Meetings with Ministers

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Government are genuinely open to discussions about how we improve accountability and transparency in our political process. I am very happy to look at those proposals. In the past it has not been possible to achieve the sort of consensus one would like on these sensitive matters of political issue.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend not think that where money is obtained by political parties from proven criminal sources perhaps the funds should be returned, as in the case of the very substantial donations made by Mr Michael Brown to the Liberal party, which held on to the money?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, behind this, there is a serious issue. Democracy in this country depends on political parties. If there is to be a choice at a general election, we need a range of financially viable, credible political parties which train and nurture the people who lead this country and which provide an opportunity for engagement and debate at a national and local level. Given the limited taxpayer appetite to fund those activities and that political parties need to be resourced, we should be cautious about denigrating those who support political parties. We should encourage more people to join and financially support the political party that most closely reflects their values.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Well, we are all here by that way.

This is an appointed House: it just depends on the century in which the Prime Minister made the appointment.

It is absolutely clear that those of us who are here should bring to the House our own attributes and experience rather than those of our ancestors, proud though I am of my grandfather who was a miner and my other grandfather who was a baker. Their own geographical spread and attributes contributed to this country. But I should be here not because of them—and I do not believe that it is—but because of what I hope I have done by myself.

As a number of noble Lords have said, if we are to earn the respect of the public for our work, having just 16 people electing someone who is perhaps 12th in line to their title to sit in this House, is not the PR that we would like for the work that we do.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Can the noble Baroness deal with the point made by my noble friend Lord True? Should this Bill go through, will the Opposition recognise the effect that that would have on the political balance and therefore be prepared to see those hereditaries appointed as Conservatives in order to maintain that balance? If she gave that undertaking, it would make it much easier for some of us.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I have answered that. I said a few moments ago that it has already been done because of the number of new Peers that David Cameron appointed. As Prime Minister he appointed more new Peers than the previous five Prime Ministers did in total. Virtually all of them were appointed to that side of the House, and we have had one. So, in a sense, I have already answered the point—because it has already happened.

Of the 32 by-elections that have taken place, which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, mentioned, the total number of votes cast was just under 6,000. That is under 200 votes per seat. All 32 Members elected were white men, as noted by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge. The most significant contribution today was the challenge to the Government that, because of their broader remit, it is part of their responsibility to do something about this. That is a challenge that we wholeheartedly endorse.

We wish the Bill well. Last year, the Government used the slightly weasel words that they were sympathetic to any reform but that it should only be part of a broader review. But as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said, because of Brexit we will have very little time to do very much more, and the result of the election removes any such possibility. So we should accept this modest, incremental and reasonable Bill.

I am grateful for the last intervention because of the acknowledgement that it is the Conservatives who are most worried about this because they will lose some of their seats, which I do not think we have heard before. But change will be very gradual. I look round the Chamber and see some of the hereditary Peers who I am sure will have many more years with us, and we look forward to their contributions. But the Minister must rise to the challenge of his noble friend Lady Berridge. This matter is not simply for this House but for the Government to see whether they want to continue a system where white men have a privileged way of finding their way into the Parliament of this country.

Electoral Spending Limits: Wales

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question, not least because it was in English rather than in Welsh. The proposals would exempt the costs of translation from a candidate’s limits and I see no reason at all why the approach taken by the Welsh Assembly, if it goes down that road, and the approach taken by the UK Parliament, if it does so as well, should not be aligned so that there is no confusion among the candidates over what the rules are.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, given the enormous costs of the Electoral Commission, would my noble friend encourage it to review its own spending limits and levels? The last time I looked, the cost of the Electoral Commission was as much as half that of the entire cost of the Royal Family.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

Boundary Reviews 2018

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The legislation, which was approved by both Houses of Parliament, reduced the numbers of Members of Parliament from 650 to 600. The review that I referred to in my earlier response postulates boundaries for 600 constituencies.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I speak as someone who, when Secretary of State, had to sign a Boundary Commission report which made my own constituency unwinnable. Would my noble friend confirm that it is the duty of this House and the other place to approve the independent Boundary Commissions’ proposals? If it becomes a party-political matter, that way lies great danger to our democracy.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I heartily agree with my noble friend. His constituency was made unwinnable by the Boundary Commission; mine was actually abolished; I am not quite sure which of us came out of it best. So far as his question is concerned, it would be an affront to democracy if the proposals of the independent Boundary Commissions were obstructed.

