House of Lords: Membership

Lord Laming Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Laming]

My Lords, I will be brief. Perhaps I may remind the House that I try hard to speak personally, especially on occasions such as this, and that I have no authority to speak on behalf of the Cross-Bench group. That will become all too evident very shortly.

The noble Lord, Lord Steel, has vast experience in both Houses of Parliament and indeed far beyond. Furthermore, he has an enviable record of championing changes designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of this House. However, as I hope the House will understand, I was extremely unhappy about the content of the Motion that he has put down on the Order Paper. I am grateful and pleased that he has accepted the amendment.

The one thing on which we can at least agree is that the membership of the House is too large. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, has made plain, this results in colleagues feeling frustrated when they are denied the opportunity to serve on committees that are dealing with matters of special interest to them and, moreover, when their important contributions to our debates are limited to three minutes or even less. There is a real issue to be faced about the membership of this House. In my view, the Motion is not helpful. I was going to speak about the report to which the Motion refers but as the noble Lord, Lord Steel, has accepted the amendment I will move on.

Only yesterday two new Cross-Bench Peers were announced. I very much hope that at the appropriate time your Lordships’ House will make those new Members extremely welcome. This House has a record of doing that and we should avoid the danger of giving the impression that we are resisting new Members. My concern is solely about tactics and timing. My fear is that the amendment will be perceived to be either irrelevant in the current situation or, at worst, provocative. I well recognise the thought that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has given to the amendment and I do not doubt for one moment the good intention behind it. However, I still fail to see how it will have a significant impact on reducing the size of this House and, in particular, the pressure on the facilities and costs. We already have a voluntary retirement scheme that has not been a great success. Any form of financial inducement to make such a scheme more popular would, in my view, especially in the current circumstances, be inappropriate. Trying also to reduce the membership of the House by excluding those who do not, for whatever reason, attend regularly could be counterintuitive in that it would run the risk of encouraging them to attend your Lordships’ House.

The frustrations frequently expressed are sincere, although I cannot help but feel that we are in danger of giving the impression that we want to resist any newcomers into our House. That would be to the disadvantage of the work of this House in revising and improving legislation for the benefit of our fellow citizens and holding the Government to account. In recognising that the House is too big, I nevertheless fear that the amendment will not have the desired effect. I hope that out of this will come something that will be a stimulus to much more detailed discussion across the House in order that we can work towards achieving consensus. That said, I will, as always, listen carefully to the 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.