House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes]

My natural sense of modesty, and because it is above my pay grade, prevents me from trying even to give a putative answer to that matter. It was just the way in which things are rushed into with badly drafted, inadequate and mediocre legislation in the House of Commons. More and more is churned out which has to be repaired two or three years later by another set of Bills to rectify the mistakes. That was in the early days of the Deputy Prime Minister being in the House of Commons for one term.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Is not that because the Deputy Prime Minister has never studied the British constitution?

[Lord Dykes]

It is for others to give their views. I am a great admirer of the Deputy Prime Minister but in this case he was just at the beginning of a learning curve. All that will come out again in the wash. This country takes a long time to make fundamental decisions about its modernisation. Irrespective of what happens in Scotland, which is a great complication, the sooner we have a written constitution and agree to be a modern, powerful, well paid, revising, unelected—that being my preference because if it is elected that would change matters completely—institution, the sooner it will have more powers, otherwise we will drift along with an inadequate system of which we are artificially proud for some bizarre, historical reason.

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[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, this has been quite an interesting debate. I am sorely tempted to allow myself to be provoked by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, and I will return to him in a moment. However, I begin, as almost everyone has, by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, not only on her chairmanship of the group and therefore her part-authorship of the report but on the very measured, judicious and tactful way in which she introduced it. I would like her to pass on my thanks, as others have, to Lord Grenfell, who is indeed sorely missed. His valedictory address in this House a few weeks ago was a tour de force, and a memorable occasion for all of us privileged to hear it.

I would just say to the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, that the Bishops are here because we have in this country an established church, and everyone who lives in this country—regardless of his race, colour or creed—is entitled to the ministrations of that church. There is a case, although it is one that I would strongly refute, for disestablishment. But while we have establishment, the Bishops are here. That is why the group that produced this excellent report was entirely right—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords—

[Lord Cormack]

I shall give way in a minute. It was entirely right to put that issue on one side, because it is another issue, and there are powerful arguments on both sides.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

When the noble Lord says “this country”, can he make it clear that he means England?

[Lord Cormack]

Yes, of course I do—and next week we shall be joining forces and talking about the United Kingdom.

Although I was driven to go and get a glass of water when the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, was talking about pulling down this very edifice—or at least vacating it—we have had some interesting and thoughtful contributions. My own position is fairly well known. I should probably declare an interest as chairman of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, which my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth convenes and which we together founded more than 12 years ago. Many of your Lordships are regular members and attenders of that group.

We have demonstrated, in the trust that we have shown in each other, that there is a degree of consensus in this House on a number of things. First, there is a strong consensus in this House that there should be primacy of the House of Commons within the United Kingdom Parliament. I believe that that primacy is best safeguarded by having an unambiguous democratic mandate, which they hold. We are here for a complementary but different purpose, which is touched on in the report and has been touched on in many speeches during the past few hours. We revise and bring to our debates a degree of experience and expertise, which is a valuable add-on for the general public. I would very much regret the ending of this appointed House and its replacement by something which would be either a clone of or a rival to the other place in constitutional terms.

I put that on one side, because the report makes it plain that some of its authors would favour an elected House, and others would not. The general majority in the Labour Party, it is assumed, would not—and I am sure that the general majority in this House would not. But there are things that we can do in the mean time. It is for that reason that the report is so valuable to us all.

We need to address the subject of size. I would not agree with a membership of 450, because I doubt that it would give enough for all our committees to be effectively manned. I say that particularly because I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who would like to see our committee system extended. Given the expertise in this House, to have a foreign affairs or a foreign affairs and defence committee could only add value to the whole constitutional process in our country. I would very much like to see that. But again the report makes it plain that it is not saying 450 and that is it; the group is merely putting it forward as a suggestion. I think that the House should not be larger than the House of Commons, and a figure of around 600 would probably be right.

The report talks about retirement. This is a very difficult and sensitive subject. I would tackle it in a rather different way. I am halfway through my eighth decade, and I probably will want to step down at the age of 80—but I do not know. But in future, when new Peers come to this House, it would be sensible for the Writ of Summons to be sent for a period of 20 or 25 years, or until the age of, say, 85, or whichever comes sooner. That would be a sensible way of bringing down the age gradually, over a period. But we have so many amazing contributions from people in their 80s—we have had some in this debate—that I think that to have an arbitrary age limit would not be the right way for us to go. I think that that would carry most colleagues.