Tax Havens

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 6th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

We already have country-by-country reporting in this country, and multinationals based in this country have to report to HMRC how much profit they make and how much tax they pay in each country. We are encouraging other countries to do this, so we have a multilateral approach, and the Chancellor raises this issue at the G20. In response to the first part of the noble Lord’s question, we have taken the lead on this as a result of our presidency of the G8, and more than 90 countries have agreed automatically to exchange taxpayer information under the common reporting standard. We are also taking initiatives on beneficial ownership and some of the other issues that we have already discussed.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, given the widespread use of Luxembourg by large companies and multinationals to reduce their tax, will our exit from the European Union provide an opportunity to broaden our tax base?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The initiatives we are taking on tax evasion are independent of our membership of the EU, although we are pursuing some EU directives. As I said, this country is in the lead. I do not know whether my noble friend has seen page 9 of today’s Times, which says that:

“Oligarchs must disclose identity as home owners”,


with a register. That is a world first: the people behind anonymous companies that own billions of pounds-worth of property must reveal their identities under new anti-corruption rules. This shows that the country takes the matter very seriously.

Building More Homes (Economic Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, and I just take a few moments to pay tribute to the excellent way in which he chairs our committee. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, in one of these BBC programmes, suggested that this is something of a daycare centre—it feels more like a workhouse under the leadership of the noble Lord: we have produced a report on electricity, we are working on a report on the labour market, we have finished off this housing report, and I believe we are doing something on student loans. We used to meet on Tuesdays; we now meet on Tuesdays and Wednesdays—and Thursdays, sometimes—and, in addition to that, the sub-committee now meets two days a week. So let us have no more talk about how this House is not properly employed.

I found this subject something of a challenge; housing is not an area where I claim any expertise. The last time I thought seriously about housing was when I was on Westminster City Council, which is nearly—gosh, it cannot be that many years ago; it is quite a long time, anyway. I was quite struck when, just after new year, I arrived by train in Glasgow. It was pouring down with what was almost sleet, on a horrible cold night. I went to get a taxi, and sitting in a sleeping bag in the wet was a young girl with a cup wanting money. Around London today we can see more and more examples of people in this desperate situation. Everyone in the taxi queue walked past, pretending not to notice her—if she had been a Labrador, everyone would have patted it, but she was a person and very few people put any money in the cup. It is not just with homelessness that we have a problem; we also have the problem of professional couples earning in good jobs who, in some parts of the country—most notably in London and south-east—cannot afford to get into the housing market. I was very proud to be a member of the Government in which my noble friend Lord Lawson led us with considerable success towards the idea of the home-owning democracy. The fact is, home ownership is falling and our ability to house those on the lowest incomes is non-existent.

If people do not have time to read the report, the only thing they have to look at in it is Figure 1. It shows the housebuilding that has occurred in the various sectors, and outside the private sector—as our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, has pointed out—it is failing to meet demand. The demand has increased remarkably. I was quite struck by the numbers reported by the noble Lord, Lord Green. He said that we had to build a house every 15 minutes to meet the demand that was arising simply from immigration. However, it is not just immigration that is increasing demand: it is also rising incomes, the change in the nature of households and the availability of cheap mortgages because of quantitative easing.

Central to this problem, as the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, pointed out, is the supply of land. One of the recommendations in our report is that we should create some incentive. There is no incentive for a health authority or a transport body to make land available for housing if they do not get to keep the proceeds. That would make a difference, but, as we say in our report, there does not seem to be anyone in central government making sure that that land is used effectively.

We had a private session with the Housing Minister, Gavin Barwell, and I found him the most extraordinary Minister. He has been around the country and is absolutely on top of these issues. He understands them and that is very much reflected in the White Paper. That session was, therefore, very cheerful. We were very cross with him at one stage, however, because the Government took a very long time to respond to our report, and produced a response that was, to say the least, derisory. We were cheered, however, to find out that the probable reason for that was that many of our ideas were being incorporated into the White Paper, for which we were extremely grateful. Again, it shows that, in the Housing Minister, we have someone who is listening. I know he spends his time going around the country talking to local authorities. The key thing here is that this is not a singular problem. It varies from region to region: in some parts of the country, it is perfectly affordable for people to buy homes, but in other parts of the country it is not.

