House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Lord Steel of Aikwood Excerpts

Friday 3rd December 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

That the Bill be read a second time.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the House of Lords Reform Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The rules of the House require me to begin in that way, but it might be more accurate if I were to move that the Bill be now read for the umpteenth time. In fact, this will be the fourth debate that we have had on this, as the Bill is substantially the same as the one that I first introduced way back in July 2007.

I know that this debate has been eagerly anticipated. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde, the Leader of the House, said the other day that the House was looking forward to this debate with “inestimable pleasure”. The mind boggles to think what alternative attractions have kept him away on this occasion. On the opposition Benches, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, also said that he looked forward to the debate. I have been wondering about this eager anticipation. I worked out that it is rather like booking to go to a concert where a particularly favourite symphony is to be played. Looking forward to it gives you a pleasurable glow of anticipation at revisiting a favourite work.

However, there is a difference today, as some new Members of your Lordships’ House are participating. We look forward in particular to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, who is a practitioner in these matters. Also, it is a particular pleasure for me to welcome my noble friend Lord Lothian, who is a former constituent of mine, although I do not think that I ever persuaded him to vote for me when he had the capacity to do so. I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

We shall also have the pleasure of hearing from a former Speaker of the House of Commons, the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, and from a former Deputy Prime Minister, my noble and learned friend Lord Howe. Without in any way being disloyal, I hope that the current Deputy Prime Minister will read carefully what he has to say. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, will of course recognise that a symphony is a work of four movements. The Bill that I have introduced consists of four movements—three of which his colleagues, shamelessly and without attribution, adapted in their own way in the constitutional reform Bill introduced by the previous Government. These three proposals were lost in the wash-up.

I begin by saying that this debate is not about whether in future we will have an elected or non-elected House. When I heard the decision of the coalition Government to create an all-party committee to work on a Bill, my original inclination was to say, “Let’s drop the Bill and wait for the Government to come forward with their own proposals”. We were promised them by Christmas, then January, then February. The latest promise is “early in the new year”—but which year is not specified. I was prevailed on by Members in all parts of the House to proceed with my Bill on the basis that we are getting a little impatient, and that even if the coalition Government's proposals in draft form were to proceed smoothly and to timetable, the earliest moment at which the House could begin to enact them would be late in 2012. In the mean time, Members are increasingly concerned that the House goes unreformed.

It is important that we relay to Members in the other place that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, we are not sticks-in-the-mud who are saying that this House is perfect. We are willing to embrace sensible reforms and we are anxious to proceed with them. I was interested the other day to hear one of the new Members opposite, the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, who has a distinguished record of service in the other place, say this:

“When I came to the other place, quite a long time ago, I did not have much time for this place and did not understand it. I thought that this place was undemocratic, illogical, irrational and all the rest of it. That was quite a naive attitude to take and was based on a lack of knowledge of this place”.—[Official Report, 16/11/10; col. 740.]

That is quite common in the other place—and I speak from personal experience. Although I led the Liberal Party for 12 years, and therefore had a close association with my opposite number in this place, at the end of that time I still did not understand how the House of Lords worked, even though I was responsible for nominating new Members to it. That is the problem: we have not got across to the other place how we operate. I hope that, by embracing this Bill, we will signal to Members there that we are keen to press on with updating our procedures and composition.

A moment ago, I said that the Bill consisted of four movements. This metaphor has outlived its usefulness, so let us say four substantial sections. The first is the one that the previous Government dropped, which deals with the statutory Appointments Commission. It was not in the Labour Government's Bill, primarily because the phrase “wholly or mainly elected” still applied and they had not made up their minds—any more than the present Government have—whether a future Chamber should be wholly or mainly elected. Of course, were it to be wholly elected, there would be no need for an Appointments Commission. That was the argument of the previous Government. However, I still believe that if we move in future to a mainly elected House, a statutory Appointments Commission will still be required. In the mean time, it will be required until we get to that point. Therefore, my Bill sets out both the composition of the commission, the principles under which it operates, and in particular the important one that the Government of the day, whether they be a single party or a coalition, should not have a majority in this place. That would set it in statute for the first time.

