House of Lords Bill [HL]

My Lords, this Bill is highly preferable to the proposals in the Statement yesterday and the forthcoming White Paper for a predominantly or fully elected House. Looking at the Bill overall, I approve of the establishment of a statutory Appointments Commission, a facility for a permanent leave of absence and measures to exclude Peers who have committed a serious criminal offence. However, amendments are necessary to all of the above. Is it not the case that the Appointments Commission proposed in the Bill would actually do very little to take the influence of the Prime Minister and the political parties out of the independent Peers’ appointments process? Why should the four Members who are commendably not to be affiliated—I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, that ““affiliated”” is too vague—to any political party be nominated by the Speaker of the House of Commons? They should be nominated by another independent body. I would like to see an additional subsection in Clause 5 to make the commission mindful in the selection process that expertise in areas such as industry, commerce, finance, law, academia and the arts should be grounds for consideration for the non-political appointments. Is it really reasonable to require the leaders of political parties to provide any information on their proposed appointees that the Appointments C4ommission requests? It is arguable that the provision is drawn too widely and could become extremely intrusive. In the clause on permanent leave of absence, it is not clear whether the facility of temporary leave of absence will continue or whether permanent leave will be the only option. Also, when a Member seeks permanent leave of absence or dies, should there not be an automatic top-up procedure, rather than leaving the matter to once a year under Clause 8(1)? There may be an argument for having a limited term of appointment or an age limit. I have two areas of concern in Clause 13. First, I understand from my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth that this may have been a drafting error, but to make the offence retrospective is wrong, as it would catch noble Lords such as my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu who was convicted of an offence that is no longer illegal. Secondly, I find Clause 13(2) rather bizarre. If such a person was renominated, would he not automatically be excluded even if his appointment were confirmed? Overall, this is a sensible Bill. The Government’s insistence on ploughing on with proposals for a fully or partially elected House will only lead to trouble, and I give notice that they will be subject to the most serious scrutiny in this House. It is naive to believe that just because there may be consensus on a Front Bench working group of all the parties that the Back Benches will sit idly by. In this respect, I welcome the letter received at the eleventh hour before this debate from the noble Baroness the Leader of the House inviting Back-Bench Members to suggest ways of having input into the cross-party group. However, there remains the enormous problem that this House does not want the Government’s proposal of a fully or mainly elected House. The current House, which we have got to by default, is working very well. If we have an elected House, as the Cunningham report has stated, there will need to be a review of its powers. The Lord Chancellor is wrong in trying to enshrine in the constitutional settlement the current balance of powers and different roles, because if there is an elected House, it will want much more power. Is that what the Government want?