House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The rules of the House require me to begin in that way, but it might be more accurate if I were to move that the Bill be now read for the umpteenth time. In fact, this will be the fourth debate that we have had on this, as the Bill is substantially the same as the one that I first introduced way back in July 2007. I know that this debate has been eagerly anticipated. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde, the Leader of the House, said the other day that the House was looking forward to this debate with ““inestimable pleasure””. The mind boggles to think what alternative attractions have kept him away on this occasion. On the opposition Benches, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, also said that he looked forward to the debate. I have been wondering about this eager anticipation. I worked out that it is rather like booking to go to a concert where a particularly favourite symphony is to be played. Looking forward to it gives you a pleasurable glow of anticipation at revisiting a favourite work. However, there is a difference today, as some new Members of your Lordships’ House are participating. We look forward in particular to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, who is a practitioner in these matters. Also, it is a particular pleasure for me to welcome my noble friend Lord Lothian, who is a former constituent of mine, although I do not think that I ever persuaded him to vote for me when he had the capacity to do so. I look forward to hearing what he has to say. We shall also have the pleasure of hearing from a former Speaker of the House of Commons, the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, and from a former Deputy Prime Minister, my noble and learned friend Lord Howe. Without in any way being disloyal, I hope that the current Deputy Prime Minister will read carefully what he has to say. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, will of course recognise that a symphony is a work of four movements. The Bill that I have introduced consists of four movements—three of which his colleagues, shamelessly and without attribution, adapted in their own way in the constitutional reform Bill introduced by the previous Government. These three proposals were lost in the wash-up. I begin by saying that this debate is not about whether in future we will have an elected or non-elected House. When I heard the decision of the coalition Government to create an all-party committee to work on a Bill, my original inclination was to say, ““Let’s drop the Bill and wait for the Government to come forward with their own proposals””. We were promised them by Christmas, then January, then February. The latest promise is ““early in the new year””—but which year is not specified. I was prevailed on by Members in all parts of the House to proceed with my Bill on the basis that we are getting a little impatient, and that even if the coalition Government's proposals in draft form were to proceed smoothly and to timetable, the earliest moment at which the House could begin to enact them would be late in 2012. In the mean time, members are increasingly concerned that the House goes unreformed. It is important that we relay to Members in the other place that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, we are not sticks-in-the-mud who are saying that this House is perfect. We are willing to embrace sensible reforms and we are anxious to proceed with them. I was interested the other day to hear one of the new Members opposite, the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, who has a distinguished record of service in the other place, say this: "““When I came to the other place, quite a long time ago, I did not have much time for this place and did not understand it. I thought that this place was undemocratic, illogical, irrational and all the rest of it. That was quite a naive attitude to take and was based on a lack of knowledge of this place””.—[Official Report, 16/11/10; col. 740.]" That is quite common in the other place—and I speak from personal experience. Although I led the Liberal Party for 12 years, and therefore had a close association with my opposite number in this place, at the end of that time I still did not understand how the House of Lords worked, even though I was responsible for nominating new Members to it. That is the problem: we have not got across to the other place how we operate. I hope that, by embracing this Bill, we will signal to Members there that we are keen to press on with updating our procedures and composition. A moment ago, I said that the Bill consisted of four movements. This metaphor has outlived its usefulness, so let us say four substantial sections. The first is the one that the previous Government dropped, which deals with the statutory Appointments Commission. It was not in the Labour Government's Bill, primarily because the phrase ““wholly or mainly elected”” still applied and they had not made up their minds—any more than the present Government have—whether a future Chamber should be wholly or mainly elected. Of course, were it to be wholly elected, there would be no need for an Appointments Commission. That was the argument of the previous Government. However, I still believe that if we move in future to a mainly elected House, a statutory Appointments Commission will still be required. In the mean time, it will be required until we get to that point. Therefore, my Bill sets out both the composition of the commission, the principles under which it operates, and in particular the important one that the Government of the day, whether they be a single party or a coalition, should not have a majority in this place. That would set it in statute for the first time. The noble Lord, Lord Jay, who is not with us today but who has spoken on previous occasions, is the chairman of the present Appointments Commission. He supports strongly the idea that the commission should have a statutory basis. One obvious reason for this is provided by the case of Lord Laidlaw, who promised the commission that he would give up his tax exile status if given a peerage, but went back on that. The commission had no power to do anything about it. The case for making the Appointments Commission statutory is strong: that is the first section of my Bill. The second section brings to an end the by-elections for hereditary peers. These were introduced as a temporary measure in 1997 and were to last for ““a couple of years””—that is the phrase that appeared in Hansard. The system has now lasted for nearly a decade and a half. Clearly, it is completely out of date, and while the election of hereditary peers passes muster—just—in the Conservative Party and on the Cross-Benches, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats view it as a farce. One has perhaps three or four electors and 10 candidates. A Member can be elected to Parliament by something like two votes to one, which makes Old Sarum look like a model of democracy. It is time that this came to an end. The third section of the Bill deals with the vexed question of whether we should provide for leave of absence or remove those Members who never attend. I will quote from the report of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, which states: "““The House currently has before it relevant legislative proposals in the shape of Part 3 of the House of Lords Reform Bill … introduced by Lord Steel of Aikwood and awaiting Second Reading. Clause 11 of the bill would allow members to apply for permanent leave of absence; clause 12 provides that a member who fails to attend the House during the course of a session should be deemed to have taken permanent leave of absence; clause 13 provides that a person granted permanent leave of absence shall no longer be a member of the House of Lords. A number of members who responded to our consultation reiterated their support—previously expressed in debate on comparable bills introduced by Lord Steel of Aikwood in previous sessions—for the provisions contained in the current Bill””." The committee came to the astonishing conclusion that, in order to deal with the excess numbers in the House, one would need primary legislation. This is the primary legislation: it is here and available, and we would be sensible to adopt it. The committee does not specify how the proposals would be introduced. It refers to the fact that the House of Lords, by standing order, would have the ability to introduce a scheme, but that it would be up to the Government to devise the equivalent of a silver handshake. In our debate on the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, my noble friend Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope rightly pointed out that any actuary could provide a simple method of calculating redundancy pay that would benefit the taxpayer and not be an excess burden on them. As far as concerns removing non-attenders, even though they do not occupy space on these Benches, they receive all the papers, some of them have desks and lockers in your Lordships' House, and there is no case for retaining their services. Therefore, the third section of the Bill provides for the first time the capacity for Members to leave this place with dignity and honour after they had given a reasonable amount of service, or after they have reached a certain age. The fourth and last section is the simplest. It would bring the House of Lords into line with the other place by removing those convicted of offences that carry a sentence of more than one year in prison. These are the four provisions of the Bill, with which the House is now probably painfully familiar. I will conclude by quoting the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who spoke in a previous debate. He was responsible for the drafting of this Bill, which has been expertly done. He said that there would be those in the House who regarded the Bill as necessary but entirely insufficient, and others who regarded it as necessary and wholly sufficient. He said that noble Lords could disagree on that, but that the one thing on which they should agree was that it was necessary.