The noble Lord, Lord Jay, who is not with us today but who has spoken on previous occasions, is the chairman of the present Appointments Commission. He supports strongly the idea that the commission should have a statutory basis. One obvious reason for this is provided by the case of Lord Laidlaw, who promised the commission that he would give up his tax exile status if given a peerage, but went back on that. The commission had no power to do anything about it. The case for making the Appointments Commission statutory is strong: that is the first section of my Bill.

The second section brings to an end the by-elections for hereditary peers. These were introduced as a temporary measure in 1997 and were to last for “a couple of years”—that is the phrase that appeared in Hansard. The system has now lasted for nearly a decade and a half. Clearly, it is completely out of date, and while the election of hereditary peers passes muster—just—in the Conservative Party and on the Cross-Benches, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats view it as a farce. One has perhaps three or four electors and 10 candidates. A Member can be elected to Parliament by something like two votes to one, which makes Old Sarum look like a model of democracy. It is time that this came to an end.

The third section of the Bill deals with the vexed question of whether we should provide for leave of absence or remove those Members who never attend. I will quote from the report of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, which states:

“The House currently has before it relevant legislative proposals in the shape of Part 3 of the House of Lords Reform Bill … introduced by Lord Steel of Aikwood and awaiting Second Reading. Clause 11 of the bill would allow members to apply for permanent leave of absence; clause 12 provides that a member who fails to attend the House during the course of a session should be deemed to have taken permanent leave of absence; clause 13 provides that a person granted permanent leave of absence shall no longer be a member of the House of Lords. A number of members who responded to our consultation reiterated their support—previously expressed in debate on comparable bills introduced by Lord Steel of Aikwood in previous sessions—for the provisions contained in the current Bill”.

The committee came to the astonishing conclusion that, in order to deal with the excess numbers in the House, one would need primary legislation. This is the primary legislation: it is here and available, and we would be sensible to adopt it.

The committee does not specify how the proposals would be introduced. It refers to the fact that the House of Lords, by standing order, would have the ability to introduce a scheme, but that it would be up to the Government to devise the equivalent of a silver handshake. In our debate on the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, my noble friend Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope rightly pointed out that any actuary could provide a simple method of calculating redundancy pay that would benefit the taxpayer and not be an excess burden on them. As far as concerns removing non-attenders, even though they do not occupy space on these Benches, they receive all the papers, some of them have desks and lockers in your Lordships' House, and there is no case for retaining their services. Therefore, the third section of the Bill provides for the first time the capacity for Members to leave this place with dignity and honour after they have given a reasonable amount of service, or after they have reached a certain age.

The fourth and last section is the simplest. It would bring the House of Lords into line with the other place by removing those convicted of offences that carry a sentence of more than one year in prison.

These are the four provisions of the Bill, with which the House is now probably painfully familiar. I will conclude by quoting the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who spoke in a previous debate. He was responsible for the drafting of this Bill, which has been expertly done. He said that there would be those in the House who regarded the Bill as necessary but entirely insufficient, and others who regarded it as necessary and wholly sufficient. He said that noble Lords could disagree on that, but that the one thing on which they should agree was that it was necessary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I begin my remarks by saying how much I welcome the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Lothian, who spoke to us a few moments ago. I had the privilege of serving with the noble Marquess in the Administration of the then Mrs Thatcher. I also had the privilege of serving in your Lordships’ House when his father was a Member here a number of years ago, and I very much welcome his arrival here now.

This is the fourth time—is it?—that my noble friend Lord Steel has introduced a Bill along these lines, but I am sorry to say that his Bill is no more timely now than it was on the previous occasions. That said, I do not necessarily quarrel profoundly with some of its provisions, although I have some detailed points to make. I am not against reform of your Lordships’ House per se and I am looking forward to the government Bill coming forward in draft, as we now hear that it will next year. However, why are some of your Lordships, such as my noble and learned friend Lord Howe and the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, so opposed to the concept of an elected House? While I recognise the potential difficulties, which have been described, they seem to me to have been overcome with considerable success in the United States, for example. I will not dwell on the differences now, but that model is one which I must confess that I am attracted to.