Now we come to the bit that I found ideologically challenging. The great thing about this House is that we operate—certainly our committees do—on the basis of the evidence put before us. The evidence was absolutely overwhelming: we cannot rely on the private sector to provide all the housing that we need and the different categories of housing that we need, but it was also reassuring to find that the old kind of statist ideas were also not going to deliver. We need a rented sector, but this term “affordable housing” is like something out of double-think. Affordable housing turns out to be something that you have to be very well-off indeed to be able to afford. There is little in the way of supply for those people who are on very low incomes and do not have very much money. The conclusion that we came to is that we must find a way of enabling local authorities to provide low-cost housing for people who need those facilities.

Where I was cheered, in recognising that there needed to be more reliance on public sector housing, was that this would also enable us to save a great deal of taxpayers’ money. The noble Lord, Lord Hollick, pointed out that we were spending £27 billion on housing benefit. If we had more housing at lower rents provided by local authorities or housing associations, or local authorities in partnership with the private sector, we would not have to provide the housing benefit on such a level. It does not seem a very effective use of taxpayers’ money to simply use housing benefit in a market where the rents are going up and up and neither the taxpayer’s situation nor the availability of housing is improved.

I should, perhaps, declare an interest as chairman of Secure Trust Bank, because one aspect of the Government’s policy is clearly to encourage the building of more houses. They have set a target—I think it is a target—of a million houses, which, as the report points out, will be insufficient. The clear conclusion of our report, described by the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, is that the big housebuilders are something of an oligopoly. Actually, if you look at the business models of the big housebuilders, they are entirely rational in taking up the land, getting planning permission, creating a land bank, and then restricting the supply of housing that is coming on to the market to maintain the price, get best value and plan for the economic cycle. They are being entirely rational and you would not expect them to do anything else, but that is not consistent with what the Government need to do to meet their policy objectives.

Encouraging the small and medium-sized builders, which the Housing Minister says is a priority, means that they need availability of finance and labour. That has implications for our immigration policy when we finally get control of our own borders, but it also has implications for finance; so what on earth is going on when the Bank of England, in setting the capital requirements of the banks for lending, is actually making it cheaper for them to provide mortgages to people who have a low loan-to-value requirement and more expensive for the banks to provide money to developers to build housing? In the last few months, it has increased the capital weighting required for smaller banks, which are the main sources of revenue for small and medium-sized builders, from a 100% risk weighting to 150%. That means that it is 50% more expensive for the banks to provide loans, and it also means that there is less capital available and less ability for the banks to provide that.

On Friday, a report was published by the PRA with a statement from the Treasury Minister, saying that it wanted to increase competition and that it was going to address these issues. However, when you look at the detail, it is making the situation—certainly on my cursory glance—not better, but marginally worse.

I appreciate that we have lost a bit of time this morning, so I will bring my remarks to a close. On housing for rent, we need—as I have already indicated—rental properties available for people on lower incomes. We also have to recognise, however, that we need to have some means of securing rental tenures that are longer and more secure for people with families. We cannot go back to having a regulated housing market—we are certainly not recommending that—because we know where that will end: it will end with even less supply. We can, however, encourage the development and funding of building for rent in the private sector, where the terms of tenure are longer, to meet an obvious demand as we move forward.

Finally, I should like to say what a pleasure it has been to serve on this committee, and how much I appreciate that the White Paper has picked up on some of the ideas. The Housing Minister told us that everyone wanted a silver bullet. The White Paper is not a silver bullet; there is no silver bullet. We will solve this problem with a combination of policies on the capital and other rules that apply to the banks, on housing benefit, on welfare and on immigration. We need government as a whole to put their shoulder to the wheel on this. In our report, we said that there should be a senior Cabinet Minister who is in charge of driving this policy; my recommendation is to make Mr Barwell a senior Cabinet Minister.

