Conduct Committee

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

I am seeking to say that it was originally not intended that the Conduct Committee membership should be subject to the three-year rotation rule. It appears that this needs to be resolved, and that is why it has come up for consideration by the Procedure Committee. Obviously, I cannot pre-empt what the Procedure Committee or your Lordships may decide—I am very well aware of that—but I am setting out the parameters of what the Procedure Committee and the House may need to resolve so that the Peer members are not subject to the three-year rotation rule if that is what the House, and before that the Procedure Committee, should wish.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

It might assist the Senior Deputy Speaker and my noble friend if I add to what has been said. As a newly appointed member of the Conduct Committee and as one of the members who were part of the recruitment process, one of the things that has been important to me in the disparity between the appointment terms for Peers and non-Peer members is that there is no assumption that a non-Peer member, at the point of their appointment, will automatically get another three-year term at the end of their first term. That is important, because previously I had heard it being discussed that the non-Peer members were appointed for six years. That is the point that we need to get away from—the assumption that there will always be a second term.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

Without wishing to elongate this, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for that. It primes that this is a matter for the Procedure and Privileges Committee to consider. If there is further clarification, obviously it will come back before your Lordships.