House of Lords

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, I promise not to speak about the catering department. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, particularly as at last I may have found someone in the House who can tell me how it works, which he claimed to know.

I am in agreement with the direction of travel put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, but I want to concentrate on his proposal regarding the 75% mechanism being chosen in relation to past attendance, first on a point of principle and then on two matters of detail. My principal, and principled, point is that attendance is not enough to justify a weighting of 75% in whatever selection takes place. It is also important that the mechanism for that selection must have a clear connection with both the overall representativeness of the Chamber and, as the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market, put it, the recency of the experience from which individual Members inform the debates in your Lordships’ House.

One thing that matters is how this place appears to the electorate, and that, as others have said, brings us to the vexed question of age. As a callow youth of 61, I do not dissemble when I say that I have been deeply impressed by the contributions of many Members of the House much older than me. However, can attendance alone justify the retention of the situation at present, in which the average age of the Members of this House yesterday was 70—these statistics are from the House of Lords Library, and I am grateful for them—146 Members were aged between 75 and 80, 101 Members between 80 and 85, and 73 Members 85 and over? Can attendance alone be justified, were age to be completely ignored, as an indicator of the relevancy of experience of ordinary lives? I am not suggesting a blanket ban on a certain age, but I cannot believe that any future arrangement would not specify appropriate measures to ensure that a reformed House reflected the citizenry of the United Kingdom in terms of gender and ethnicity, so why should it not in some terms reflect the age of the population?

Before I get into terrible trouble for this temerity, let me call in aid the speech made last month to mark his retirement by Lord Jenkin of Roding, a speech which was well received on all sides of the House. He said that he had responded to questions about why he was retiring as follows:

“In recent weeks, I have been approached by a number of noble Lords from all parts of the House asking, sometimes with some asperity, why I am retiring. After all, I am getting on a bit and I realise that, but I have two answers; one is very short and the other is slightly longer. The short one is that after 50 years in Parliament—a number of noble Lords have already made reference to that—and at the age of 88, I feel that I have done enough. I have done what I can offer, and it is best to bow out and let others carry on.

The slightly longer answer is that, if this House is to continue to perform its hugely important functions in the running of this country, I totally believe that there has to be a constant infusion of new blood introduced into the House, with people who have current experience and whose experience of business or whatever field they have operated in is completely up to date”.—[Official Report, 16/12/14; col. 141.]

I really agree.

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

Surely it is not inconsistent to have both people of some considerable age and an infusion of new blood. If we look at the United States, the new president of the Federal Reserve took office at the age of 68. Many people commented on the fact that she was the first woman, but there was very little comment in the United States about her age. If Hillary Clinton should become President of the United States, she will enter the White House at the age of 69. People age at different paces. I have a personal friend who is chairman and chief executive of one of the largest banks in the United States and is 80. I am not suggesting that that is ideal, but an infusion of new talent and age are not incompatible.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

I agree with the noble Lord. I was suggesting not that we should lay down specific ages, but that age should have the same relevance in the selection of the make-up of the House as the importance that we put on ethnicity and gender. There will always be exceptions. I am not suggesting a compulsory age limit, but as the House reforms itself it would want to be in a position to demonstrate that it reflected the general make-up of the population. At the moment, it is heavily weighted towards the older end of the population and, if we use attendance only, we may well end up with a reformed House that is even more reflective of an older group of people than it is at the moment.

I now turn to two detailed concerns. I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Williams, is being fair in his proposal that all four major groupings should be equally reduced to just below 53% of their current number. According to the House of Lords Library, between May 2010 and December 2014, the number of Members taking party whips increased by 85, or about 15%, whereas the number of Cross-Benchers fell by four. It does not seem to me that we should start from a position that each grouping is reduced to 53% of its current position if the Cross Benches are not the problem in terms of the increase that has been so much commented upon.

Lastly, I suggest that the proposal by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, that attendance, if it is to be judged, should be judged across the lifetime of the previous Parliament needs careful thought for new arrivals, taking account not only of their date of Introduction but of how quickly they have been able to make the necessary adjustment to their working life to become a working Peer, particularly those who have not previously been politicians. For instance, I came into this House in 2010. I was already contracted to work overseas in the United States and India for a considerable period in the next two years, and it was with great difficulty that I was able to attend the House as much as I wanted. If we are going to go with the idea of attendance, a “best two years” rule might be an improvement. That would also deal with periods of significant illness and bereavement for all Members.

