Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

My Lords, I shall do my best to stick to the eight-minute limit. I shall talk about a couple of matters that should be in Part 5 of the Bill but are not. First, I believe strongly that all future Members of your Lordships' House, whether appointed or elected, should be here for a limited term of office. It is a matter of real importance. Peerages are no longer awarded as honours; it is a long time since anyone saw an honours list which included them. Peerages, whether they are party appointments or Cross-Benchers, are awarded, or are supposed to be awarded, to people who can and will make genuine contributions to the work of your Lordships' House. Members appointed as Cross-Benchers are usually appointed because of expertise. They have expertise as medics, or in running charities, or as senior officers of the Armed Forces, or as trade unionists, or diplomats, or in a number of other fields—including, perhaps, lawyers. They contribute greatly to the work of your Lordships' House. Although I believe that party Members should be elected, I hope—contrary, I have to say, to my party’s policy—that we can retain a suitable proportion of Cross-Benchers as appointed Members. The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, a few minutes ago was a good example of the benefits of having Cross-Benchers present here. However, expertise has a use-by date. I should like there to be long terms of service in your Lordships—perhaps a suitable term would be 15 years. After 15 years, surely it is time for Members to give way to other people whose expertise is likely to be more recent. This is not a matter of ageism. Term limits would also make it easier to appoint young people as Members of your Lordships' House. We need more young people; we are desperately short of them in your Lordships' House and have been so for a long time. However, it must surely be unsatisfactory to appoint a young man or woman aged 35 who would be entitled still to be a Member of your Lordships' House 50 years later. Term limits would also help to reduce the excessive number of Members of your Lordships' House at any one time. Term-limited Members should be allowed to continue use of the title that they are given, either as a Peer or a senator, after the end of term. I would not apply term limits to those who are already Members of your Lordships' House, partly because life membership may have been an important factor in their accepting a peerage and partly because I would want a Bill providing for term limits to have at least some chance of success in your Lordships' House. Term limits should apply also to political nominees, whether they are there by appointment or, as I hope, by election. For as long as political Members continue to be appointed, the reasons for having a term appointment seem much the same for political Members as for Cross-Benchers. It is desirable to have a reasonable rotation of Members. For myself, I think that by the time I have served for 15 years in your Lordships' House, which will be in about two and a half years, I will probably have contributed about as much as I can. Whether I will retire at that point, if I am still alive and compos mentis, is likely to depend on whether another Liberal Democrat may be appointed to succeed me. Among those who want politicians to be elected rather than appointed there is a fairly general consensus that those who are elected should serve for a single, long and non-renewable term. This would give greater independence from party Whips, as Members would not have to worry about their reselection. I support the right under Clause 56 for Members to resign from your Lordships' House, but—and it is a big "but"—only on a condition which is not included in the Bill. That condition is that Members who resign are not entitled to stand for election to the House of Commons for at least five years after their resignation. This is intended to prevent your Lordships' House being used by ambitious young politicians as a stepping stone for the House of Commons, which would be disastrous for your Lordships' House. On this, I find myself for once in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Henley. I turn finally to another, quite different part of the Bill. Part 9 consists mostly of Schedule 10. I am interested in that part because it mainly amends parts of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, an Act with which I was very closely involved. The amendments seem reasonable and not, so far as I can see, controversial. The main purposes of the amendments in Schedule 10 are, first, to remove the role of the Prime Minister, who under the 2005 Act has the role simply of a postman, passing on to Her Majesty recommendations from the Lord Chancellor for appointment to the Supreme Court or to the offices of President or Deputy President of the Supreme Court. The second purpose is to give greater confidentiality to medical reports on candidates for judicial office, so that the medical report goes straight to the Lord Chancellor and is not seen, as it now is, by members of the Judicial Appointments Commission. That, too, seems entirely reasonable. The third purpose is to extend existing powers to disclose confidential information obtained in the course of the appointment process to cases where the disclosure is made for preventing crime or for purposes of criminal investigation. The Explanatory Notes do not explain why this is thought to be necessary; but if a satisfactory explanation can be provided, that too seems perfectly reasonable. The fourth purpose is to give effect to a recent agreement between the Lord Chancellor, the Judicial Appointments Commission, the Lord Chief Justice and the Magistrates’ Association that the Judicial Appointments Commission will not take responsibility for the selection of magistrates. This was a matter of concern at the time the Act was enacted, and I think it is now seen that it is not appropriate for the JAC to take over that responsibility. Clause 66 contains some sensible and necessary provisions about salaries to members of tribunals. If the Bill gets to wash-up, I suggest that Part 9 should go through. I cannot say that it causes much excitement among the voters, but it seems to me to be straightforward, sensible, and does some good and no harm. I have done just past the eight minutes.