House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill [HL]

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Friday 21st November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

With the greatest of respect—and I have great respect for my noble friend—I think that he has missed the point. I agree that substantive reform of the Lords will not take place until the relationship between this House and the other place is fully resolved. I believe that conventions will need to be codified in an Act of Parliament to have any chance whatever of there being a relationship between two elected Houses, if we are to have two elected Houses. Other noble Lords will disagree but I say to my noble friend that the argument that the Government have deployed on a number of occasions is that we cannot agree to sensible, incremental measures because we are committed to a fully elected second Chamber. That seems to be the argument that essentially comes out, certainly from the Minister and his party. My point is that even if we were to reach consensus and a reform Bill went through both Houses, it would be some years before it could actually be put into practice.

In the mean time, we still want a second Chamber to be as effective as possible. The way we are going, the issue about numbers is becoming so serious that we are running into a real problem of credibility. That is why I hope that the Minister will be very positive on this Bill but that he will also reflect on what his noble friend has said about allowing the House to discuss these other matters and come to a view very quickly, which I believe could be done.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I hesitate to open up a wider debate about long-term Lords reform. We all know that we are already into substantial discussions about constitutional reform of this multinational state. I suspect that after the next election and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, just said, with whatever shape of government should emerge from it, the future of this House will be caught up in those discussions. Two of the three parties are already committed to a constitutional convention, so there are a range of things—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I am sure he is right but does he also accept that it will be some years before any change can take place? Therefore, the argument that the House should be given a fair wind by the Government to make some incremental, sensible change is overwhelming.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord and I will discuss, off the Floor, the question of how easy it will be to get consensus on the principle of retirement. I will tell him about some of the conversations I have had with Members of his own Benches about this over the past two years, some of which have been extremely vigorous.

Meanwhile, we are dealing with the Committee stage of today’s Bill, which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, rightly pointed out, is concerned with the conduct of the House. It has a limited and specific purpose and is concerned with the reputation of Parliament as a whole. We welcome that. The Bill is also concerned with rebuilding public trust in our political institutions and, as she made clear, is intended to give the House precautionary powers—powers which are intended to be available but to be rarely, and, one hopes, never, used. We recognise that and the Government also recognise the sentiment around the House on the Bill. We are very happy to work with the noble Baroness to ensure that the amendments are tweaked into a form that would suit.

We understand the spirit of the amendments but there are some issues about the exact definition, which we need to clarify. The noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, raised one example: what do we do if we become aware of past conduct which was egregious but was not previously known? What do we do about past conduct, the effects of which are continuing? The issues of retrospectivity are complicated in this regard and the House will also need to be concerned that we currently have an inherent power of suspension, which may or may not be used with retrospective regard to past conduct. If we were to pass this, we would be limiting the power of suspension that the House currently has. What I can do on behalf of the Government is to say that we would be very happy for Cabinet Office officials and lawyers to discuss between this stage of the Bill and the next, with the noble Baroness and others, how we might reshape these amendments to put them into a reasonable form.

The Government are giving the Bill a fair wind in this House. How far we will be able to assist it in the other place is a matter which the Government do not yet need to address and have not yet fully addressed. All Members of this Chamber will know of the complicated internal procedures that the Government need to go through. It will be tight to get the Bill through the other House, given the queue of Private Members’ Bills before the next election—although I take the comment from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that some of them are not entirely overworked at the moment—but we need not address that issue definitively at present.

For the moment, I am very happy to say that the Government will work with the noble Baroness to revise the amendment into a form that would suit the purposes that are intended, and that we have thought through some of the complications about the principle of retrospection, which is a very delicate and important one in the issue of conduct.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman]

I suspect that we will not have the same level of debate on this technical amendment. It was pointed out to me that it would be helpful, in spelling out the consequences of expulsion under the Bill that are to mirror those under the “Byles Bill”—the House of Lords Reform Act 2014—if I referred not simply to Section 4 of that Act but also to subsections of that Act. I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, here again the Government are sympathetic to the principle, but there are some technical issues about how the Bill refers to the 2014 Act and how one relates to the other. Again, the Government would be very glad to talk to the noble Baroness between Committee and Report to sort them out and perhaps come back with a different amendment on Report.

I read the latest Code of Conduct again this morning, thinking that we need to be sure what we are on about. One of the issues that perhaps we need to discuss informally off the Floor is how far this measure is intended to refer only to conduct that is mentioned in the Code of Conduct or to egregious conduct of other sorts conducted by Members of this House. However, that is a question that we need not have in the Bill itself, but it is certainly a question that the Committee for Privileges and Conduct and others will need to consider at a later stage. With the reassurance that we will be very happy to discuss how we remodel this amendment between now and Report, I hope that the noble Baroness is happy with the Government’s response.

[Baroness Hayman]

My Lords, one thing I would never claim as one of my core skills is parliamentary draftsmanship. Therefore, I am not just happy but very grateful to have the discussions that the Minister suggests.

I agree with the Minister that the heavy lifting about getting this right has to be done within the House, with the Committee for Privileges and Conduct looking at the code of conduct and Standing Orders and making sure that we have the appropriate procedures. This is an enabling Bill to allow us to get on and do that meticulous and careful work under its auspices.