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House of Lords: Code of Conduct

My Lords, I support the report and the code. I congratulate the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, on the job that has been done and the work of the Leader of the House in pushing it forward. I am afraid that some of our colleagues have brought obloquy on the House and to refer this report back now would be badly misunderstood. However, I want to raise a slightly different point, which I think was alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Williamson. I have reservations about the repeated reference made, I think, by the noble Lord, by the right reverend Prelate, by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, and by the Leader of the House, to us being a part-time House. I do not think that that is now true, and it does not subtract from the important point that we all have hinterlands of width and depth. It also does not subtract from the remark of the noble Lord, Lord Cope, that when it comes to remunerated employment and interests, we have to be very careful. When I came here—I think that all my colleagues on the Labour Benches and indeed many on the Liberal Democrat and Conservative Benches had the same experience; certainly since 1997—my noble friend Lord Grocott, the Chief Whip at the time, when interviewing me asked, "Are you prepared to be a working Peer?". I said, "Yes", and it was arranged so that I left the TUC’s employment on the same day that I came here. I could not possibly have continued as a trade union official at the same time as being here because there would have been an obvious conflict of interest—I was going to say "conflict of loyalty", but I do not see it as that. However, it would have been difficult to ride both horses together. Others ought to reflect on that. On the one side there is the question of hinterland, while on the other there is the question of current employment. As the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, said, many of us are working virtually a full day here. We do not expect to get £68,000 a year for that, and I do not want to intrude—we have been told not to—on the debate to be held in two weeks’ time. But the fact is that paragraph 2 of the code and some of the obiter dicta in the narrative are not quite correct in saying that we are mostly remunerated outside the House. I do know whether the committee of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, did any statistical research into this, but I think it would have entailed us filling in a form showing the nature of our incomes if that had been the case. I think that it is guesswork. However, I repeat that these days, most of us are asked to come here on the basis that we will be working Peers. I think that that is a good thing, and it does not mean that you cannot be a dentist at the same time, which may be necessary for some professions. But for the most part, it does not mean that we are simply a copy of the House of Commons and that we cannot bring a breadth of experience to this House if we are not here generally on a part-time basis. Indeed, I think it would be dangerous if a doctrine were to be proclaimed that we are a part-time House.