to give my strong support to the initiative taken by my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood, to whom we are all in debt, and very much to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who has moved his amendment moderately and persuasively, and I hope in a way that will have garnered support in all parts of the House.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Since he is a great advocate of reducing the size of this House, might I commend to him the traditional trade union solution to dealing with redundancies: last in, first out?

[Lord Cormack]

If that became the will of the House we would all have to accept it, wouldn’t we? My old and mischievous friend from another place makes his point with his customary tact. It is now 11 years since my noble friend Lord Norton and I formed a group called the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. My noble friend Lord Norton, who did that group great service as our convenor throughout those years, cannot be here today because of his teaching duties at his university. We miss him and the contribution he would have made. We formed that group, over which I have had the honour to preside, because we believe that this Chamber is effective but could be much more effective. We were always committed to an appointed House rather than an elected one, but we also recognise the fact that the House as it exists can and should be improved even though many people in this House—by no means the majority, but a number of very distinguished Members—would like to move towards election. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has made that his position in the past. Nevertheless, surely we can all recognise that the House as it exists is not only capable of improvement but cries out for improvement, not only in its size but in the way in which we do business. We all owe a great deal to noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, who have been working hard in this regard over recent months and years. Whatever one’s ultimate view is, surely we should not stand in the way of what the noble Lords, Lord Steel and Lord Hunt, have referred to as “housekeeping reforms”.

To the Deputy Prime Minister, who has shown an interesting flexibility of mind and memory in recent days, I say, “If you believe that the best is elected, then do not let the best be the enemy of the good”. We think that this House as it exists—and on Mr Clegg’s own admission it cannot be fundamentally changed for some years—should now be changed in the way proposed in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. We all hold my noble friend the Leader of the House in the highest regard. I very much hope that he will take it upon himself as Leader of the House—leader of all of us—to convene a meeting to discuss ways and means of approaching the problems referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Steel and Lord Hunt. He would be doing us all a very great service if he exercised his initiative in that regard and I very much hope that he will. Of course, our expertise and experience, notwithstanding the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, must be refreshed and revived, but if many more Peers are introduced into this House without addressing the current problems we will bring this House into disrepute.