House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, half of today’s speakers participated in last week’s two-day debate, yet the mood and tone are totally different. I confess that my wife, having witnessed last week’s debate, wondered why I was spending this evening here, rather than celebrating our 41st wedding anniversary with her.

In passing, I must say that we should be careful about how we present our arguments. I have heard noble Lords suggest that truncating our lunch hour is what the move to starting at 2 pm would mean. That is not a serious issue. I recall that I used to advise—not as a Member of either House—environmental groups about lobbying Members of either House that any MP or Peer who had time for lunch was probably not worth talking to. I am still of that opinion, so we should be careful about how we present that argument.

Not only the Committee, led by my noble friend Lord Goodlad, but the Leader of the House deserve all our thanks for moving smartly on these issues and bringing forward these particular concerns. I particularly take on board my noble friend the Leader of the House’s point that there is clearly an urgent need for incremental reform. Some might see that as a contradiction; I do not. I think this is very much the mood of the House now, as has been apparent from all the contributions. Self-regulation, which is of course the key to a lot of the discussion we have had today and to a lot of the discussion in the report, is to my mind something of an illusion if we do not understand precisely what it may mean in practical terms.

I used to be part of the usual channels in another place, in a very minor role—I suppose I was the usual gutter. Of course, we need something there, but we should recognise that a great deal of what happens in your Lordships’ House is not self-regulation at all. It is by careful discussion between the parties—it used to be very binary; it is rather less so now, I am glad to say—and the Cross Benches, but it is not self-regulation. A theme of the discussion today has been moving responsibility—on occasion very tactfully when it looks as though the House wants to hear from a particular Peer—from the Front Bench to the Woolsack at Questions or at Statements. That is not the end of self-regulation; it is the fulfilment of self-regulation. That is what we elected a Lord Speaker to do and I think it absurd that the chief representative of the usual channels, the government Chief Whip—she is not here, I am glad to say; I hope that she does not read what I say, because I am a great fan of hers—the disciplinarian responsible for getting the Government’s business through, should be put in the invidious position of deciding who should be questioning the Government and scrutinising the Government’s actions.

That would be a very sensible move, on a trial basis—I entirely endorse what has been said on many sides of the House. I notice that people who have great experience in the House, far longer than me, and who have had great responsibility in the House, think that there are both practical and political reasons for such a move. That is the theme of the Leader’s Group. It is practical, it is pragmatic; it is not doctrinal and dogmatic. That is why its recommendations have had such a very warm welcome from all sides of the House today.

It is also significant that the initiative for this process, which stemmed from the process in the Commons led by Dr Tony Wright, started with a seminar that brought people from outside as well as from all sides of your Lordships’ House under the aegis of the Lord Speaker. It did not result from any party initiative, let alone a government initiative. While I give full credit to my noble friend the Leader of the House for taking this a step further, we owe a debt of gratitude not just to the Committee of the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, but to the Lord Speaker herself, to the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, who has spoken today, and to the noble Lords, Lord Butler and Lord Filkin, who led some very careful analysis of different aspects of the work of your Lordships’ House.

I am very sympathetic to the general trend of the recommendations. I cannot think of any that I completely object to. I understand, of course, that there is a need to work them through, but they are a package; the approach is holistic and it would be a pity, therefore, if we were to unscramble them, to take them all to bits again. I hope that in looking at them in the various committees, there will be a feeling that this is a coherent and cohesive approach to the work of our House and that it can certainly improve our game. The people who have been involved in this, if I may spare their blushes, are scarcely revolutionaries. The noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, cannot really be described as a hot-headed radical. I hope I am paying him a compliment.

Last week I felt that there were rather too many people in your Lordships’ House who were adopting the early attitude of St Augustine: “Make me virtuous, but not yet”. This evening the mood, the tone, has been quite different—more positive, more forward-looking—and I welcome that.