House of Lords Commissioners for Standards
Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Balfe
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to you and apologise for speaking on a similar topic three times in as many weeks, but I am profoundly concerned by the manner in which the retiring commissioner handled the issue of noble Lords who had failed to complete their compulsory training within a certain time. On both occasions when I spoke before, I raised the insensitive way in which the case of the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, in particular, has been handled. It seemed to be a mixture of gracelessness, insensitivity and ineptitude. If we are to continue to have a commissioner—I accept that we are—I would like to address one or two questions to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance. I am delighted that he is with us in the Chamber on this occasion, so that we can talk to him directly.
I am not entirely persuaded that we need two commissioners. I wonder why we cannot have one doing 10 days a month, rather than two doing five. In that way, the person concerned would surely get to know your Lordships’ House rather better. The basic problem, until now, has been an inability fully to understand the nature of your Lordships’ House and how it works. I regret that we have to have outside commissioners, but I accept that what has happened will continue to happen. Within its membership, this House has an enormous range of wisdom and experience. It is unlike any other institution in the country in its size, complexity and the variegated wisdom of its Members. It is very important that, whether one commissioner or two, he or they—they are both men in this case—should get to know what we are all about.
It is a very small thing, but I am somewhat put off by the biographical notes. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, rightly referred to Mr Khan and Mr Jelley, but they are referred to by their first names throughout the biographical details that we have been given. It is a small point, but there has to be a degree of formality and it is not here.
I have talked about the necessity for these commissioners to understand the nature of your Lordships’ House. I hope that there will be a compulsory training course for them both to attend and that they have a proper opportunity to be introduced to the nature of your Lordships’ House. I would very much like to hear what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, has to say on that point.
It is also important that the five days a month include at least a couple of days of what I call acclimatisation and getting to know exactly how this House works. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, referred to Mr Jelley’s parliamentary experience. It was experience of putting into practice what Parliament had decreed, not of how Parliament actually works. I think it is important that he has that experience.
On paper, both these gentlemen are eminently well qualified, and I say nothing specific against their appointments, but it is crucial that they know their way around, in every sense. We should all do our bit to help them. That is very important and I hope that there is a structured opportunity for them to meet groups of Members, so that we can get to know them and can talk to them, formally but properly.
I will not oppose the Motion, as I said at the very beginning, but I go back to where I began. We have had some unhappy experiences recently and there has been widespread concern across your Lordships’ House; I know that from the number of colleagues who came to me after the very brief debates we have had and said how much they shared the concern I sought to express. There must be sensitivity above all things: the issues with which the commissioners will be confronted, which will not all be black and white cases, demand that they can understand and have a sensitive regard for the Peer or Peers concerned. I would be exceptionally grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, if he could address some of these points; then perhaps, together with colleagues, we could meet him to discuss these things.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I will not repeat what my noble friend Lord Cormack said, except to say that I did not disagree with anything he said. I also echo that it is a pleasure to see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, in the Chamber.
My first question is why we need the commissioners to spend 10 days a month looking at the standards in the Lords. Have they slipped so far? Secondly, why do we need two commissioners? Will they each have a caseload? I would have thought that it would be better if we had one commissioner, who would get to know the House better by doing 10 days a month. I would rather that he was doing the days necessary to do the job, up to 10 days a month, because I am aware, from a long life of bureaucracy, that it tends to expand to fill the gap available—he would then say that it should be 11 days, because 10 days is not quite enough. I am always concerned at the length of time set aside.
My noble friend Lord Cormack referred to the former Speaker of the Commons and the difficulties there. One of the first things that should be done is to publish, for the general public to see, this course that we have all taken, because I found it patently ridiculous, frankly. It taught me absolutely nothing, apart from the fact that there is some very easy money to be made out there by designing courses that are pretty irrelevant.
I came into contact with the commission over a much more minor, but fundamental, case; that of the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis. I always felt happy defending the noble Lord, because there was absolutely nothing I agreed with him on in politics. I did not agree with his attitudes to divorce, abortion, Northern Ireland or anything at all, so I always felt that I could look at his case as a straightforward one of whether or not he should have been suspended. To me, the way in which the procedure worked, with no opportunities for any input and no appeal, was unsatisfactory. Maybe we need some sort of private hearing—maybe we do not want it on the Floor of the House—but we cannot have a system that is quite as closed as that one.
My second point is that there does not appear to be any sort of decent trade union representation in this outfit. I know that the noble Lord can defend himself, but when I looked through his case, I saw that there were dozens of points that I would have picked up had I been a TU official. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, should make some provision for people to be accompanied by, effectively, a representative to put their case.
