House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to debate this report and its recommendations for incremental change in the House. I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, for her extremely clear and balanced introduction to the debate. I was fortunate enough to be a member of the Royal Commission on House of Lords Reform, which was chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham. This contained members of all parties as well as academics. It began with a total division of opinion between those who wanted a fully elected House and those who wanted a fully appointed one, but by the end a remarkable consensus had been achieved.

I intend to look at a few of the recommendations in the report that we are debating today and compare them with the related proposals made by the royal commission, while deliberately not dealing with the question of election versus appointment, because I believe, taking up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that the kind of proposals that we are discussing for incremental change are compatible with a fully elected House, a fully appointed House or a hybrid House. Everyone now agrees that our House badly needs reforming and I believe that we can take significant steps in reform even before a final decision is made about that issue.

First, there is the question of size. The Wakeham commission proposed 450. I am glad that this figure now seems to have emerged as the agreed one and is the one put forward in the Labour Party working group’s report. Secondly, there is retirement. The Labour Party report proposes the age of 80. The problem, of course, is that 80 is the new 60. There is one extremely distinguished Member of your Lordships’ House, who I am glad to say is still very much with us, who was appointed at the age of 79. The royal commission argued against age limitations of any kind and instead suggested that everyone should be appointed or elected not for life but for 15 years, renewable for a further term only under exceptional circumstances, a decision that would be made by an independent Appointments Commission. Fifteen years would enable a person to take a long view but would also enable the House constantly to be renewed without having to get larger and larger, which, as we know, is what is happening at the moment.

Thirdly, there is the Appointments Commission. The Labour Party recommends that it be put on a statutory basis and given greater powers than it has now. That recommendation is extremely welcome. For the royal commission, this was a key proposal, which we discussed in great detail. On the commission’s proposals, its powers would go further than those envisaged by the Labour Party report. It would have responsibility for the proper balance not just among Cross-Bench Peers but for the House as a whole. It would keep in touch with party leaders to ensure that across the House there was the right balance of gender, ethnicity, religion and experience. It would also, of course, attend to the other criteria helpfully set out in the Labour Party report about proven probity, commitment to the work of the House and so on.

This leads on to my fourth point about how a Government’s majority in the Commons should be reflected in this House. According to the Labour Party document, no one party should have a majority in this House, and it is critical of the way in which a coalition Government, such as this one, with a very big majority, can almost invariably get their way without too much difficulty. The opposite view, which I understand is held by the Government and which was put forward by the royal commission, is that the ratio in this House should reflect the votes cast in an election, a view that would, or could, lead to even more appointments to this House.

It is worth looking at the number of times particular Governments have been defeated in this House. The present Government have been defeated 89 times. In the last term of the Labour Government, they were defeated 175 times. In the term before that, they were defeated 245 times and, in the term before that, 108 times. If we go back to the two previous Conservative Administrations, they were defeated 62 times and 72 times. There is quite a big gap between the Labour Party being defeated 245 times at one point and the Conservative Government being defeated only 62 times. I shall make no comment about those figures, because they speak for themselves. What it has meant in practice at the moment is that the Government can be defeated only if a strong body of Cross-Bench Peers combines with a number of members of the coalition Government who are prepared to vote against their own party.

The principles behind any solution to this issue seem to me quite clear and are ones that I think all your Lordships would agree on. First, in the end, the House of Commons must get its own way. Secondly, this House must have real power to force the Commons to think again. Against the background of these two principles, I suggest a third, which is that this House, at least in the interim period, should reflect the Government’s working majority in the Commons without at that point taking into account the Cross-Benchers. Very often when people discuss this, they do not take into account the fact that 20% of this House’s Members are Cross-Benchers, from a whole range of professions and backgrounds, who have a responsibility to think independently of party. That 20% figure has not of course been finally agreed, but in the previous set of proposals there seemed to be a growing consensus on it.

