House of Lords: Lord Speaker’s Committee Report

Lord Porter of Spalding Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)]

My Lords, like previous speakers before me, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the committee, before moving straight on to say that I disagree with the recommendations—not all of them, but the principal drive towards reducing the number of Members of this House. It was a question that should not have been set. It is not on the public’s lips; it is not in MPs’ mailbags. There is no need to reduce the number of Peers in the House. The only time it becomes an issue is when the quality of the behaviour of some of us brings the rest of us into contempt, or if the Government are defeated and then some Members of this House are no longer required.

This is not about the size itself. We already have clear evidence that only 490 on average turn up, so we have 200-plus consultants on tap who cost us no money but who have expertise they can bring into the Chamber. They do not get paid if they are not here. Once you take off those who are not paid and those who do not claim, that leaves roughly half the number who can currently sit in this Chamber on the payroll. If this proposal is seen through, and we artificially reduce the number of Peers to 600, it will end up costing the taxpayer more. If there are 600 full-time working Peers in this building, that would cost about another £6 million. I am not aware of any organisation that seeks to wound itself in terms of its experience and capability and at the same time cost the people it serves more money. That would be very perverse.

It would also drive up the average age of Peers entering this House. I am not sure that anybody aged 40 or 50 would choose to come in—in the middle of a career break—do 15 years and then find out they not only had nowhere else to go but had no pension on top of that, because we are not pensioned here. We also get plenty of complaints that the Chamber is too London-centric, but this would clearly drive up the number of people from London to whom this place becomes attractive, while making it less attractive to those from the shires. It would probably make us more London-centric, more expensive and less experienced.

On that basis, I cannot really see the point in pursuing this much further. In addition, to expect the Prime Minister or any future Prime Minister to fetter their own ability to reward people who have done good things or to create spaces in the other place is a bit naïve. I am not sure many Prime Ministers would agree to do that, and I do not think it is fair to try to pressurise this one into doing it. If Members seriously are concerned about the size of the House, we should move some formal stuff that locks future Prime Minsters into place as well and not just fetter the current one’s choice.

Before I sit down, I have a question, but I do not know who to ask and whether I will get an answer. What would happen if the monarch serves a Writ of Summons on somebody and they refuse to come because the Code of Conduct says they cannot?