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House of Lords: Financial Support for Members

My Lords, I think it is the turn of the Conservatives. I supported the reference to the SSRB, but it was clear at the meeting that I attended that we were not going to get anything like a sensible report. Indeed, it is well below the standard that any of your Lordships should be expected to accept. One thing that has come out of today is frustration that we cannot get any answers to some of the questions that we wish to pose. That is no fault of the noble Baroness the Leader of the House or the Chairman of Committees. It is a fault of the system. We are, I sense, frustrated—I am, too—that the noble Baroness will not be able to answer some of the questions that many of us have posed. The SSRB report is also a completely missed opportunity. Surely, here was a chance to look at what would be the right remuneration for the very work that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, mentioned in his speech. What is the right remuneration for a Member of Parliament or a Member of this House, given the workload? That opportunity was missed and, as a result, we will be forced to accept a system that will, in due course, cause us huge problems. The noble Baroness the Leader of the House said that this report would be a template for the future, but how can we accept a template that is so completely inaccurate and contradictory in many parts? I take a very different view from my noble friend Lord MacGregor on Chapter 2, in which the SSRB addresses the role of the House. I find no reference to the House as a great debating chamber. I find no reference to the work of the EU sub-committees, which are so diligent and which no other country undertakes to the same extent as we do. In Annex 8 sitting times are given but there is not a word about committees sitting in the morning. In Chapter 3 there is no mention of the fact that if one goes to the EU or further afield—for instance, on sub-committee work—one cannot claim the day attendance allowance unless one manages to sit in the Chamber that day. The old adage that a little knowledge is dangerous has been proved right so far as the SSRB is concerned. Such basic omissions give us no confidence in the rest of the report. The terms of reference in paragraph 1.2 include the need to look at schemes operated in comparable circumstances by other institutions. In Annex 5 there is a comparison with the size and cost of upper chambers in other countries. However, in paragraph 8.3 the report summarily dismisses this annex because, ""second chambers are all constituted differently, so we do not feel that there are direct parallels to be drawn at the level of costs"." If that is so, why was the annex put in at all? Although we might be constituted differently, we do roughly the same job. There will be huge differences between the judiciary, Armed Forces, senior civil servants and very senior managers in the NHS, but the SSRB seemed to cope with that. It was my noble friend Lord Strathclyde who brought to our notice how wilfully misleading the statement in paragraph 2.23 is. I have contacted a number of the other second chambers mentioned and the evidence directly from them shows not only—as many noble Lords have said—that we are the cheapest House, but that we are the most hard-working. Moreover, I was informed that members of the Austrian Federal Council are paid for travelling time. That would suit me; it takes me between eight and 18 hours to get here from home. I have to leave home on Sunday afternoon to guarantee being here by 3 pm, in time to take part in a debate such as this. I am glad to see my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart here. He lives three miles up the road from me and faces exactly the same problem. I do not ask for that allowance, although it would be jolly nice, but I reiterate the point that we give our time and commitment to this House very cheaply. Who does the SSRB compare us with? Annex 7 lists daily fees for part-time public sector posts. I try hard to be full-time here. I do not work two to three days a month, as a member of the Commission on Standards in Public Life does. The chairman of that body currently works two to three days a week for £700 a day, which is well in excess of what is recommended for us. I e-mailed the SSRB to ask for further details of its working hours and remuneration. It did not surprise me—and I am sure it will not surprise your Lordships—that I did not receive a reply. However, I received a very prompt one from the British Pharamacopoeia Commission, the members of which attend three meetings a year. I am usually here three or four nights a week when the House sits. We are also compared to a board adviser to a primary care trust. The reply I received from the trust that I contacted told me that it had no such board advisers and no scheme to define their remuneration package. It is a sloppy report which uses comparables that are clearly inappropriate, and I resent that. Another difference between us and those with whom we are compared is that we are here for life. Many of us have made our accommodation arrangements on that basis. I do not think any other noble Lord has mentioned that. That is a very different view that you have to take. For those of us who live a very long way from London, there are two other points to consider. One is the need to keep clothes in London. Travelling with a suitcase would prevent me making some of my airline connections and it would take even longer—if not be impossible—to get home. That has certainly affected where I have to live in London. Secondly, if we are supposed to have another job outside the House, it is much harder for those of us who live far away. Either it will impinge on the work that we can do if we can find work outside the House, or it will impinge on the work that we want to do inside the House. Does the SSRB believe that work connected with Parliament ceases the moment that we leave the House? The post and e-mails continue for us all and need to be dealt with. There is regularly homework to be done for future sittings or committees. I use some of the Recess time to keep myself updated on matters on which I speak in the House, such as the countryside. I am fully aware that it is not the same as being an MP, but it is necessary and it should be acknowledged, as the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, has just said. Why are we to be deprived of the 40 days’ allowance? No argument has been put forward to support that recommendation. We are entitled to know why this is to be so arbitrarily taken away from us. The review body must have regard to the need to recruit, train and motivate suitably able and qualified people, but there is no mention of that in the report. I am now in the top 25 longest-serving Peers, yet I believe I am still in the lowest quartile age-wise. The average age of the House, as has been said, is 69. We have seen the Government appoint some excellent younger Peers but how long have they stayed when they discover that they can earn much more elsewhere? The noble Lord, Lord, Lord McNally, raised this in a wonderfully humorous manner when speaking in the recent adjournment debate on the gracious Speech, but it is a serious point. It is a concern for the future of the House that we cannot retain such people at this point in their careers. I do not expect that the influx of new Peers after the next general election will correct this. It is something that the SSRB has ignored to Parliament’s detriment. Other Peers have commented on Recommendation 26, but I was not surprised to note in the report the amount of empire-building that the unaccountable SSRB is seeking. Recommendations 7 and 20 seek to give that quango an even greater role in controlling this House. The report also institutes a lot of new petty bureaucratic regulations that I do not want to go into as other noble Lords have done so. Will the noble Baroness the Leader of the House or, indeed, the Lord Speaker, convey to the SSRB the great unhappiness with the report that exists in the House? As has been said, it needs to be made aware that the report is not up to the quality of reports produced by committees of this House. It is not up to the quality of a report that should be submitted to Parliament, let alone agreed by us. If the report is accepted—I fear that it will be—Parliament will increasingly have to rely on the good will of all those who attend. Its provisions will make it very much harder for those of us who live further away. The Appointments Commission is not appointing Peers from regionally diverse backgrounds, as we had hoped. The evidence shows that most Peers are from the south. That will constitute the future composition of this House, which is quite a contrast from how it was 40 years ago when I first came here. This is a very sad day for Parliament.