Interim Report: Leader's Group on Members Leaving the House

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to wind up from the opposition Benches on this interesting debate. Today’s debate has acted as a trailer for the Private Member’s Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on 3 December, which we are all looking forward to hearing the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, respond to—although I am not sure that he quite shares that anticipation. I say to him that it was a great pity that his party would not agree to the sensible provisions in the Constitutional Renewal Bill just before the election; it would have allowed retirement from your Lordships’ House.

I have had the pleasure of being a member of the Leader’s Group. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, for his chairmanship, which is of the highest order. As we have seen, there are, like many things in your Lordships’ House, many different views among noble Lords in relation to potential retirement options. That has been seen in the evidence from the 80 or so responses that the group has received, it has been seen in this debate and no doubt it will be seen if substantive proposals are put forward to your Lordships’ House.

We have heard some interesting contributions today. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn spoke about the “one in, one out” principle, a model which, although fascinating to your Lordships, many noble Lords are not entirely convinced of, though I detected some enthusiasm from the usual channels around the House. My noble friend Lord Graham and the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, made some interesting points about Members’ expectations and the potential of financial inducements. That would be difficult, though, not only at the current time but at any time, although we await the response of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, on that point, notwithstanding the lack of hope and expectation that he gave on that question in his introductory remarks.

The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, referred to the extraordinary debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the agreement, after a seven-hour debate, to extend the purposes for research that the authority could give. I was the Minister during that debate and I well remember the extraordinary quality of contributions, not least from the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, who played an absolutely critical role in the discussions.

The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, also recalled what he described as the good old days before the Life Peerages Act. I have to say that one or two of us here are quite well disposed towards that Act, as indeed we are to the noble Earl. He and my noble friend Lord Strabolgi offer wonderful examples of the contributions that Members who have many years’ experience in your Lordships’ House can make. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, that they illustrate the problem of simply picking one option, such as an age of retirement. They show that what might, on the face of it, be a simple, straightforward approach comes with many difficulties.

The question of retirement from your Lordships’ House is a very sensitive matter. If the House is to come to a view on this, it must be involved in discussion and eventual decision. That is why this debate is important. I hope that noble Lords will reflect on the encouragement that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, has given Members to continue to provide evidence and submissions to the group. I noted that my noble friend Lord Graham suggested the development of a questionnaire, which no doubt members of the group will want to consider.

Before we come to consider the retirement options, we need to reflect on the purpose of this second Chamber. Our debate has, to an extent, wandered somewhat wider than the question of retirement. It is somewhat ironic that the Leader of the House, though genuinely concerned about the size of your Lordships’ House, is shortly to welcome another 50 or so new Members to it. I ask the noble Lord to address this matter. Could it be that he is rather more concerned to ensure that the Government win every Division that takes place in your Lordships’ House than about the size of the membership? If that is the intention, it clearly undermines the ability of the House of Lords to be a revising Chamber. If a Government cannot be defeated and do not fear defeat, how can this possibly be an effective revising Chamber? I say to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that that is of much more concern to the public than the size of the Chamber.

The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, made some interesting points but it seems unlikely that the House would agree to mandatory retirement in the absence of a full reform package. I favour a voluntary approach, on which the group has come up with some useful ideas. I particularly commend the idea of voluntary retirement, which the noble Lord, Lord Walton, spoke about, or the associate membership advocated by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market. I hope we can make that associate membership as attractive as possible. It might embrace the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, which one can trace back to the 1960s and the intention then to place hereditary Peers in a category of non-voting membership whereby they would none the less be allowed to speak in debates. There are some excellent examples of how we might deal with that issue.

Of course, the proposals are mainly aimed at non-attenders or infrequent attenders, of which we have many. Noble Lords have referred to the 79 Members who were unable to attend one day of your Lordships’ House in the 2009-10 Session. A further 68 attended between one day and less than 10 per cent of the sittings. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, would say that that does not really deal with the problem of space and facilities, as the Members in that category make very few demands on the space and facilities. However, it would be a start and might get our number down to about 600, so such a proposal is well worth pursuing.

