House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill [HL]

Lord Steel of Aikwood Excerpts

Friday 29th June 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

That the Bill be read a second time.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, I am conscious that we have two other important Bills to deal with today and I am hopeful that we shall have a short and effective debate. The Bill contains precisely the same three provisions already approved by your Lordships in the previous Session in the Bill that we sent to the other place, where, in the words of the Leader of the House, it languished for some weeks. I hope that that will not happen again. I am reasonably assured that it will not and we therefore wish to send the Bill to the other place as soon as possible—I hope without any Committee or Report stage, given that we have discussed the provisions in detail on many occasions.

The Bill is neither in opposition to nor complementary to the government Bill that was published this week. The Government are dealing with fundamental changes to the House up to the year 2025. This Bill deals with changes to the House that are needed, and could be implemented, in this Session. That is a big difference. In any case, my view is—and I hope that I will not be misunderstood—that the least said about the other Bill during this debate the better.

This Bill has undergone some professional redrafting, including the change to the Short Title, which makes it clear that it has no ambition to be described as a reform Bill. It deals specifically with cessation of membership of the House. It introduces a fundamental change because, until now, all of us in this Chamber, whether we are here created as life Peers under the 1958 Act or as hereditary Peers under the 1999 Act, remain Members of this House for life, and there is nothing we can do about it. The Bill changes that in three important ways. Before I start describing the details, I am conscious that I am in danger of being guilty of tedious repetition, given that I have described the Bill on many occasions. However, let me briefly outline the three provisions.

First, it proposes that Members may cease to be Members of this House on a voluntary basis if they choose to retire. The Bill simply gives statutory effect to the recommendations of the all-party committee under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral that were published nearly two years ago. The committee recommended a voluntary retirement scheme that would reduce the numbers in this place and save the taxpayer money. There is of course no money provision in the Bill. It would be a matter for the House authorities, as recommended by the committee, to work up a scheme and, at the end of the day, for the House to approve any scheme. It would probably contain not a golden handshake, or even a silver handshake, but perhaps a bronze handshake as a token of recognition of service to the House. However, that is a matter for the House to decide in the future. What is required, as the committee told us, is a statutory authority, which is provided for in the Bill.

The second provision is for compulsory retirement for those who fail to attend in one Session. It may surprise Members to read, as I did the other day, that in the previous Session some 72 Members of the House failed to turn up; but, of course, they still receive papers and the Writ of Summons, and some of them occupy desks. Therefore, a provision that would reduce our numbers by some 10% would save money and administration, and is a sensible measure that every local authority in the land already implements.

The third provision is simply to bring us into line with the other Chamber by removing from Membership of the House those who are guilty of criminal offences and sentenced to a year or more in prison.

Those are the three provisions that we have discussed many times. I hope that we have a short debate and that the Bill will have a quick passage to the other place. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wills]

My Lords, the political classes are once again whipping themselves into a frenzy over the Government’s comprehensive reform Bill. As the comfortably familiar arguments from all sides roll out once again, the noble Lord, Lord Steel, continues on his quiet and indefatigable quest to reform your Lordships’ House piece by piece. Here is the latest instalment.

In my view this is a practical and sensible Bill. It makes provisions for membership of your Lordships’ House that are long overdue. The only conceivable reason for opposing it is that it will soon become unnecessary when the Government’s proposals for comprehensive reform for the House of Lords are passed into law. That might—I stress “might”—be a problem for the Bill. Why should precious legislative time be spent on a Bill that will soon become redundant?

The cynical may see this as an attempt to tackle an obvious problem with the way your Lordships’ House operates in order to weaken the case for more general reform. That might dispose those who favour making the House of Lords more accountable through the election of its Members—I am such a person—to oppose the Bill. However, that would be a mistake. The mishandling by the Government of their House of Lords Reform Bill has almost certainly doomed it. I regret that. I fear that the Government’s revised proposals—this is not the time to discuss them in detail—still fail adequately to address the Bill’s two fundamental flaws. One is a failure to provide an adequate mechanism governing the relationship between the two Houses of Parliament. The second is the length of term of the elected Members of the House, and the fact that they will not have to stand for re-election. I fear that the Government have botched the legislation so severely that it is too late for the Bill to make any serious progress in either House in this Parliament.

If this gloomy analysis is correct, it follows that the House must reform itself piecemeal—while at least some of us wait for a general election and perhaps another attempt at more comprehensive reform. This Bill contains some necessary reforms. Many noble Lords have long argued that there should be provision to retire. It is absurd that a Member of the House should be forced to remain a Member if they no longer wish to be one. It is a hangover from the days when membership was entirely hereditary, and it has no place in a modern Chamber. Nor can it be acceptable for anyone to enjoy the status and privileges of membership of the House when they cannot be bothered to turn up. Again, the Bill makes sensible, proportionate provision for that.

