House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill [HL]

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Friday 29th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I, too, warmly welcome the Bill and I hope that we can agree to send it to the other place as soon as possible after due scrutiny. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on explaining to the House in his introductory remarks that his Bill is neutral concerning the Government’s Bill in the sense that it is neither complementary nor competitive. It should be treated on its merits as a stand-alone piece of legislation. I very much support that.

As for the three provisions, it seems very sensible to allow voluntary retirement. It builds on the work of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral. We had some very interesting comments from my noble friend Lord Soley and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds about the benefit of retirement. Given that the average age of your Lordships’ House is 69, I am not sure that the precedent of bishops retiring at 70 is one that we altogether warm to. I certainly agree that there may come a time when some noble Lords may feel it is time to move on to other places. I do not think it should be forced on Members of your Lordships’ House, but it should be an option.

On non-attendance, it seems absolutely right that unless there are sound reasons, due perhaps to illness, for a Member not attending for a whole Session, he or she ought no longer to be a Member of your Lordships’ House. I very much take the point raised by a number of noble Lords that some Members have been appointed who have hardly come here at all. It raises the issue of what conversations take place between the Prime Minister, Downing Street and some noble Lords about the commitment that they were asked to give.

I know we are not really meant to talk about—as my noble friend Lord Soley said—the war, but the Government seem to have got themselves rather mixed up about whether they actually want noble Lords or Members of the House in future to attend. Any noble Lord who has carefully gone through the calculation on the cost of the proposed new second Chamber will note that, remarkably, the Government seem now to want Members of the reformed House to be part-time Members. Indeed, in the calculations that they have made, they are calculating that elected Members would attend only 75% of the time. This goes along with the other remarkable suggestion from the Government that elected Members of this House would not seek to represent their constituents. Seeing that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, is here today to answer this point, I would like him to comment on the Government’s expectation for attendance, either in your Lordships’ House now or in an elected House in the future.

There is general agreement in relation to the forcible retirement of those convicted of serious offences, but my noble friends Lord Davies and Lord Wills have raised some important points. Will the noble Lord, Lord Steel, agree to meet my noble friends between Second Reading and Committee so that these matters may be satisfactorily resolved?

On retrospection, the wording of the noble Lord’s Bill follows the terminology in relation to the Commons. I understand what he is saying, but it would be helpful if the noble Lord, either in winding up today or in discussions after the Committee stage, could clear up that point to make it absolutely clear that retrospection is not to be applied.

I come to the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and my noble friend Lord Wills about whether we prefer omnibus change or incremental change. Your Lordships’ House has not been very good at omnibus change since it has never been able to achieve it. Certainly, there is a persuasive case that if substantive reform is unlikely, then sensible incremental change ought to be made. No one sitting here today could say with certainty that the Government are going to get their Bill through or in what form they are going to get it through. Even the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that champion of democracy in your Lordships’ House, has been heard to say in recent weeks that he thinks the Government have only a 50% chance of getting the Bill through.

[Lord Dobbs]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I seem to remember the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, standing manfully at the Dispatch Box week after week calling for consensus and, looking around the House, it seems to me that he has achieved it. It is just not the consensus that he wanted.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, having sat in the place where the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is now sitting on many debates on House of Lords reform when my party was in government, the only compensation I ever got from defending our position was looking at the faces of the colleagues of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde.

The argument that incremental change is important and should take place in this context is persuasive. None of us knows what the outcome of the Government’s proposals will be. The proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, are entirely sensible and I hope that we can give them support.

The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, raised Mr Clegg’s rather pejorative remarks about your Lordships’ House. Well, we are grown up, and I think we can take them. I saw the video clip of him speaking to a group of young people in which we were being condemned for our age, if not for other sins. I wonder why Mr Clegg does it. What is it that he hopes to achieve? Whatever one’s views on whether the second Chamber should be elected, surely no one could doubt the integrity of your Lordships’ House in the effective scrutiny of legislation. I hope that, whatever our views on Lords reform, we will hold our heads up high about the quality of the work that we do.

