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Interim Report: Leader's Group on Members Leaving the House

I was also grateful to my noble friend Lord Alderdice. I am not sure whether he is a good Peer because he is a psychiatrist, or whether he is a good psychiatrist because of all his experiences that he has built up in the House of Lords. Whichever it is, his contribution was extremely helpful and he accepted the case—as many who spoke did—that we need to reduce the size of this House. There is a problem we need to look at. If it was easy, we would have got to the solution a long time ago and I would not have needed to ask my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral to sort this out, but I must say that after today’s debate I am very glad that I did. He is going to have a bit more work to do. In his interim report, my noble friend cleared out some of the undergrowth. The next stage is to perhaps prune up one or two options to take forward. There was some consensus on the fact that the House was too big, but there was not overwhelming consensus on anything else, although some Peers felt more strongly about some things than others. I thought it was useful that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn spoke, because he said that the age limit on the Bishops worked very well. There is a time limit for Bishops, which works well and there is a system of one in, one out. Our problem is that we want to get to a lower number overall before we start a system of one in, one out. On the question of money, there was some support for financial provision, but one or two Peers were wholly opposed. The public mood—or perhaps the press mood—is not with us at the moment, but that may change over time. It depends on how long this process will take and the business case that could be made. Apart from my noble friend Lord Hodgson, who spoke bravely on the subject, there was not much demand for compulsion through the arbitrary nature of an age limit. Likewise, I join many Peers who said that dealing with those who do not attend does not really deal with the more fundamental problem. I feel very strongly that there are some Peers who come to this House very occasionally, but make very eminent contributions which are worth a little more than those of some of our noble colleagues who like to speak every week on many different subjects. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Ferrers for introducing me to the concept of the chattering classes in the House of Lords. Of course he is right. We are in this post-election phase whereby in the House of Commons there is a clear change of numbers. In the House of Lords, there is also a clear change of numbers, but it is very often as a result of those who were in another place coming here. They bring with them some of their habits from another place and they are all very keen to demonstrate that they have a lot to say. Many on all sides of the House do that. We are in a period of assimilation, and I suspect that in the next six or 12 months we will find that the incidence of participation will reduce. I certainly hope so, if that does not sound too much like the usual channels speaking. My noble friends Lord Astor, Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Tyler said, among other things, that we need to prepare for change and to do something, and some of them felt that the proposal that Peers should be elected out—the culling that the noble Lord from the Opposition mentioned—was a blunt instrument, which it is, of course. We have been through the process 11 years ago, it is well precedented and we have seen how it would work. But my noble friend Lord Waddington said that he would be wholly opposed to a party slate—a beauty parade with all the difficulties that that would bring in. What was interesting about the original hereditary Peers’ election was that many of them chose at that time to retire and not to stand in the election. There are those who believe that if we had a system of compulsory retirement through election which may be set at about 10 per cent or 15 per cent, quite a lot of Peers would be prepared to take that opportunity. I do not know, but perhaps that is something my noble friend could explore. My noble friend Lord Kirkwood and the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, asked, in slightly different ways: why would anyone want to leave this House? The noble Lord, Lord Graham, said that he did not want to leave until he absolutely had to and had no choice in the matter, because by that time he would be dead—which would be a great sadness to us all, because I have known him for a great deal of time and I always enjoy what he says. We have given my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral a problem and an opportunity. The problem is that there is not a great deal of clarity in what has come out of this afternoon. The opportunity is that everyone wishes for something to be done and for him to come up with a proposal. I am extremely grateful to him and his committee for the way that they have approached the subject with tremendous skill and sensitivity. We are always being urged to seek a consensus. He has certainly done so, I wish him well in his endeavours and I hope that he will be able to produce a final report relatively shortly. Motion agreed.