House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Friday 3rd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am aware that, when I introduced this Bill at its First Reading, it did not receive a rapturous reception on all sides of the House. Therefore, I state very clearly that it is not aimed at destroying or abolishing this House—on the contrary, it aims to preserve it in very much its present form while providing it with a new democratic legitimacy to protect it from destruction in the years to come. I therefore ask noble Lords to give it a fair hearing in keeping with the traditions of this House, which are a part of what I am seeking to conserve.

Some years ago it was said by the Government that,

“it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation”.

That was in the introduction to the Parliament Act 1911. We had to wait a further 88 years for that promise to begin to be honoured in the 1999 House of Lords Act, by the abolition of the right of the majority of hereditary Peers to sit in the House of Lords. However, its fulfilment is still a matter of unfinished business.

Since then there have been three attempts to move matters forward; two by the then Labour Government and another by the 2010 to 2015 coalition Government. But all failed to achieve the support of either House. Nevertheless, the issue remains a live one, so much so that the manifestos of all the major parties at the 2015 general election included the intention to further reform the House of Lords—although the Conservative manifesto added that it would not, for them, be a priority. The 1999 Act was only a temporary stop on the road to full democratic reform. There can be little doubt that until further substantial reform takes place, it will remain firmly on the political agenda. Even if it does not happen under the present Government, the issue will not go away. It will be taken up by the next Government, of whatever complexion that may be. Whether that is in five, 10 or even 15 years, it will be a short time in comparison to the 106 years since the 1911 Act—and a short time indeed in the 800-year history of this House, since Magna Carta.

Since democratic reform is inevitable sooner or later, there are two ways in which this House can react to the prospect. One is for the House simply to turn its back on the idea of reform and wait, ostrich-like, until a future House of Commons imposes reform on it. The second course, which I argue is a much better option and which I seek to present in the Bill, is for the House to recognise the inevitability of eventual reform. We can take the initiative and design our own reform in a way that satisfies the legitimate demands of democracy, while preserving all that is best about our history, traditions and present arrangements. If we can do this, and pass our own reform Bill, it would be extremely difficult for those in the other place to then turn it down.

Let me explain how I believe this can be done. At the heart of the problem are two diametric viewpoints, and the fact that both are perfectly valid. From one, the House of Lords is seen as wholly undemocratic, based on privilege and patronage and entirely lacking in legitimacy. From this viewpoint, it should be abolished and replaced with a wholly elected Chamber. From the other viewpoint, the House of Lords is an institution that, either despite or because of the strange succession of historical accidents that have led to its present make-up, does a good and worthwhile job, contains an unrivalled wealth of experience and specialised knowledge, provides a platform from which people of outstanding achievement can deservedly contribute to the national debate, holds Governments and Ministers to account, and corrects the errors and omissions of the other place—and does all this with a traditional politeness and civility that is respected by the public in a way that the goings-on in the other place are not. From this viewpoint, for all these reasons, it should be left just as it is.

Not only are both these viewpoints valid, it is possible for one person to hold both simultaneously. It is little wonder, therefore, that the Blair Government failed to find an acceptable third way in an arithmetical splitting of the difference between the two views. For the abolitionists, a second Chamber would remain undemocratic unless it was wholly elected, while for the preservationists, no reform that involved expelling half or more of the present Members could possibly retain those features that they hold dear.

My Bill puts forward an entirely different approach. It would retain 100% of the present membership, except for the 92 hereditary Peers who were permitted to stay under the 1999 Act. It would allow for new life Peers to be created in the future with the right to sit in this House but, at the same time, would provide the reformed House with 100% democratic legitimacy. The key to achieving this apparently impossible reconciliation of opposites, and the compromise at the heart of my Bill, is that the life Peers and Lords spiritual would become full but non-voting Members of the reformed House. They would retain all their existing rights and privileges, except that of voting in Divisions of the House. It is a big concession, but it is absolutely necessary because nothing less will satisfy those who demand democratic legitimacy, including those who would rather abolish the House lock, stock and barrel. It is the price that must be paid by preservationists to preserve everything else, and to leave the abolitionists, once and for all, with no further case for reform.