My final two points are these. The punishments being given by this body—and they are punishments—are way out of line with those of the House of Commons. I am not saying that the House of Commons is right, but in the case of the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, his political career was effectively ended by this body. That was also the case with Lord Lester. Their careers were ended. In the House of Commons, people tend to be suspended for a time and then they come back. In my view, the punishments here are far too harsh.
The second and final point I would like the noble and learned Lord to look at is that part of the finding against the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, banned him from the Palace of Westminster. I have raised this before, but can the noble and learned Lord and his legal colleagues assure me that we have the right to ban a citizen of this country from entering his Parliament? We did not take his badge away; we banned him from Parliament. I do not believe that we have the power to ban a citizen of this country from approaching his elected Members, but if we do, please let us know in writing.
That concludes my observations. I look forward to meeting the noble and learned Lord. I am in receipt of one of his letters offering to meet me. I would be happy to do so, but I felt that one or two things needed putting on the public record.
Committee of Selection
Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Balfe
Lord Balfe (Con)
This is a great exercise in lack of transparency. We are appointing committees that will run virtually every aspect of the House’s policy-making functions. I am told that we do have some transparency and that an email was sent out in March. To me, that is not a very transparent way of doing things. Will the Senior Deputy Speaker make his name in this House by being a reforming Senior Deputy Speaker? I in no way criticise his predecessor, who I know put a lot of effort into trying to get things moving.
The appointment of chairs of sub-committees is quite different here from in another place. The other place for once seems to have got a bit more democracy into it. This is not an arcane point, because it means that the chairs of the sub-committees have to relate to the Members; they have to be to a level accountable. I would like to see, as in the other place, the chairs allocated to the party groups and then some elections, so that people had to demonstrate not only that they knew what they were talking about but that they could reach across the aisle—as they say in the United States—and one did not look at things and say, “Oh, well, that’s a Labour chair; we’re not going to get anywhere there”, and so that the persons standing for chair, of whom I hope there would be more than one from any group, had to make the case as to why they should be the chair.
The only committee excepted from this is the Committee of Selection itself. Perhaps the Senior Deputy Speaker could start a reform package by ensuring that at least a part of the Committee of Selection is elected and that there are some Back-Bench voices on it. At the moment, that committee is basically a committee of the leaders; it is like the chiefs’ pow-wow of the House of Lords—everybody gets together with their pipe of peace and they agree with everybody on how they are going to divide things up. I do not think that is acceptable.
I have one final point. Some noble Lords will recall that I was one of the two people who divided the House on the case of the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, and his suspension from this House. It was a suspension that was decided in private, that was never debated in public, where he had no opportunity to put his case to his Peers and where it was decided by a committee that contains four people who are not even Members of the Lords and five people who are, at least one of whom has a senior role on a completely different committee. Will the Senior Deputy Speaker look at the way in which this committee works? The punishments—that is the only word for it—that it dishes out are far more stringent than anything found in the House of Commons.
I examined carefully all the evidence that was published about the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis. I would certainly have suspended him for a week. His behaviour was “sub-optimal”—which I think is the word we are searching for—but he did not deserve to be sacked completely for ever from his job, which is the effect of a five-year suspension on a person of 82 years of age who, whatever else one says, had had a distinguished political career. I was never in his party in Ireland; I do not agree with him, but the punishment was far harsher than the crime. The crime, basically, was a curmudgeonly old man losing his temper at the door on the way in; it was nothing more serious than that. I ask the Senior Deputy Speaker also to look at ways in which the Conduct Committee can be democratised so that when it comes to conclusions Members are able to comment on them and have some influence on the way things operate. In the case of the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, a massive injustice was perpetrated by this House without any opportunity for debate, discussion or understanding.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, first, I thank you, Lord Speaker, for all the work that you did as the first Senior Deputy Speaker. The whole House is very much in your debt.
Secondly, I welcome my noble friend Lord Gardiner to his new responsibilities. I hope that he can develop the role, building on the foundations laid by our Lord Speaker, and become something of a spokesman for Back-Benchers in this House.
I often think that this House, or the usual channels—once described as the murkiest waters in Europe—have one thing in common with the Almighty: they move in a very mysterious way. We need to have much more transparency. Indicative of what I am saying is that we have 33 Motions to be moved and accepted en bloc. We have no elections of chairmen to Select Committees; it is all done in the back room and the names are then produced.