House of Lords: Governance

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Grand Committee

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand that it is in the nature of the rules of a debate such as this that, if there is a gap, I am allowed two minutes to fill it.

Next week, I am going to my first school to talk about this House. I have listened to this debate carefully and I shall study Hansard very carefully tomorrow because, if I am asked by a clever sixth-former, “Who runs this place?”, I need to have a very good answer. I thank the Senior Deputy Speaker for having this debate. I feel, in my case, as though it is part of my induction as a new Member—people know that I am a new Member —and, rather like civilisation in Britain, having more of these would be a very good thing. I am conscious, also, that governance is a very complex thing in a self-regulating House.

When I look at the House, I am conscious of the fact that we are all equal but there are different levels of participation nevertheless. There is a core—someone will know what it is; perhaps 450 or more—of Members who attend regularly. There is a penumbra who come on fewer occasions but make great contributions, and I suppose there are some Members whom we might call semi-detached. I have yet to meet any more than a small proportion of the total membership of the House.

I understand that Covid has made the most tremendous difference to the way in which this House operates. I suppose we are feeling our way back to what we consider normal. I am interested to hear today of all the different small decisions that Members feel have been taken without their being consulted; I think that there is quite a lot of unease about that in many places.

I am also very concerned about the public reputation of this House, which is why I did not expect to find myself agreeing with a great deal of what the noble Lord who has just spoken said in that regard. I have always thought that a future Conservative Government might well decide to go for broke and suggest abolition, so we must be careful as to how we present ourselves. More openness and transparency is a very good thing.

On the Chief Operating Officer, I can only assume that it is a proposal partly designed to take the burden off the Clerk of the Parliaments, who bears a very heavy load of responsibility. I have found in my short time here that the quality of the staff we have is amazingly good. It was a great pleasure, as part of my induction, to meet the Clerk of the Parliaments and talk about it. As for the townhall meetings, I look forward to seeing what they will be like, but anything that can help us to breathe life into the House we are supposed to be will be a very good thing.