House of Lords: Membership

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

To move, as an amendment to the above motion, to leave out from “that” in line 1 to the end and insert “this House affirms the recommendation in paragraph 67 of the First Report of the Leader’s Group on Members Leaving the House, chaired by Lord Hunt of Wirral (HL Paper 83, Session 2010-12), that “restraint should be exercised by all concerned in the recommendation of new appointments to the House”; and calls on Her Majesty’s Government to support proposals, in line with legislation passed by this House, to.

(a) allow members of the House to retire permanently from the House;

(b) provide for the exclusion from the House of any member who does not attend the House during a Session save where that member has leave of absence in respect of the Session in accordance with Standing Orders of the House, or where a Session is less than six months long; and

(c) provide that a member who is convicted of a serious offence and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of more than one year shall not attend the sittings of the House.”.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, in moving my amendment to the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, I mean no criticism of the noble Lord. Indeed, I—and, I am sure, all Members of the House—are grateful to him for his determination to bring this matter back to your Lordships time after time.

The substantive point, surely, of what the noble Lord has said is that we have a pressing issue today concerning the size of the House, appointments and recruitment. We need to deal with this matter now, rather than let many more years go by before we engage, as the noble Lord has said, in sensible housekeeping.

The failure of Mr Clegg’s substantive Bill on reform surely means, as the noble Lord has said, that it will be a matter of years before a substantive proposal for reform could be put into practice. Indeed, if one took the proposals of the current coalition Government and those of the previous Government, it would be 2020 even if a substantive Bill were presented and passed after the next election—both of those being subject to some uncertainty given the history of Lords reform over 100 years.

We need to make progress on incremental, sensible changes to your Lordships’ House. I detect a real consensus for some progress to be made today. We are already experiencing considerable tensions as a result of our size. We have had the proposals from the Chairman of Committees, speaking for the Privileges Committee, on reforming the system of Oral Questions because of the problem of the number of Peers wishing to ask them. Often noble Lords are not even able to get into the Chamber for Question Time, which is surely much of the focus of our daily activity.

It is disturbing that there are rumours around this place that the Government intend to appoint dozens more new Peers in the next few days or weeks. I am sure that the noble Lord the Leader of the House will point to the coalition agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, has also referred to it. We were certainly not party to any such agreement before the last election. I am mindful of the paper from Meg Russell, the distinguished academic from UCL, who wrote in April 2011 that the objective of a House of Lords membership that is proportional to general election vote share is unrealistic. She said then that it would require the appointment of, at a minimum, 269 new Peers, and that this would have disastrous consequences for the operation of the Chamber, would be unpopular with the public and would be a foolish and unsustainable course to pursue. It if were continued as a principle at every subsequent general election, the size of the House would spiral ever upwards unless some mechanism for removing Members were also adopted.

I understand that there clearly is a need for fresh blood to be introduced into your Lordships’ House from time to time. I certainly also understand that if the coalition Government were finding that their core legislative proposals were not able to get through your Lordships’ House, their case for making more appointments would be stronger. However, that is not the case. The coalition is winning most of the votes that take place. My understanding is that, in this Parliament so far, the Opposition have won about 22% of the votes. That compares to the Opposition winning about 30% of the votes against the previous Government. Even from the Government’s point of view, it is difficult to see the argument that they need a huge number of new Members because of difficulties in the process of getting their legislation through.

[Lord Dykes]

Is the idea of large numbers coming in even not more reprehensible when a very high incidence of those would be financial donors from the business community, which is tantamount to giving bribes to political parties to become Members of this House?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, that is certainly a point of view. However, I am hoping today that the House might adopt a rather consensual view because I sense that, whether we come from one of the parties or from the non-aligned or Cross Benches, there is a genuine concern about the need to sort out issues to do with the size of the House and retirements and appointments. I will therefore desist from responding to the noble Lord’s intervention.

The Leader of the House enjoys enormous respect here and rightfully so. I ask him to take note of this debate, put aside further large-scale appointments to the House, and work with others in the House to suggest a sensible way forward that deals with the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Steel. The fact that rumours of large-scale appointments have been with us for many months suggests that the Government know it is not the right thing to do.

The sentiments behind the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, are perfectly understandable and I am most grateful for his acknowledgement that he is prepared to support my amendment. I put my amendment down because I did wonder whether it was right for the House to seek to prevent the introduction of new life Peers who had already been appointed by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister. As the noble Lord, Lord Steel, has such a distinguished pedigree, I did wonder what Mr Asquith would have made of his Motion, given that, with the King’s approval, Mr Asquith threatened to flood the place with new Members if the House resisted the Parliament Bill in 1911. At that time the House agreed to let it through. I wonder what Mr Asquith would have made of the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, if their Lordships had prevented the flooding of the House in that period. I am also aware that the noble Lord has received a letter from the chairman of the Appointments Commission, the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, who is concerned that if the Motion were to be put into effect Cross-Bench appointments would not be allowed to take place.

We all agree with the sentiment behind the noble Lord’s Motion. My amendment deals with these matters in a sensible way. Above all else, this is not about politics but is an attempt to achieve consensus and to recognise that many Members of your Lordships’ House wish to see progress made. It is an indication to the Government that they need to desist from making large-scale appointments at a time when the House is already full. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I am always in favour of people knowing about the things that they are talking about. I always listen with great care to what my noble friend Lord Elton says.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I shall respond very briefly. I welcome the willingness of the Leader of the House to seek advice from Members of your Lordships’ House. He is a fresh pair of eyes and we very much look forward to working with him. I also very much support his work in trying to encourage Members who perhaps are not as active as possible to participate more in the future. Ultimately, though, I was disappointed with his response. He started to trade statistics and there always seems to be a risk in doing so. My general conclusion is that whatever Government are in power, in general and over time that governing party will tend to see an increase in the number of seats they hold in the House of Lords. I certainly agree that we need fresh blood form time to time, and I actually agree that restraint has been shown so far. As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, the issue is the future. The rumours which have been around this House for quite a long time now are that the Government want to make a very large number of new appointments in the next few weeks or months. Above all, I hope that the noble Lord will consider this. The plea of restraint is very much directed at those future appointments.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, helpfully reminded the House of my own views on Lords reform. I was hoping that my noble friends behind me might forget that, but they are right—I have consistently voted in favour of an elected House. However, the Leader of the House essentially says that because the Commons voted at Second Reading for Mr Clegg’s Bill, that means that it would be wrong to put to them proposals for incremental housekeeping. As someone who favours an elected House I strongly refute that. First of all, that Bill did not go through. Secondly, under the proposals of Mr Clegg, or indeed those of my right honourable friend Mr Straw, if a party pledged an elected House of Lords and that party came into power in 2015, the first element of elected Members would not come to your Lordships’ House before 2020. That is seven years away. For the Leader of the House to say that no useful housekeeping or incremental change can take place before that moment is a matter of regret. I think that is the implication of what he said.

I do not think that we can wait. We need to indicate to the Government that sensible change ought to happen as soon as possible and say that we very much hope that restraint will be exercised in the appointment of new Members. It is important that the House has a way of indicating its support for those intentions, so I will put this to the vote.