Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

My Lords, this Bill has several excellent provisions. It seems somewhat parochial to go back to House of Lords reform but that is what I am going to do. On 28 January 2009, the Secretary of State for Justice, Mr Jack Straw, in evidence to the House of Lords Constitution Committee, said that the Government had been less than enthusiastic about a Private Members’ Bill. One can only assume that he was referring to what we call the Steel Bill. He said that if this was confined to specific issues then all would be well and good but if it, ""turned out to be a Christmas tree on which people then hung major proposals for reform, then it would be unmanageable"." The Government have repeatedly asserted that smaller, incremental reforms to the House of Lords were unacceptable because they would delay or even obviate large-scale and fundamental reform. Yet the Bill before us today proposes smaller reforms—most of which I would like to support. In one section at least it is close to the Steel Bill. One wonders what happened to the Government’s logic. The Bill has at last arrived in the House of Lords. As we have heard, it started life in the other place in July last year as a rather ornately decorated Christmas tree which gradually lost its splendour until it became a relatively meagre thing. Then, bit by bit as it wound its way through the other place, it got more baubles and tinsel. In the past six months or so it has inexplicably lost no fewer than 17 clauses but gained, according to the Constitution Committee’s report, an additional 39 clauses, many added in Committee and on Report in the other place. What has been retained of House of Lords reforms include the ending of by-elections to replace hereditary Peers, disqualification of Peers found to be guilty of serious crime, provisions to suspend and even expel Members and the resignation of a peerage. However, there is no provision to allow Peers to retire. I feel that is different from resignation from the House. I address that today. I have spoken before, as have many others, on the need to contain numbers in this Chamber. The Minister has referred to it many times. We are one of the largest second Chambers in the world—certainly the largest in Europe—and likely to get much larger. This does nothing for our image. It is especially difficult to defend with any logic when so many do not attend. The inevitable conclusion is that those who accept peerages now do so for the worst reason: to have a title without committing to public service. This undermines what this House tries to convey through outreach programmes and by its daily work: that we are an increasingly professional body doing a necessary job. Many of us are but some are not. Why must we continue to court criticism by maintaining such an unwieldy number when it is simply not needed? I repeat, why can we not have a dignified retirement process—different from resignation—for those Peers too old, too infirm or even too busy to attend? It might come as a relief to some Peers who either struggle on, feeling it is their public duty, or feel guilt-ridden for not being able to be active. It should not be beyond the resources of this House to work out suitable details and to develop an appropriate form of words or even a ceremony to facilitate dignified retirement. Other provisions in this section of the Bill would enable a permanent leave of absence. This might be useful in cases where Peers have not attended in many years—I have in mind one Cross-Bencher who has not turned up in 10 years. It could be issued as a non-negotiable request. This would preclude the House having to defend such non-attenders and bring the numbers down. In time, it would convey a serious message: appointment to this House is a privilege but one with responsibilities. If these are not honoured then access to this House is curtailed. There is no indication in the Bill that the House of Lords Appointments Commission might become a statutory body accountable to Parliament. The Public Administration Select Committee concluded in its January 2009 response to the government White Paper that the House of Lords Appointments Committee could and should take a wider role of determining the balance of parties in the House and arriving at decisions on membership based on longlists supplied by the parties themselves. The independence of HOLAC, it said, could be better guaranteed by it becoming a statutory body, and both these changes could be very easily achieved with immediate effect precisely because the present powers of HOLAC are not set in statute. It is very difficult to see why these small but important reforms should not be enacted. What possible objections can there be to tidying ourselves up and presenting a leaner image to the outside world? The alternative could just be a House that becomes increasingly out of touch with taxpayers’ perceptions, even risking real public demand to abolish this House. I am not sure that we have the luxury to cast these long-awaited reforms aside, and gradual but steady change is now possible. That said, we may be expending our energies to no effect. This Bill will go to wash-up—of that I think we are pretty sure—and who knows what, if anything, will survive that harsh haggling? I hope that much of the Bill does survive. It would be even better if additional reforms, such as the one that I have outlined, were to be included but I suspect that that is a very vain hope.