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House of Lords (Members’ Taxation Status) Bill [HL]

If I may just use my 45 years here to comment on this, I have held 21 years of government appointments in one form or another, all unpaid. In the days when we received no remuneration at all, I had to explain to my colleagues why I was sloping off to the House of Lords early for a gin and tonic. It is extraordinarily difficult to balance that. I have worked in or with many countries—how many I cannot say—and have been paying tax on and off and have sometimes got tax relief. If an individual wished to take a paid job, it would not matter who he was paid by or whether it was public or private but, if he was unable to attend the House of Lords, he would have the right to take temporary leave of absence. That is what he should do—and he is not surrendering very much. The incidences may not be great but when I was 25 it was quite significant. I was way down in the age group here. We also have to think that withering on the vine takes place. There is another two years to go and already well over 60 per cent of your Lordships' House are pensioners in one form or another. Most of them will not necessarily take full-paid jobs—but I do not see why there should be any exceptions at all to this rule. The right should be there that if someone decides that he wishes to take an international appointment, whether paid by the private or the public sector, or even if he were self-employed and working on an individual project somewhere or other, he should be able to say to the House that he is taking leave of absence. That could be revoked at any time, when he returns. Why should the House not allow someone to come back and speak on a particular topic of a debate? If he was working for the Antarctic survey, for example, he might come back to speak on a global warming debate. That did actually happen at one time. I do not see why the amendment is necessary at all, but that is a personal view. The noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, stated with a certain degree of pride that one year he paid a six-figure tax Bill, or something quite big. If he is as good as that he might well get a heavily paid job from one of the American banks or Dubai or anywhere else. We would hate to lose him, even for a short period of time.