House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this important opportunity to reflect on the lessons of the extraordinary experience of the last 14 months. I sympathise with the sentiment of the Motion in the name of my noble friend Lord Cormack. Like other noble Lords, though, I do wonder whether the House’s normal working practices, in the broadest sense, enable it to be as effective as it could be. Do they protect it from its many critics, or do they simply brush under the carpet an aspect of your Lordships’ House which I fear could yet prove to be its undoing?

Others have made a strong case for reasonable adjustments to be made on grounds of disability. I make an additional suggestion. While some may argue that your Lordships’ House’s Achilles heel is its size, I suggest, as others have in this debate, that it is not so much the number of noble Lords that concerns the public, but the perception that its membership is unrepresentative. I should make it clear that I infer no criticism of any individual Member, but when we talk about remote proceedings as a technical term, I fear that, as far as the public are concerned, we are remote because we are seen as unrepresentative of those on whose behalf we make the law.

I therefore suggest that we urgently look at how your Lordships’ House can become more representative and supportive of its disabled Members, particularly in one specific respect. Each maiden speech is unique and personal, yet every one of us begins our journey in this House with an expression of gratitude and a sense of how privileged we feel to be Members of it, as my noble friend Lady Seccombe reminded us. Sadly, my experience of the last 14 months has taught me that we are also a House of privilege, where it is the presumption that each noble Lord will have independent means, in that they will not have to rely on the Lords’ attendance allowance, and that they will not have a disability which makes them, on occasion and sometimes without warning, unable to attend your Lordships’ House and therefore claim the attendance allowance. In my own case, I gave up a well-paid career in public affairs to serve in your Lordships’ House. Quite rightly, a conflict of interest prevents me from continuing that career.

I also have a disability, which in my case means that I could have a fracture later today and be unable to attend your Lordships’ House for perhaps several months. In the meantime, I would have nothing with which to pay my mortgage or my bills—in short, to live on. The fact is that some of us could not be here, could not contribute, without the attendance allowance, yet the House of Lords Commission’s decision in the first lockdown, about which I have spoken in the past, took no account of either a Member’s means or whether they had a disability. Instead, I regret to say that the message was, “I’m all right, Jack; all noble Lords are rich and non-disabled, and we do not need the money.” I am afraid that it does not take a genius to realise that, while that may have been acceptable in 1821, it is not a good look in 2021.

In conclusion, if we want this amazing institution to survive and flourish, as I do, we need urgently to look at ways to strengthen it. A key lesson of the last 14 months is that the current attendance allowance system is not fit for purpose. Until it is reformed, whatever our proceedings, your Lordships’ House will remain remote and therefore vulnerable to those who will call for its abolition.