This is complicated, but it is necessary. However, something has to be done, and I look forward to the further debates and discussions ahead, provided that the outcome at each Parliament is to produce a revising Chamber with a proper balance of long experience in your Lordships’ House and recent experience in the world outside Westminster.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tugendhat]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Williams, on launching this debate and coming up with a proposal that it lies with the power of the House of Lords to implement, if it so wishes. However, as this debate has shown, this is a complicated subject and the proposals that he has put forward are useful not just in themselves but also to the extent that they stimulate debate among others.

The most important point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, just a few moments ago, when he questioned making the issue of numbers the most important determinant of the reform. We all agree that the principal purpose of this House is to revise, amend and improve legislative proposals, subject to the overriding wish of the Commons. The effectiveness and ability of the House to do that depend on the expertise—the range of experience, backgrounds, knowledge and so forth—that the House can call on in discussing the range of issues that come before it. Up to a point all of us are generalists, which is as it should be. However, above all, our justification is a certain quality of judgment and a certain level of expertise. My experience of this House is that we all operate largely on the basis of panels of experts, which is to say that noble Lords do not for the most part try to speak across the board. We choose the subjects to which we devote our efforts, so that those who speak regularly on, say, the National Health Service and social issues do not normally venture into foreign affairs. The noble Lord, Lord Owen, is of course an exception, but it is generally true. Noble Lords who play a major role in debates on legal and civil liberties questions are rarely to be found taking part in debates on economic affairs. Therefore we operate on a basis of expertise. That means that we need quite a significant number of people if the different areas of expertise are to have a sufficient pool to draw upon.

In addition, the question of where we come from—the point about regional balance—is also important. I am one of those who live within about 20 minutes of the House, although on the Jubilee line rather than the District line, which another noble Lord mentioned. I recognise that the present system places considerable burdens on those who come from far away which are not placed on me. It is important to try to ensure that we have a system whereby we are able to call on a sufficient number of people from different parts of the country, regardless of the difficulties that they face which people like me do not. Therefore to make numbers the principal criterion is perhaps not the right way to do it. I recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Williams, needed to do that to get the ball rolling, as it were. I feel that 400 is probably too few if we are to cover the full range of activities.

We should not be driven by discussions about whether we can all fit in here at Question Time and matters of that kind; after all, in the House of Commons not everybody can fit in at Prime Minister’s Question Time or when the Budget is being debated, and so on, so the question about overflowing on big occasions is neither here nor there. The important question is whether we have the right numbers and the right kind of regional balance to enable us to fulfil our functions, and within that, of course, account should be taken of ethnicity, gender, disabilities and so forth; in that respect the House of Lords is in fact rather better than the House of Commons as it is. Therefore we should adopt the criterion that is concerned with whether we have the expertise to do the job, not whether we have the right numbers. None the less, we have to think, broadly speaking, in terms of numbers. I think that 400 is too low, and am inclined to say that to go above 500 would be too high. Somewhere between 450 and 500 is probably more or less of the right order if one is talking about people who are active and who will devote a considerable slug of their time to the business of the House of Lords. A considerable slug of their time does not mean full-time. We are certainly not supposed to be a full-time House and I hope we never become one. I regret the extent to which the House of Commons has become a full-time House.

When I was elected in the early 1970s, there were a number of distinguished people who had no desire to become Cabinet Ministers—or if they had had, they did not any longer—and who pursued distinguished careers at the Bar, business, journalism and the trade unions, as well as in all kinds of other activities. The House was a great deal enriched by their presence, and its debates were a great deal more authoritative than they are now. It is very important that this House should continue to call on people who have interests and activities outside. None the less, if you are appointed to the House of Lords and take on the benefits, title and prestige, what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said a few moments ago about Lady Thatcher is absolutely germane. If you take on the title, you should do the job. That ought also to be one of the criteria for awarding the title. So the distinction that the noble Lord, Lord Williams, makes between those who are eligible and those who are active is very important. I congratulate him on launching us down this road, which has given rise to a very stimulating debate; no doubt, more stimulating speeches will take place. I hope very much that, as the noble Lord says, we will have the means and the will.