In the Commons, the Government have a working majority of 79 in a House of 650. If that majority were reflected in a House of Lords of 450, it would mean a majority of 53 over the opposition party and, in addition, the House would have 90 Cross-Bench Members. In other words, even if there were a coalition Government, it could not be taken for granted that the Government would get their way, for they would have to convince the majority of the Cross-Benchers. A healthy House of Lords, I suggest, is one in which the Government should not be defeated on a regular basis but would be defeated from time to time. Of course, that begs the question of what is “regular” and what is meant by “time to time”. Finally, going back to a previous point, it would be the responsibility of the independent Appointments Commission, working with party leaders, to ensure that this balance was kept.

I welcome the push that this report has given us to think about incremental changes that could be made, even at this stage. However, the recommendations of the royal commission go further and enable us to achieve more in this direction, whatever we finally agree about whether this House is to be fully elected, fully appointed or a hybrid.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dubs]

Well, he is a Lib Dem. Anyway, I genuinely believe that the House will become unmanageable if it goes on being made larger and larger. We have to find some way to control its size. That is why we on the working group looked at a retirement age of 80, coupled with people who do not play their part in this House no longer being Members. Those two things have to go together. I still think, even if I have to fall on my own sword, that that is at least one option for reducing the size of the House.

My noble friend mentioned that all First Readings of Bills should be in the Commons, even if half the Second Readings then come here. That would ensure that the Parliament Act would bite on all legislation. As for giving only a delaying power for orders or statutory instruments, that seems sensible. All of us when in opposition have wrestled with disliking an order and not wishing, as an unelected House, to actually kill it; we have all had that difficulty. So a three-month delay period would be sensible.

As for reviewing the role of the Lord Speaker, although this is not a debate about that important role, the way in which Questions work in this House means that those who are more pushy—I hate to call my fellow Peers bullies, but those who act like bullies—push out other noble Lords in getting supplementary questions. That is not satisfactory, and we know that it does not work. We know that some of us are reluctant to push in with supplementaries simply for that reason.

I noted what the right reverend Prelate said about robes. His argument would be that we should wear them all the time—heaven forbid. The problem, as my noble friend said, is that whenever there is a photograph of Members of this House, we are always wearing those robes and we look totally out of date for modern times. Frankly, it is just not a sensible way forward. I should like to add to that the suggestion that we get rid of titles. If one is introduced or if one introduces oneself with a title, the other person—if they are a normal human being—looks at us as if we are complete nerds, or they become entirely deferential. Neither is a sensible way to have a rapport with anybody. It stands in the way of our dealing and engaging with ordinary people.

I put forward one suggestion before without getting much acclaim, which was that anyone who wants to stay in this House should drop the title and, if they want to keep the title, they should retire for good. That would sort out those who say that they keep their titles only because their wives demand it, which I have heard on more than one occasion.

I support the idea of a constitutional commission, provided that it is not a long-grass job and that there is a time limit, because there are too many difficult issues that need to be resolved. I wanted the report to steer the constitutional commission towards working out how best to achieve an elected second Chamber, but I was dissuaded from that by my noble friend on the very sensible grounds that, if we tell a constitutional convention or commission what it should do, it will hardly be able to do its job properly. We would simply be ordering what should happen.

Yes, many hereditary Peers make a fantastic contribution to this House, but I think that the time for having them is over.

I shall just tiptoe on thin ice on the subject of Bishops. I believe that many of them make an enormously useful contribution to this House, but they do it because of the individuals they are. If Bishops are to continue to sit in this House, I should like them to be appointed or elected to it in the same way as everyone else.

I fear that my next comment will offend the right reverend Prelate. He criticised lobbyists. That is fair enough. However, I fear that I shall make a lot of enemies by saying that the only paid lobbyists in this House are the Bishops. That is an anomaly.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth]

I thank the noble Lord for that comment which deserves a response. Bishops do not represent the Church of England in this House but seek to represent some of the feelings in their diocese as a whole. As the right reverend Prelate said, he is in touch with all the communities in Derby. The Bishops are not pursuing the interests of the Church of England alone but also representing other faith communities.

[Lord Dubs]

I hear what the noble and right reverend Lord says. However, I stick by my point: we took care to avoid having paid lobbyists in this House, and we should ensure that we do not apply that principle selectively. However, as the group said, we should leave that matter to a constitutional commission. This is not a bad report. I welcome it and hope that the House will endorse it.