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House of Lords: Financial Support for Members

My Lords, to avoid unnecessary repetition, I shall concentrate on one very important issue that we have to address today. I hope that all Members who value the reputation of this House have now read the address given by the Lord Speaker to the Hansard Society in the Robing Room last Wednesday, to which my noble friend Lord McNally referred. We are in grave danger of ignoring the impact on the public that we serve if we think that this report is only of internal interest and significance to this House. That would lead to the "gilded bunker" mentality to which the Lord Speaker referred. I am especially concerned that we do not continue to imagine that we can ourselves be the final arbiter of our allowance package. That was exactly how MPs got into the quagmire of scandal from which they have yet to emerge. I know only too well from my own experience that the public were astounded and horrified to discover that MPs regularly debated and decided their own remuneration package. This House agreed to invite the SSRB to examine and recommend a comprehensive new allowance regime. Sadly, the board’s work has been far from perfect. Maybe, given the timescale, it was impossible to achieve perfection. I do not complain that it has come up with a cost-saving package; after all, that was what the Prime Minister asked it to do, though, incidentally, not what the House asked it to do. Nor do I complain that I personally will be out of pocket; I suspect that the vast majority of your Lordships’ House will be in one way or another. I am, however, concerned that it seems to have misunderstood, or deliberately misrepresented, the role and responsibility of your Lordships’ House in the 21st century. I shall take one example, to which brief reference has been made already. How does the SSRB expect those of us who want to do a good job here, and do not necessarily ourselves have the necessary experience and talent and who therefore need to employ well qualified staff to help us to do so, to pay someone only for the days on which the House sits and we attend, as in paragraph 3.12? Does the board cling to some anachronistic view of us from our aristocratic predecessors? Does it imagine that we can bring up a spare manservant, groom or ghillie from our country estate to help us out when we are in town to attend the House? It is an extraordinary idea. I hope that that in particular will be the subject of some re-examination by the ad hoc group. Obviously there are other issues in the SSRB package that need clarification or even modification, as the noble Lords, Lord Peston and Lord Crickhowell, have said. The House Committee’s recommendation of an ad hoc group of Members of your Lordships’ House to examine these proposals should cause us some anxiety. It would be certain folly if we made it the final arbiter of this package, let alone if it came back for a debate, a Division and a decision in your Lordships’ House. Surely it would be sensible for this detailed examination to be completed before the general election, as the Motion from the Chairman of Committees has suggested, and for a new Parliament to see in place. It would be both stupid and insensitive to leave the last word on the subject of that package to the House. Are we obliged to go back to the SSRB, with all its defects, for that independent imprimatur? I hope not, because our experience of its lack of understanding of our role suggests that it would be better to find another independent arbiter. So what is the alternative? Clearly, it is to invite the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to provide the essential review and final, independent approval. It was clearly premature of the Government, back in the July debates, to rule out any role for IPSA in determining how best to implement these recommendations. The exclusion of this House from the provisions of the Parliamentary Standards Bill can now be seen as a classic case of the "gilded bunker" mentality. Paragraph 7.13 of the SSRB report should be read again by all Members contributing to today’s debate, and particularly by the Government. Last week Ministers completed a drastic U-turn, with their agreement that IPSA should undertake much wider responsibilities in relation to MPs’ salaries and pensions. Indeed, Harriet Harman announced no fewer than seven major changes to that Act. Again, perhaps that was an example of legislating in haste and repenting at leisure. There is therefore no reason whatever for them to resist the logic of a change here too. The recent refusal to appreciate the need for second thoughts was very ill advised. An eighth repeal of the exclusion clause would signal that we in this House recognise that our credibility and integrity are, in the public mind, still at stake. On these Benches, we hope that the Leader of the House, in response to the anticipated acceptance today of the main structure of the SSRB package, will now agree that IPSA should be invited to examine and give the final detailed approval to the allowance regime for Peers. That was the clear recommendation in the SSRB report—number 26—and it should have been accepted by Ministers just as readily as the others. I reinforce the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester. We need to demonstrate that, on this of all issues, we are prepared to take independent advice and, for our final package, to have that independent authority. Anything less will risk renewed public accusations—even more justifiable than previously—that the House of Lords is fixing its own remuneration package. That would indeed reinforce the public perception that we are legislating in a gilded bunker. Just think what that would do to our battered reputation.