It is also clear that there must be an ability to expel Members of the House who have been convicted of a criminal offence. The current position, which is that no matter how grave their offence, a convicted criminal can remain a Member of the House, demeans Parliament. However, I should be grateful if the noble Lord would explain in a little more detail how he decided on his criteria for expulsion. I understand from the Library that they differ from those that apply in the other place. There it remains a matter of judgment for the House whether a conviction merits expulsion. In contrast, the Bill seeks to set down objective and immutable criteria. I understand the advantages of removing subjective judgments from the process. There is always a risk that Members of either House will be more sympathetic to those they know and may have been friendly with for many years than the cold facts of the case would merit and the public would consider fair. However, there is also a risk that rigid criteria might in certain circumstances lead to expulsion in cases where such a punishment may not be justified. I find it hard to imagine what those circumstances might be, but there must be at least a possibility that they could occur.

For example, let us consider the case of a Member of your Lordships’ House who takes part in a political demonstration for a cause in which they and many others passionately believe—not all passion is spent in your Lordships’ House, as we see in debates for example on this issue—and is found guilty of violent disorder. The offence often results in a sentence that would, under the terms of the Bill, lead to expulsion from the House. Such a sentence could be imposed for the offence of throwing a flimsy wooden placard in the direction of the police but not hitting anybody, in the heat of the moment. Would that really merit expulsion from the House when someone convicted in a magistrates’ court of head-butting a nurse while drunk in an accident and emergency department would receive a sentence that would allow him or her to remain a Member of the House?

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

The answer to the noble Lord’s question lies in Clause 3(5), which states:

“The Lord Speaker shall not issue a certificate under subsection (2) in respect of a conviction … if the House of Lords resolves that subsection (1) should not apply to the conviction by means of special circumstances”.

[Lord Wills]

I am grateful to the noble Lord but, with respect, the “special circumstances” do not take us much further. I would be grateful if he would say why he has not allowed the latitude that the other place allows but has set down specific requirements—for which I well understand the need—while then allowing the get-out clause that refers to “special circumstances”. I would be grateful if he would spell out what special circumstances are in his mind. I have given an example from my point of view and would be grateful if at some point—not necessarily today—he would spell that out. With that proviso—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I have given way a great many times, and I think that I ought to draw what I hoped would be my brief remarks to a close. The Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, is an extremely modest and incremental proposal. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, has already given notice that he intends to table amendments in Committee, but I trust that the Bill will pass relatively quickly through this House and will be perhaps an indication that there are at least some ways in which this House is willing to move on reform. On that basis, I hand back the wind-up to the noble Lord, Lord Steel.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all those who have taken part in this debate. I particularly liked the reference by the noble Lord, Lord Soley, at the beginning to not mentioning the war. It was inevitable, of course, that the two Front-Benchers, when winding up on my Bill, would talk of nothing else except the war. As for my noble friend Lord Fowler, he did not just mention the war—he positively conducted it single-handedly. I cannot possibly associate myself with his remarks of support. In the brief moment that he referred to my Bill, he made one point to which I would like to respond. He thought that I had been too generous in the drafting in saying that non-attendance should apply to a whole Session. I remind the House that I rather agree with that and, in the original Bill, the time of non-attendance was six months. But I was giving way to the feeling in the Committee stage on that Bill, which is why it ended up as a whole Session. So I do not think that we can keep going back and revisiting this issue; we discussed it at great length under the previous Bill, which is why we are where we are now. I hope that my noble friend accepts that.

In relation to the general war, let me say that this Bill is required even if the Bill as drafted by the Government were to sail through both Houses and come into full effect in 2025. We would still need this measure up till then. So regardless of any views that Members may have on the Government’s proposals, I think that this Bill should be proceeded with as soon as possible.

The noble Lord, Lord Wills, the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, all made reference to there being no appeal procedure for those expelled for reasons of criminal conviction. Initially the intention of my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth and me was to bring the rule in this House entirely into line with that in the House of Commons. If in the course of the redrafting we have somehow lost that, I will certainly look at it very carefully before Committee, in the light of the comments that noble Lords have made, and be in touch with them about it in the hope of trying to avoid amendments—but we may have to have amendments in Committee. It is a reasonable point. I assure Members that the intention was to make the rule in this House exactly the same as in the House of Commons.

On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, about retrospection, I assure noble Lords that I took very careful account of this, because I was concerned that it should not be retrospective. All the legal advice that I had was that it is not retrospective. In fact, no law is retrospective, unless it says so otherwise. So I was advised that it was not necessary to put a provision in saying that it was not retrospective because it manifestly is not. That is what I have been told and, therefore, Members can be assured that it is not retrospective in any shape or form.

My noble friend Lord Tyler was kind enough to refer to my excellent article in the Independent last week. That is not so much mentioning the war as, certainly, mentioning guerrilla tactics, so to speak. We certainly should not be trying to debate that now, but I disagree with his comments on my excellent article because the suggestions that I put forward for an elected House avoided a lot of the dangers which are present in the government legislation. However, that would be taking me away from the purpose of the Bill which, as my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire said, is a modest, effective measure. I hope that it will proceed.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.