There may be some who would argue against my Bill on the ground that it creates two classes of Member, voting and non-voting. However, the reality is that we already have two classes of Member: those who attend frequently, vote and partake in the business of the House—the so-called working Peers, many of whom are hereditary—and the remainder, who attend and vote less frequently or perhaps do not come at all. There is no exact definition, but between 200 and 300 Members of the current House would probably consider themselves to be working Peers—some more full-time than others. Under the proposals in my Bill, there would be 292 elected voting Members of a reformed Chamber, and current Peers would be eligible to stand for those positions without having to renounce their peerages. Elected Members would serve for an eight-year term and half would be elected every four years, so there would also be a four-year transitional period during which there would be 146 elected voting Members and 146 current Peers—perhaps those who had been most active over the previous years—who would retain their voting rights. It is not unreasonable to expect that most current working Peers who represent a party would be adopted by their party as candidates in those elections.

My Bill also provides that the group of Cross-Bench Members would be treated as a party for those elections, so present Cross-Benchers could also stand for election. It is quite possible that their group would be a popular option for many electors disillusioned with party politics. It is therefore likely that at least a significant proportion of the new elected Members would be current Peers, but with their voting rights endorsed by a democratic mandate. Those noble Lords who did not wish to stand for election as voting Members, or who did so unsuccessfully, would remain as Members of this House, with all their other rights and privileges intact.

The elections would take place using a regional list system, essentially the same as that used since 1999 for the election of UK Members of the European Parliament, but electing twice as many Members at a time. My reasons for choosing this system rather than any other are first, that it is a proportional system, and, secondly, that although it may not be the best or the most proportional of the many proportional representation systems available, it is the only such system that is already in use throughout the UK and, as such, is one with which voters, politicians and returning officers are already familiar.

I do not expect all Members of the House to agree with all the measures in my Bill. I believe, however, that the ideas contained in it have the potential to produce a reform of this House that would combine the preservation of the best features of the present Chamber with democratic legitimacy, which is essential if the House is to survive at all beyond the first quarter of this century. These ideas are certainly worthy of serious debate and consideration, not just at Second Reading but in Committee, so that the House can look at the various provisions in detail, amend them if it sees fit to do so and make a serious attempt to design its own reform, rather than waiting for a future House of Commons to impose a version that we perhaps do not like.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I have nearly finished. Perhaps the noble Lord would not mind if I conclude.

Some people have said that my Bill cannot succeed because it is like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas. If I may use the analogy without disrespect to my fellow Peers, the point is that reform, like Christmas, is coming whether the House votes for it or not. I am offering noble Lords a chance to vote for a vegetarian Christmas.

In conclusion, I have a confession to make. I did not write this Bill. It was written by Brig Oubridge, who, I think noble Lords will agree, has written a very fine Bill that is worthy of being passed into law. It has been through the Green Party conference and voted on as Green Party policy. I beg to move.

House of Lords Bill [HL]

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend in this debate on the Second Reading of his Bill. As he has ably demonstrated this morning, he knows a great deal about the House of Lords; he has studied it for a long time and has come forward with a workable proposal. I also thank him because he consulted widely on the Bill, right across the House, amended it from his original draft and has now presented it to the House. As he explained, the aim is to reduce the total number of Members of this House. My noble friend produced but one reason for it: the way Parliament is regarded as a whole from outside, by the public. I am not entirely convinced that the Bill would necessarily solve that. The reasons why Parliament is not held as well as it once was are many and varied; we do not need to go into those today.

There are a number of ways to achieve what my noble friend wants. The simplest—the noble Lord, Lord Steel, talked about it—is an automatic age limit of 80, and there are powerful statistics to demonstrate that, in an ever-ageing House, that would be a good way to reduce the numbers. However, for obvious reasons, that is deeply unpopular in this House and, apart from anything else, I am not entirely convinced that it would be legal, given the various equalities Acts that exist.

More Peers could be encouraged to take voluntary retirement from the House, which was impossible until two or three years ago. You could take a leave of absence but you could not exclude yourself permanently. We now can, and there are various ideas about how that could be made more practical. My view is that, given that this House is due to be relocated in a few years and we are to be removed from this building, we may well find then that more Peers are prepared to take voluntary retirement than is the case today.