I shall now refer briefly to some of the provisions in my noble friend’s Bill which may need further clarification, amplification or even revision. The noble Lord refers to a new Appointments Commission; of course we already have an informal Appointments Commission appointing the so-called people’s Peers. It seems to have worked comparatively well. It leaves the Prime Minister able to make his own appointments, if he so chooses, while allowing the appointment of people whom we very much welcome in your Lordships’ House: for example, the retired Chief of the Defence Staff, who generally comes here as a matter of course. That is not part of any formal commission, which I suppose would be the case if these provisions became law.

I shall also refer to the question of the hereditary Peer by-elections, as your Lordships would no doubt expect. I need to remind your Lordships that the 1999 Act was passed with the concurrence of the then hereditary Peers in this House, who had a majority and who could have opposed the Bill and prevented it from passing at that time. No doubt it could then have been passed by the Parliament Act, had that been thought necessary, but it was definitely thought that that was too difficult and that a deal therefore had to be struck. A deal was struck that allowed the 92 hereditary Peers to remain, including the by-elections, until House of Lords reform was complete. I am happy to accept that undertaking, which was given at the time and which has been repeated by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on at least one occasion and, indeed, by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde.

I put it to your Lordships that the by-elections should remain as part of the deal—the undertaking that was given to secure the passage of the 1999 Act—and that when House of Lords reform is complete, the by-elections will cease. That is well understood. Incidentally, I am looking forward to hearing about the grandfather arrangements that my noble friend Lord Strathclyde has referred to. However, I dare say that they will not include by-elections and I shall not be insisting that they do. Sooner or later, the hereditary Peers will, I fear, be on their way but not, I suggest, under the provisions proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Steel.

The noble Lord proposes in his Bill some statutory arrangements for leave of absence. I am not in favour of those but I would not oppose some more rigorous arrangements of an informal kind for leave of absence. For example, Peers could automatically be considered to have taken leave of absence if they did not appear for an extended period of, perhaps, six months or a year, or it may be that the Clerk should write to them at the end of the year, asking, “You have not been for a whole year. Would you like leave of absence?” or something of that nature. However, I am not in favour of statutory arrangements.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

The problem with what my noble friend proposes is that, if he reads the report of our noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, he will see at the back that there is a memo from the Clerk of the Parliaments indicating that that cannot be done. It requires a statutory provision, I am afraid.

[Lord Trefgarne]

I understand what my noble friend is saying. I am thinking—I confess that I need to apply more thought to it—of some more informal arrangement where Peers could be persuaded to take leave of absence as a matter of course if they did not appear for an extended period.

I did have a problem with one aspect to which the noble Lord referred. I think that he mentioned some silver handshake arrangements. That will cause me very considerable difficulty because, in 1999, there were no silver handshakes and 600 Members of your Lordships’ House went without as much as a penny. It would therefore be very difficult to introduce a new silver handshake arrangement if that was what was now proposed. The noble Lord also referred to arrangements for Peers to be removed or disqualified for serious misbehaviour. It is very difficult for anybody to quarrel with such arrangements or provisions although I point out that recently, when there were some serious allegations against certain noble Lords, the matter was dealt with very effectively without any new legislation. I hope that that, too, can be borne in mind.

I make the general point that a Private Member’s Bill—no matter how distinguished the proposal, if I may say so—is not really the way to introduce major reforms of a constitutional kind. I am therefore, as I say, looking forward to the Government’s Bill coming forward. It will, of course, receive our very close attention. We will be moving into a Committee stage soon and I dare say that I shall have some suggestions to make to this Bill when that time comes. In the mean time, I can do no more than say how much I am looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, I think that everyone will agree that this has been a very interesting debate. In fact, I have to say that, of all the debates on my Bill, this has been much the most interesting and constructive, because there has been much more agreement on the need for the measures that it proposes than has been exhibited in the past.