A number of noble Lords have suggested that we go further. I am sure that when they come to substantive reform of your Lordships' House, the Government might be tempted to go for a cap on numbers and a cull of current Members in order to meet that cap. That clearly is one of the options being considered and is a sort of development of the right reverend Prelate’s “one in, one out” proposal. However, I urge the Government to exercise caution in going down that route. Noble Lords have referred to the election of the hereditary Peers as a result of the 1999 Act to reform your Lordships' House. However, we should recall that the original intention was that no hereditary Peers would go forth into the new House, so in a sense the election was a reprieve for many hereditary Peers. That election took place in very quick time indeed, but even then one observed certain hereditary Peers changing parties and positioning themselves in order to get elected. When the draft Bill is published—its publication date is moving from December to January to February, but let us say that it will be published early next year—and if it contains proposals for a cap and a cull, one has to think that we will probably be in for a four-year period of electioneering among the current Members to enable them to go forth into the new House. I invite the House to think of the dynamics of that situation. Many of us have been involved in political life for many years and know of the benign influence of the usual channels. Some of us have even come across slates. Life would be almost intolerable if it were known that, in around April 2015, there would be an election to decide which current Members would go forward into the new situation. Indeed, I suspect that it would make FIFA’s approach to the choice of a World Cup venue appear utterly exemplary.

I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, that we need to address the inevitable changes coming to the second Chamber and that we need to work with the other place. As an advocate of reform, I have always felt, though, that the successful passage of a reform Bill would be influenced by the generosity of any transition package put forward. Therefore, I would argue for a decent length of time to be allowed for as regards existing Members going forward into the new situation. That is what I have always understood the term “grandparenting” to mean. The problem is that I do not think that the members of the coalition who wrote that part of the agreement understood it in that way. Legislation that has gone through this House over the past 20 or 30 years is clear that grandparenting means that experienced members of a profession who go forward into a new situation where they are subjected to regulation continue as members of that profession. That suggests to me that active Members of your Lordships' House should go forward into the transition period. Therefore, I caution the Government against adopting any arbitrary approach to culling the number of Members in your Lordships' House. I think that it would be much better, particularly in the next year or so, for us to concentrate on a voluntary approach.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, in his excellent leadership of this group, has shown the way in which that might be done. I very much hope that we enjoy the support of your Lordships' House in taking some of those proposals forward.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, what a fascinating, good natured and good humoured debate this has been. Noble Lords have dealt with this extremely interesting subject that affects all of us with great sensitivity, which is what it requires. This is my opportunity to respond to it. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I will not give the Government’s view, any more than he gave the Opposition’s view, as this is still a consultative process and, clearly, we have not made up our minds on what we should do about retirement from this House or about a longer-term transition under a reform process. However, as I said earlier, a Bill will be published early in the new year, which will, no doubt, allow us the opportunity to examine these issues.

As for the Bill of my noble friend Lord Steel, which we are to debate on 3 December, the response that will be given from this Dispatch Box will not be my response but will reflect the carefully considered view of the Government on the merits of my noble friend’s case. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, questioned the need to have new Peers. Other speakers in the debate admirably made the case for needing new Peers. We need to freshen up our numbers from time to time and we will be doing that very soon. If the only motivation for doing that is to allow the Government to win more Divisions, we would not be giving the Labour Party any extra Members at all. I can confirm that the Labour Party is currently the largest party group in the House of Lords, and after the new Peers enter the House it will still be the largest single party in the House of Lords. Even the coalition is still a minority and will continue to be a minority in the House as a whole.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

The fact is that if one takes into account the, shall we kindly say, limited voting of the Cross Benches—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I am afraid that is the case. If we take that into account, then the coalition Government have a practical majority in your Lordships' House. Over the years this House has developed a wonderful reputation as a revising Chamber. However, with the greatest respect, if the House is not able to cause the Government to think again, how on earth can it be a revising Chamber?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I assure the noble Lord that I have absolutely no doubt that in the rest of this long Session the Government will be defeated on many occasions, not least with the support of Members of my own party and, indeed, of the coalition. As the noble Lord rightly says, this is a revising Chamber and we have all been here for long enough to know that that is exactly what happens.

I said that this has been an interesting debate and it has. Perhaps one of the most entertaining speeches was that of my noble friend Lord Ferrers. Those who heard it were not surprised to hear a vintage speech. If we ever have an age limit, it should be a movable one which should always be set at a year older than the age of my noble friend. I noted that the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, jumped up and reminded my noble friend of his views on women Peers in the 1950s. As we would expect, he dealt with that in a very gentlemanly way. However, he ought to remind the noble Baroness that in the House of Commons the party that voted against the introduction of women Peers was the Labour Party. The noble Baroness has cause to be glad that her party lost that vote in the 1950s. My noble friend Lord Ferrers said that we should blame politicians for the state that we are in, but we are where we are and we must go on.