House of Lords

Lord Blair of Boughton Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, I promise not to speak about the catering department. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, particularly as at last I may have found someone in the House who can tell me how it works, which he claimed to know.

I am in agreement with the direction of travel put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, but I want to concentrate on his proposal regarding the 75% mechanism being chosen in relation to past attendance, first on a point of principle and then on two matters of detail. My principal, and principled, point is that attendance is not enough to justify a weighting of 75% in whatever selection takes place. It is also important that the mechanism for that selection must have a clear connection with both the overall representativeness of the Chamber and, as the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market, put it, the recency of the experience from which individual Members inform the debates in your Lordships’ House.

One thing that matters is how this place appears to the electorate, and that, as others have said, brings us to the vexed question of age. As a callow youth of 61, I do not dissemble when I say that I have been deeply impressed by the contributions of many Members of the House much older than me. However, can attendance alone justify the retention of the situation at present, in which the average age of the Members of this House yesterday was 70—these statistics are from the House of Lords Library, and I am grateful for them—146 Members were aged between 75 and 80, 101 Members between 80 and 85, and 73 Members 85 and over? Can attendance alone be justified, were age to be completely ignored, as an indicator of the relevancy of experience of ordinary lives? I am not suggesting a blanket ban on a certain age, but I cannot believe that any future arrangement would not specify appropriate measures to ensure that a reformed House reflected the citizenry of the United Kingdom in terms of gender and ethnicity, so why should it not in some terms reflect the age of the population?

Before I get into terrible trouble for this temerity, let me call in aid the speech made last month to mark his retirement by Lord Jenkin of Roding, a speech which was well received on all sides of the House. He said that he had responded to questions about why he was retiring as follows:

“In recent weeks, I have been approached by a number of noble Lords from all parts of the House asking, sometimes with some asperity, why I am retiring. After all, I am getting on a bit and I realise that, but I have two answers; one is very short and the other is slightly longer. The short one is that after 50 years in Parliament—a number of noble Lords have already made reference to that—and at the age of 88, I feel that I have done enough. I have done what I can offer, and it is best to bow out and let others carry on.

The slightly longer answer is that, if this House is to continue to perform its hugely important functions in the running of this country, I totally believe that there has to be a constant infusion of new blood introduced into the House, with people who have current experience and whose experience of business or whatever field they have operated in is completely up to date”.—[Official Report, 16/12/14; col. 141.]

I really agree.

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

Surely it is not inconsistent to have both people of some considerable age and an infusion of new blood. If we look at the United States, the new president of the Federal Reserve took office at the age of 68. Many people commented on the fact that she was the first woman, but there was very little comment in the United States about her age. If Hillary Clinton should become President of the United States, she will enter the White House at the age of 69. People age at different paces. I have a personal friend who is chairman and chief executive of one of the largest banks in the United States and is 80. I am not suggesting that that is ideal, but an infusion of new talent and age are not incompatible.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

I agree with the noble Lord. I was suggesting not that we should lay down specific ages, but that age should have the same relevance in the selection of the make-up of the House as the importance that we put on ethnicity and gender. There will always be exceptions. I am not suggesting a compulsory age limit, but as the House reforms itself it would want to be in a position to demonstrate that it reflected the general make-up of the population. At the moment, it is heavily weighted towards the older end of the population and, if we use attendance only, we may well end up with a reformed House that is even more reflective of an older group of people than it is at the moment.

I now turn to two detailed concerns. I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Williams, is being fair in his proposal that all four major groupings should be equally reduced to just below 53% of their current number. According to the House of Lords Library, between May 2010 and December 2014, the number of Members taking party whips increased by 85, or about 15%, whereas the number of Cross-Benchers fell by four. It does not seem to me that we should start from a position that each grouping is reduced to 53% of its current position if the Cross Benches are not the problem in terms of the increase that has been so much commented upon.

Lastly, I suggest that the proposal by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, that attendance, if it is to be judged, should be judged across the lifetime of the previous Parliament needs careful thought for new arrivals, taking account not only of their date of Introduction but of how quickly they have been able to make the necessary adjustment to their working life to become a working Peer, particularly those who have not previously been politicians. For instance, I came into this House in 2010. I was already contracted to work overseas in the United States and India for a considerable period in the next two years, and it was with great difficulty that I was able to attend the House as much as I wanted. If we are going to go with the idea of attendance, a “best two years” rule might be an improvement. That would also deal with periods of significant illness and bereavement for all Members.

This is complicated, but it is necessary. However, something has to be done, and I look forward to the further debates and discussions ahead, provided that the outcome at each Parliament is to produce a revising Chamber with a proper balance of long experience in your Lordships’ House and recent experience in the world outside Westminster.