The system that my noble friend has alighted on is well precedented, and the last time it was used, it worked. However, I have to say to noble Lords from all parts of the House that it is not an easy or pleasant system to go through—in fact, it is deeply unpleasant, and my noble friend and I have both been through it. It is precedented by the late Lord Weatherill’s amendment to the 1999 Act, which generally speaking has been a success. I wonder whether, if we were to use this for the whole House, my noble friend has considered some de minimis provisions for very small parties. We have only one Member from the Green Party, and it would be difficult to reduce her by 25%. I am not sure whether UKIP is a full designation in this House, but it may well be under the terms of the Bill or if it becomes an Act.

My real purpose is to question the motivation, intention and necessity behind the proposal. I spent a bit of time reading some statistics from the very helpful people in the Library. Taking the basis of the Bill—that the House should not be bigger than 600—I decided to test how many people currently attend the House. We all know the overall figures: just over 800 Members are entitled to sit, and that is an increase since 1999-2000 of about 220. Since 2015-16, the figure has increased by about 100. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the daily attendance has increased by a similar number: currently, about 100 more Peers attend on a daily basis than did in 2009-10. What is interesting about these daily attendance figures—these are averages across the Session—is that none is anywhere near 600; in fact, none breaches 500. Therefore, they are well within the limit set by my noble friend. In the current year, the average daily attendance is 471 and in 2009-10 it was 388.

The next interesting statistics to look at are for Divisions over the past 10 years, which measure a good degree of participation in the House. In 2009-10, which was a short Session, the average number of Peers voting per Division was 206. The most recent figures available, for 2015-16, show that there were 114 Divisions with 362 Peers on average voting. It is interesting that, in the past 10 years, the highest average number of Members voting per Division was 394 in the 2013-14 Session. What I extrapolate from these figures is that the problem may not be quite as big as my noble friend thinks.

In discussing this with many Peers, I have realised that there seems to be more of a problem at Question Time, when the House is very full indeed. Again, there are many different reasons for that, and perhaps we should ask the Procedure Committee to consider moving Question Time to another time of the day to see whether that would lessen the problem. My question is: is the proposal necessary?

Comparing this House to the House of Commons is also not as helpful as one might initially suggest. We are a very different and varied House. We are not like Members of another place. We do not represent anybody and we do not have constituencies, but we are very regionally based. There are full-time Peers here, sitting on all the Front Benches, who devote their lives to this House. There are Peers who have retired from their formal employment who devote a great deal of time to this House, and there are those who are in part employment or full employment. In other words, people come when they can to try to play their part. I worry that the Bill would create the spectre of a full-time and, increasingly, fully paid House. My point for the Minister is to be very cautious in accepting this.

This will be an extremely useful and interesting debate.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Does my noble friend not conclude from the statistics that he has drawn to the attention of the House that the issue is the relationship between attendance and participation?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, no, I do not. I produced the average daily figures for attendance and for voting in Divisions. It is entirely fair that some Peers come here and do not necessarily vote. There may be many reasons for that, including for the Cross-Benchers, who often do not vote in Divisions for their own political reasons.

The point I was about to make, which my noble friend might enjoy, concerns whether the House of Commons would welcome the Bill. We know what the House of Commons thinks. Only a few short years ago, the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, produced a Bill in the House of Commons to have a largely elected House of Lords, which was passed overwhelmingly. I wonder whether enough time has gone by to ask the House of Commons to consider again a reduction Bill rather than an elected Bill.

Franchise: British Citizens Abroad

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

All those things are under consideration. I think that what the noble Baroness says is unlikely to be the case, but I will get back to her to make sure that that is correct.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, what is the possible justification for allowing people who have no contact other than past contact with this country and who pay no taxes in this country to have votes? Will my noble friend tell me which other countries in the world have such a system?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I think that quite a lot of people who live abroad still have houses and relatives here, and come here quite a lot. They still have a lot of connection with this country. There is no reason why they should not be allowed to have a view on the elections.

Civil Service Fast Stream

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

The noble Baroness makes a good point. As the head of the Civil Service has pointed out, we are determined to make sure that we get the brightest and best to negotiate and advise on an outcome that represents the views of our entire society. I am unable to go beyond that at this precise juncture.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that the Government’s policy is to maintain a United Kingdom Civil Service and ensure that civil servants from the devolved Administrations are exposed to Whitehall and vice versa?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

Indeed, I can confirm that, and my noble friend makes a good point about ensuring that civil servants from Scotland are exposed to Whitehall.