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House of Lords Bill [HL]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on securing a remarkably early slot for the Second Reading of his Bill and on instituting a fascinating and good humoured debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord James, for the compliment he paid me by describing me as a fat, happy spider drawing flies into my consensus web. If only, my Lords, if only. It was a delight to hear my noble friend Lord Strabolgi, who entered this House in 1953, speak today, as it was to hear the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, who joined the House in 1954. It is almost 39 years to the day since he spoke in the debate in your Lordships' House on the 1968 White Paper on House of Lords reform. In that debate, he espoused the Ferrers law that everything has a reverse effect of that which it is intended. I thought he demonstrated very well today how that applied to the Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Steel. When we debated this Bill in the previous Session, the noble Lord, Lord Steel, gently chided me. He said that 75 per cent of my speech had nothing at all to do with his Bill. Of course, as of today that debate encompasses a much wider debate about Lords reform in general. I shall certainly set out the Government’s view on the wider reform programme, but I owe it to the noble Lord and to the House to give some detailed consideration and commentary on the specific clauses in his Bill. If he continues with it, it is clear that we will spend many happy hours in its consideration in Committee, on Report and at Third Reading. I know that I will have many happy hours. I owe it to the noble Lord to place on the record as much of the detailed consideration as will be necessary. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that I welcome the contribution of all noble Lords to wider considerations of Lords reform. I know that the noble Lord has written to my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor and that my right honourable friend has responded. The cross-party working group, which is meeting fairly shortly, will consider the matters he has raised about the involvement of Members of your Lordships' House and the information provided from the work that my noble friend the Lord President has undertaken consulting Members of your Lordships' House. The Bill seeks to put the Appointments Commission on a statutory footing. In the long term, that would be predicated on the assumption that there will be an appointed element in the second Chamber. Notwithstanding that, there are a number of points, or indeed questions, that I would put to the noble Lord, Lord Steel. The Bill specifies that the members of the commission will be nominated by the Speaker and the Lord Speaker. What would happen if the Lord Speaker and the Speaker disagree about nominations for membership of the commission? Assuming they agree, how would the Lord Speaker and the Speaker decide what constitutes a ““politically balanced”” commission? Is it intended that their decisions will be subject to review? We will need to work through those matters. The Bill makes no provision for what one might call the ““governance”” of the commission. From where will it be funded? Will it have the power to employ staff or to enter into contracts; for example, to rent accommodation? Will its members be paid, and if so by whom and how will that be accounted for? These questions may appear to be details at this stage, but in any substantive Bill they would have to be dealt with. The Bill sets out how the commission might be appointed in the first instance. Members would be appointed for non-renewable terms of seven years. Unless one or more of those members have been removed or have resigned during that period, a new slate of members would have to be appointed. The noble Lord might want to consider whether that is the right model compared to, for example, a rolling membership. Clause 9 provides a wide power for the commission to seek information from political parties, including about their internal procedures. I would just sound a note of caution on that matter. There is a good argument that if the leader of a political party wants to propose someone for a peerage, the commission should be clear about the basis for that proposal. This is provided for in Clause 9(1). But Clause 9(2) goes on to say that a leader of a political party, in submitting a name to the commission, "““shall supply such other information as may be requested by the Commission””." There is no qualification in that provision. Unlike many other statutory requirements to furnish information, there is no reference to the information being ““reasonably required””, nor is there anything in the Bill that describes what the commission might make of the information. I suggest to the noble Lord that, in taking the Bill forward, he needs to be clear that the catch-all nature of the provision is justified. The Bill sets out two principal criteria for conferment of a peerage. I do not doubt that we shall have some interesting discussions about this, in particular what is meant by ““conspicuous merit””. Of course we all know what the noble Lord means. Like me, many noble Lords enjoy Gilbert and Sullivan. In ““Iolanthe””, Gilbert was somewhat less ambitious. The qualification for membership of your Lordships’ House was to be a ““person of intelligence””. But even that was enough to make the hereditary Peers fly off with the fairies. My noble friend Lord Parekh made an interesting contribution in his discussion of the word ““conspicuous””. It is described in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as, "““clearly visible … obvious, plainly evident; attracting notice””." I should caution that that might rule out some people of extraordinary talent who undoubtedly could make a very valuable contribution. I mention the practising members of three professions who, sadly, are grossly under-represented: the nursing, teaching and social work professions. It is important, in any consideration of the criteria for a statutory Appointments Commission, to make sure that we do not set them in such a way as to exclude some very valuable Members indeed.