On the question that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, raised about conflict between two elected Houses, I know that we are not really talking about the substantive Bill, but I think I should put it to the Minister that the claim has come from the Deputy Prime Minister that the primacy of the Commons is not affected by the Bill. I refer him to the new Clause 2, which is actually worse than the old Clause 2 because it removes the preamble to the 1911 Act. The significance of the preamble is that it recognises that the Parliament Act was developed to govern the relationship between an elected Chamber and an unelected Chamber. The preamble also states that when an elected Chamber arose, the powers of the second Chamber would essentially have to be codified and restricted. In taking away the preamble, the Government are saying that an elected second Chamber would have all the legitimacy to be as assertive as possible within the constraints of the Parliament Act. Therefore, it could reject every piece of legislation that was brought here. It could take huge chunks out of legislation that was brought here. It could veto every piece of secondary legislation. Given that and given that the reformed House would be elected by proportional representation, how long would it be before the conventions died and the claim came from elected Members that the second Chamber had more legitimacy than the Commons because it more neatly matched the votes cast at a general election? As someone who has supported reform and an elected House, I think the Government owe it to this House and to the nation to set out exactly how their proposals will not eventually challenge the primacy of the House of Commons.

Finally, does the noble Lord not concede that his Government’s proposals are a substantial constitutional change to this nation? Given that, what are they so frightened of that they refuse to call a referendum? Surely, in the end, the people should decide. In the mean time, we wish the noble Lord’s Bill godspeed.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this is the sixth sitting day since Easter for us to enjoy being able to discuss aspects of Lords reform. It is a pleasure to hear a number of positive speeches about some degree of Lords reform being made around the House. The noble Lord, Lord Soley, opened up the wonderful prospect of a whole series of extremely modest Bills carrying on for several years, slowly and gently putting through little bits of Lords reform. I am not sure whether that would take more or less time than one comprehensive Bill but it is at least an interesting prospect.

The right reverend Prelate is a very brave man to raise the question of age limits and whether one’s relevant and current expertise and responsibilities should be taken into account when considering continuing membership of the House. I have sometimes wondered whether, if the possibility of retirement were put to a vote, the proposal that 95 should be the age limit would pass the House. No one has yet tried; perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Soley, will try it with a Private Member’s Bill in the next Session if it is needed at that stage.

I intend to take to heart the opening comment of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, that the less said about the other Bill in this context the better. We are discussing a Private Member’s Bill and this is an extremely modest proposal. I will simply answer a few of the questions that have been raised, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.

The Government’s response to the Joint Committee does indeed say in paragraph 53:

“The Government agrees with the Joint Committee that allowing individuals to maintain relevant professional expertise and attracting individuals who would not want to commit to a full-time role would strengthen the reformed House, as it does the present House. The Government therefore accepts that it is desirable that appointed members should not necessarily be expected to attend every sitting day of the reformed House”.

I do not have to hand the figures for how many Members of the House of Commons attend every day. Of course, Members of the House of Commons often argue that constituency work is more important than attendance at the House every day.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, the Government have also said that they do not expect elected Members of your Lordships’ House to dabble in constituency work. The whole purpose of these elected Members is to be here in Parliament. The calculations do not show 75% attendance by the 20% of appointed Members; they show 75% attendance by Members of the reformed House. It is quite remarkable that the expectation is that elected Members will attend your Lordships’ House 75% of the time when their sole purpose will be to be here to scrutinise legislation.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is precisely the point that the Government’s response deals with. We have a House that consists of a large number of Members who continue to have other aspects to their lives outside. The point has frequently been made on the Labour Benches that the last thing that we want is for Members of a second Chamber to spend a great deal of their time on constituency work. This response deals with that area. However, at present, I do not wish to be drawn further into discussion of a different Bill from the one before us. I merely draw attention to the excellent article by a Conservative—