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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, I am afraid that I rise to contradict my Front Bench in that I believe in a wholly appointed House, and I feel that I should say so. I have some experience of elections, including the first election to the European Parliament, which I fought very hard. I organised my own district and my family were a great help. I polled a good vote but was beaten by a good Conservative. A totally negative Labour chap came within 50 votes of me, despite my enormous effort and the fact that he had put in no effort whatever. That meant that the election was one of parties and the efficiency of the party was all. Voters are currently a bit cynical about the number of elections that they have to take part in. The European elections polled 38 per cent; the general election was the best of the lot, running from 77 to61 per cent on the last occasion, and it appears to me that that is the election that we should go by. There is also, as the previous speaker said, no question that the winners of an election to this House based on the European constituency would be party nominees. Someone referred to the doctor who won an election in his constituency because of anger at the state of a hospital there. That is true and it can happen in a reasonably sized constituency, but in the large groups which constitute the European constituencies—under which elections for this House would apparently come—reasonable results are not achieved other than votes for a party. So, in fact, democracy would be better served by taking the total vote, as opposed to the total number of seats, and allocating seats in this House according to that. In my view, that would be a far better system. If we went for an appointed House—we might, because the House of Commons has changed its mind two or three times already—that would simplify matters enormously, quite apart from saving a huge amount of money. There are 199 Peers in this House over the age of 75—at 87, I am one of them—and 300-odd over the age of 70, and we really need to get rid of us. We cannot be shot—I understand that that would not be possible—but I think that a retirement scheme could reduce the numbers to the required level without waiting for people to die. It is rather macabre to calculate how many are dying each year; it would be far better to have a retirement scheme. Many of the arguments that I had rehearsed have been ably put, so I simply end by saying that an appointed House, rather than an elected one, would be far more in the tradition of this House. An appointed House would be an improvement on the present arrangement and it would be able to continue the traditions. In spite of my Front Bench, whose members I admire greatly, I am all for an appointed House.