House of Lords: Allowances

Lord Methuen Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Lords Chamber

Finally, I turn briefly to travel, where an expense system based on receipts or the travel card is to be retained. Having attended Sessions of the House for 11 years, every day or a very large number of days in every Session, and travelling 330 miles by rail each week for the past 11 years to work here, I should say that travel is a large part of my life, so I gave some attention to this. I know that some Members, notably the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, have long and hard journeys and would have preferred to retain the present system, or at least the SSRB proposal, which involved first-class travel if working. However, in this area we have, of course, to pay attention to the new rules for Members of the House of Commons, and I therefore accept the House Committee’s proposal that reimbursement of train travel should be limited to the ceiling cost of a standard open ticket. If all the proposals presented to us today are accepted, and I hope that they will be, and we look back later at expenditure and financial support, I suggest that the main factor will be the extent to which any savings are offset by the increased number of new Peers, who will no doubt be attending and contributing greatly to the continued high performance of the House.

[Lord Methuen]

My Lords, I think it may be appropriate that I speak to my amendment at this stage. In so doing, I declare my interests as a member of the British Group of the IPU, although I have not attended any of its delegations, and as a participant in the Lord Speaker's Peers Outreach to Schools programme.

This amendment aims to remove an anomaly in the proposed financial support for Peers participating in external parliamentary activities such as the CPA, the IPU, the BAPG, the BIPA and similar organisations, and the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme and the Police Service Parliamentary Scheme, and refers to paragraph 22 of the House Committee’s report.

Paragraph 3.17 of the SSRB proposals covers these activities:

“we recommend that the House consider whether some or all of these activities should entitle Members to claim a daily fee (and any other relevant allowances) subject to approval as ‘authorised Parliamentary business’”.

Paragraphs 4.22 and 4.23 of the ad hoc group’s report, which are headed, “Away from Westminster”, noted Members’ disquiet about the arbitrary and inconsistent financial arrangements covering these activities. In paragraph 5.22, it recommend new arrangements “as may be agreed” to be presented to the House Committee for approval in due course, which is what we are doing now. Annexe 5 to the report is an indicative list that is effectively the same as that included as Annexe A to the report that we are debating.

The second table in Annexe A covers the external activities of Peers with organisations such the CPA, the IPU, et cetera and the Armed Forces and police schemes, and it is that which my amendment alters. Noble Lords will notice that the second table in Annexe A precludes the payment of any allowances for days on which the House is not sitting. I have attempted to gather information about the number of Peers involved in these activities. With respect to BIPA—the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly—there were about 15 days of assemblies and meetings of various types attended by some 17 Peers. I believe that some of those meetings were on Sundays. They were held at locations within the British Isles, Brussels and Stockholm. I am unable to break them down further into recess and term time.

In 2009, for the British group of the IPU, 12 Peers travelled in the recess and three during term time. About 70 per cent of the BAGP’s activities were during a recess. I do not have figures for the Armed Forces scheme. A noble friend has told me that he attended an attachment with the RAF on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Only the Thursday was a sitting day for which he could claim attendance. I believe that this shows the bizarre nature of the current arrangements.

Noble Lords should note that the outreach programme today has similar restrictions. However, I am glad to say that the House Committee has seen fit to remove this restriction in the new financial arrangements proposed to come into effect after the Recess. Living in Derbyshire, for instance, there is no way in which I can visit a local school and attend the House on the same day, so I am pleased that this change has been made. It is unreasonable that noble Lords who are prepared to undertake the activities listed in this table on behalf of the House when it is not sitting should be penalised in this manner. My amendment corrects this situation. I hope that I will have some support for this amendment.