House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill [HL]

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Friday 24th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on bringing forward the Bill. I am sure she will not mind my calling it a modest Bill because she herself acknowledged that. Both she and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, referred to the context within which we are having this debate, which is one of unparalleled public mistrust. There is mistrust generally but, I am afraid to say, mistrust of Westminster in particular. It is idle for us to pretend that all the mistrust relates to the other place when we are caught up in its tentacles.

If one had a jury of good and honest men and women, unrelated to Westminster, who were to consider what the Bill is doing, they would be amazed that it is not already the law. It seems blindingly obvious, I suggest, that it should already be the regime by which we are here. We are here as an extraordinary privilege; I do not think that there is any greater privilege in this land than to be a Member of this place. We are not like Members of Parliament, who scrimp, save, work and year after year commit themselves to winning a seat in Parliament. When here, we do not labour under a set of obligations to our constituents in the way that they do, because we have none. Being here is an absolute privilege, and there comes with that a commensurate duty to police and regulate ourselves with absolute rigour.

Of course it is difficult—the law says impossible—for a man to judge himself, but we have to do our best, and there is no doubt in my mind that we should pass this measure not only without any reservation but with acclamation. My concern, rather, is that we are not going far enough, but I fully understand why the Bill is limited as it is, because we want to get this through before the election.

We also have to face up to the fact that there are some who do not want us to improve our affairs because they want a stronger case for a more radical reform, including election of this place. There is no getting away from it: they do not want accretional ameliorations. So I think self-reform is vital. This is the very least that we can do and it should be the first of many such measures.