I do not propose to refer to everybody’s speeches, because, for me, it is not a question of when I get home but whether I get home, and I am anxious to make a move as soon as possible. However, it was quite interesting that, out of the 25 speeches, we had only two which were opposed to the Bill. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, that I have much more sympathy with their arguments than they would suppose, because a perfectly good case can be made out for scrapping the House of Lords as it is and having instead a small senate, on the American pattern, which would then be a complement and a competitor to the House of Commons. But that would mean a rewriting of the conventions on a much larger scale even than we have been contemplating up till now. That circumstance would lead us ever closer towards a written constitution, which I am in favour of, and would mean, I suspect, a resumption of financial powers of that senate, which we do not have at the moment.

However, that is a debate for another day. My Bill does not cut across such an eventuality if that is what were decided. The cheerful thing about this debate is that more and more Members have come round to the view that these provisions are necessary and that we would like to explore them further.

The debate was greatly enhanced by two quite outstanding maiden speeches, from my noble friend Lord Lothian and the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. Strangely enough, they seemed to dovetail in their approach. My noble friend spoke very wisely about the principles of governance which should direct us, while the noble Lord was very instructive on the history and updating us to what he called a Chamber of “respected revisers”, a very different view from that put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and my noble friend Lord Trefgarne. The question is how we update our composition and procedures to make that more a reality.

[Lord Trefgarne]

I am not opposed to my noble friend’s Bill as a matter of principle, except for the passage on the removal of the hereditary Peer by-elections. The other passages have some short-comings, but perhaps they can be improved in Committee.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for that clarification.

The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, along with one or two others, questioned the precise drafting of the statutory commission proposals. I had some sympathy with his view that it should be more open and transparent, perhaps on the lines of the United States. I am very sympathetic to any amendments that may come forward along those lines when we get to Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, raised the whole question of democratic accountability, which again I think is the debate that we are still to address.

I particularly welcomed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Desai, because he is a conversion to support for the Bill. He was quite right that we should retain the same sort of occasional club rights that we have for the hereditary Peers who have gone. My Bill does not in any way trespass on that.

The important thing that we have to recognise is that two things will happen, whatever happens to this Bill. There are two pieces of work going on that this Bill does not trespass on and which I would argue it assists. One is the work of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral and his committee. They have to continue that work, even under the proposals of my Bill, which would provide the primary legislation that the report recommended, because the House of Lords would still have to come forward with a standing order. The details of that obviously have to be worked out in conjunction with the Government. My Bill does not trespass on that work or on the work of the cross-party committee, to which frequent reference has been made.

I very much welcomed the very honest speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, at the beginning of the debate, when she talked about the time that would be required to bring forward the Bill for prelegislative scrutiny. The combination of what she said and what the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, said makes me more and more anxious about how long this is going to take. We now discover that they have not yet decided whether it is to be a wholly or mainly elected House. Well, hang on a minute, that is a pretty fundamental issue. If we have not got past that gate, how long is it going to take? The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, who is a member of the committee, underlined my point when she talked about the Bill being introduced in the spring. That is the latest definition that we have had. The spring is an elastic thing; it could be late April, I suppose, but it was to happen before Christmas. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, talked about the number of issues that the committee was still considering and deciding. I do not see the Bill coming forward for prelegislative scrutiny for some considerable time. With the amount of time that it will take for the prelegislative scrutiny to take place and then the actual introduction of the Bill, it will be very long indeed.

On previous occasions, I gave up on this Bill after one Committee stage. That is why I referred to four debates. This is the third Second Reading, but we also had a Committee day. I saw no point in going on with those days because the Bill was being obstructed, but if there is consensus in the House that we need these measures, let us put it into Committee and try and fine-tune it before passing it on to the other place. We can say, “Look, this Chamber is willing to see reforms”. While these more fundamental issues are still being discussed, let us send it down to the other end of the building and see what the House of Commons makes of it. I hope that it will be sympathetic. For that reason, I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.