House of Lords Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall seek to be fairly brief in replying to the debate. I begin by thanking all noble Lords who have taken part in what I think has been a most constructive and, until a few moments ago, congenial debate. In reference to cross-party matters, as I said at the start, the Bill is the product of a cross-party group of both Houses of a somewhat larger dimension than the one that we have just been discussing. I say with the greatest respect to the Minister, whom I greatly admire, that he made by far the longest speech of the entire debate, lasting 26 minutes, 75 per cent of which had nothing at all to do with my Bill but was about yesterday’s government Statement. I think that we should stick to the measures before us in the Bill as we move to consider it. Mr Straw said yesterday, "““let us see what the House of Lords says about it””.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/7/07; col. 455.]" We can now see. We have had 49 Back-Bench speeches, of which 46 were in favour of the Bill and three were opposed to it. The three opposed to it slightly damaged their weight, one by saying that he did not quite know what was going on, another by saying that he was a ridiculous character, and the third by suggesting that we have transfers between titles in the House. Never mind; the ratio in favour of the Bill was 46:3. I disagree with the noble Earl, Lord Onslow. I do not regard him as a ridiculous character; he is a distinguished ornament in this place. However, he was wrong on one thing: the Bill does not create an appointed House. We have an appointed House at the moment, but the Bill seeks to create a better appointed House, without prejudice to the longer discussions which have already engaged the House and which we will be very lucky if we finish by 2014, judging by the exchanges that have taken place so far. Perhaps I may refer to some of the remarks in the debate. The noble Lords, Lord Williamson and Lord Hannay, and the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, were unhappy about the imprecise definition of a ““non-affiliated Peer””. Indeed, some argued that the definition of ““conspicuous merit”” was not a sufficient qualification for membership of the House and that there should be some reference to commitment to working on the proceedings. I regard all those comments as valuable but they are drafting matters. They are not points of substance relating to the Bill; they seek to improve it. I think that I can speak on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who drafted the Bill. Certainly, I, as promoter, am sympathetic to these views and would be happy to try to accommodate them when the Bill is reintroduced. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, was not convinced that the word ““diversity”” was sufficiently precise and she wanted reference to regional diversity. Again, that is a drafting matter that we should look upon sympathetically. I note in passing that one of the great glories of this place is that, in terms of gender balance and ethnic balance, it is infinitely more diverse than the elected House. That is one of the points that we must bear in mind. There was a second category of comment of much more substance than these drafting elements. The noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, the noble Lord, Lord Clyde, and my noble friend Lord Bradshaw all queried whether we should not include in the clause dealing with retirement some kind of automatic retirement for those who do not attend. That is a point of substance—it is not a drafting point—and the House should return to it if we proceed to later stages of the Bill. I am quite sympathetic to it and I would welcome discussion of it. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, suggested that it was wrong to have the criteria for membership of this House simply in the hands of a resolution of the House of Commons. That is a point of substance, but there is no reason why the drafting could not be amended to include a resolution of this House as well. If Members detect in the drafting of the Bill a slight bias in the direction of the elected House, that is deliberate. We have to convince the elected House that this is a sensible measure that retains an acknowledgement of that House’s supremacy. The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, wanted a divorce between the award of peerages and service in this House. Again, that is a valid point, but I say with respect that it goes well beyond the limited purpose of the Bill. It would be a controversial measure. Personally, I am sympathetic to it, but we have to recognise that the Bill is designed to carry consensus with it and not to go into these more argumentative areas. On the membership of the appointments commission, there is a reference in the Bill to consultation. That does not need to be spelled out any more clearly. From my experience, during the time when I was one of the three party leaders, I was regularly consulted, even though that is not provided for in statute, on issues such as the appointment of members to the Boundary Commission or to the committee that appointed justices of the peace. The process of consultation is one of the well known conventions in this place. The Speaker of the House of Commons would clearly be required to consult not just the Lord Speaker but others, including the party leaders. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, I disagree with his suggestion that all the members of the appointments commission should be politicians from both Houses. We need to bring in people from outside, whether members of the judiciary or people from the world of academia, the professions, or business, who can help to give public confidence that the appointments commission is not an internal political matter. That is why the Bill is drafted as it is. One or two Members had some fun at the expense of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, who is the current chairman of the Appointments Commission. It so happens that I had a letter from him yesterday inviting me to dinner with him in Edinburgh during the Summer Recess. I suspect that that was in my capacity more as a customer of his bank than as the promoter of the Bill. I assure noble Lords that I intend to take up the invitation. I shall convey the views of the House and I look forward to discussions with him. It is important that we press on. The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, had a certain flavour of festina lente, if my Latin is correct—that we should hasten slowly on this matter. That is not the right attitude. The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, asked whether the provisions for permanent leave of absence would abolish the present provision for temporary leave of absence. The answer is no. At present, some 13 Members of the House are on temporary leave of absence. Some of them might wish to convert to permanent leave of absence, but there is no reason why the present procedures in the House for temporary leave of absence should not continue, and I propose that they do. My suggestion on how we proceed is this. Given the overall welcome for the Bill, it is nevertheless obvious that we cannot expect it to pass into legislation in this Session; we are too near the end of it. Rather than get bogged down in a lengthy Committee stage in the few days that remain, I would like the House to be encouraged to have a formal Committee stage, a further short debate at Third Reading and then secure a vote in this House on the principle of the Bill, knowing that it will have to be reintroduced in the new Session with many of the amendments in it that I talked about earlier. In a full Session of Parliament, we can then have a really serious discussion on the details of the Bill and amendments that might need to be made to it. If we do that, and if we succeed, it is for the Government, having listened to the views of the House, and then having listened to the views of the public and the Members of the other place, who, by then, will have taken this Bill seriously, to decide whether to pick it up and move forward. I commend the Bill to the House. On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.