I believe that those who are here as hereditary Peers should stay, but the by-election system, particularly when there are more candidates than electors for a particular party, as sometimes happens, does not exactly enhance the reputation of the House of Lords. I am very concerned about the reputation of the House of Lords; it is something that means a very great deal to me.

What has struck me most in the few years that I have been here is how we have been able to look at issues truly on their merits. I was told when I came here that in the House of Lords, unlike in the House of Commons, you have to win the argument. There is a degree of whipping, but many of us take it with a degree of discretion, and it is very good that the Government of the day are defeated from time to time. That is what we are here for. If the Government of the day were never defeated on the Floor of the House of Lords, there would be no point in having this House at all. However, it is right that, at the end of the day, we should give way to the elected Chamber.

I am also struck by the lack of party-political acerbity in this House, symbolised by our Long Table, where we sit and eat together regardless of our political, religious or any other affiliations. That brings us together as people and enables us to get to know each other as individuals, as is the case with the group which meets on a regular basis to campaign for an effective second Chamber, which is what we should all seek to do.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

It is one way of addressing the question of topping up after the election. We also have to grasp the question of retirement. It was intended, when the retirement proposals came in, that a larger number of Peers would take the option of retirement and follow the excellent example of Lord Grenfell in that respect, but that has not actually transpired so far.

There were a number of recommendations in the report about the appointments process. I note that the appointments process will remain centralised and largely agreed by party leaders, although that is itself a question. The Bill that the Government put forward proposed to make the House of Lords Appointments Commission a statutory commission and, in any comprehensive reform, that would happen. The question of political balance is one of the most difficult ones. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that if UKIP establishes itself as a significant party in British politics, it would of course be appropriate to have a number of UKIP Members in this House. He might have wished to add that given the level of attendance of the current UKIP Members, both here and in the European Parliament, we might not notice the difference. We already have a Green Member of the Lords, which recognises that British politics is shifting. That is also part of what is appropriate to reflect the changing political balance.

The need to reflect diversity across the UK is a tremendous problem, which election on a regional basis would resolve, as of course would indirect election. I am struck by the number of Peers who raised the question of indirect election in this debate, as it has not received very much attention until recently. The noble Lords, Lord Foulkes and Lord Trimble, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and other noble Lords mentioned it. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, talked about it having an occupational or functional basis—a sort of guild socialist approach. The Cross Benches, after all, are well organised: the academies, in particular the medics, always put forward their members. Incidentally, when it comes to lobbies, I have to say to right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby that the biggest lobby in this House is the academic lobby—I hope he has noticed that I used to be part of it myself.

As to working Peers, part of the reason that attendance has risen in recent years is because one is asked, before one comes in, whether one is prepared to work hard. However, those of us who were appointed when we still needed to earn our pensions would like to go on working until we have finished earning them, so the Government do not intend to produce a high bar of the sort that is proposed here. It is a matter of judgment the extent to which Members should be full-time or part-time but, again, if we want Members under the age of 60 who still have children to bring up and careers to finish, we have to consider how much we insist on their attending all the time.

The House can decide to end the wearing of robes. I have much sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, that it would be a little more radical to suggest that we might end the use of titles, but that would be a more deliberative step.

Do we need a referendum on Lords reform? The Government’s view is that, since each of the major parties had it in their manifesto last time, it was a clear consensual commitment and a referendum is therefore not necessary. A number of procedural reforms were proposed in the report which, as I have already said—

[Lord Cormack]

To be entirely fair, would my noble friend acknowledge that the Labour Party did have a commitment to a referendum in their manifesto?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I have to admit that I do not recall whether the party had a commitment to a referendum on Lords reform. If it did, that is fine.

I will wind this multifaceted debate up as quickly as I can. The House of Lords has changed a great deal over the past 20 years. Certainly, since I came in, in 1996, we have become a much more effective revising Chamber and a much busier Chamber. We have become the area through which the lobbies outside know that they can get things. Figures were quoted about the number of government defeats, although my figures do not entirely agree with those of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and we might perhaps exchange ideas outside the Chamber. As a Minister taking Bills through, I am conscious that we are always saying to Commons Ministers, “You won’t get that through the Lords unless …”. As we all know, a great deal of what happens in the Lords is about bargaining and about the Government bringing back proposals to meet criticisms that have been made.

Let us treat this as a final-year-of-Parliament debate. There is not time for legislation before the general election but ideas such as those produced can feed into the thinking of the next Government—whoever they may be—and perhaps even build a consensus across the parties on the way forward.