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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I think that the import of my amendments is perfectly clear and very simple, and I appreciate that noble Lords will be thinking about the dinner break and the Statement that is to follow, so I shall try to keep my remarks relatively brief. I raised this matter on Second Reading. I did not feel that I wanted to get involved in the Committee stage because I felt that there was something of a logjam there already. I do not know who will be replying to this debate, but I am very much looking forward to an answer to the question that I raised on Second Reading, which is how we explain reducing the size of the House of Commons—the point that has just been made by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott—in the interests of saving public expenditure and economy while at the same time greatly enlarging the size the House of Lords. I have been in this House for rather more than 12 years and I have grown to love it. If I do not know what I think about something, I come and listen to debates in this House. The arrival of new Members is something that we all welcome. Since the general election they have been arriving at the rate of about three a week, which means that there have been 115 new appointments to this House. Many have taken their seats recently and I hope they do not think that what they have seen over the past few weeks is typical. That is because the great thing about this House is that we proceed on the basis of argument. In the last Parliament, when we were in opposition, it was impossible to defeat the Government unless we were able to persuade our Liberal friends and the Cross-Benchers, and therefore the nature of the House was focused very much on debate and argument. The changes in the composition of the House have put the Opposition in a position where it is now difficult for it to win on the basis of reasoned argument if the Government are not prepared to listen and take account of it. The changes in the size and composition of the House have had an unexpected effect in that they have changed the nature of the debate in this Chamber, and that is something which the Government need to reflect upon. There must be a physical limit to the size of this House. I am told by the Information Office that there are now 830 Peers. I do not know what argument one can make to explain how it is that a House of Commons of 600 should be matched by a House of Lords of more than 830. It is not something that is without cost. People may say that when the hereditaries were here, the House was very much larger, but one of the criticisms made of the hereditary Peers was that not all of them came to this place. Although many were the mainstays of the House, attendance even when the House comprised 1,200 was about 400 a day, which is where it is now. So I do think that the facilities of the House—the Library, the restaurants, the Peers’ Guest Room—and our ability to conduct our business must be impaired if the number of Peers reaches a figure that is unsustainable. The question I have to ask the Minister is this: what do the Government think is the limit of the size of this House? My amendment seeks to prevent the Government implementing a reduction in the size in the House of Commons until they have set a limit on the size of the House of Lords. Aside from the ability of the House to do its job, which it does extremely well, I am also worried about the reputation of this place. If we become a kind of parking place for people who wish to continue their career in politics and if the numbers are so excessive compared with the House of Commons, I believe that that will attract considerable public criticism. Indeed, some of the mischief makers in the media have started already. Michael Crick on ““Newsnight”” the other night suggested that nobody down the Corridor would lose their jobs because they were all going to be appointed to this House. That is a disaster in terms of our public perception and in terms of the Government’s overall message, which is that they wish to reduce the cost of Parliament and its impact on the taxpayer. I am pleased to see that my noble friend Lord McNally is to reply to the debate because he may well remember that last year I asked him a Question about the size of the House of Lords. I asked him if he was not concerned that if this House became so large relative to the House of Commons, that would be damaging to its reputation. He said that he was very much aware of that and he agreed with me. Since then, the House has increased in size by more than 100, which is rather like Caligula complaining about the composition of the Senate after appointing his horse to the membership as a consul. The Government, if they are serious about maintaining the reputation of the House, and if they agree that the size of this House relative to that of the House of Commons is an issue, really need to give us an indication of what is going on. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, my noble friend suggested that we should wait for the proposals on reform. I await those proposals with great interest, but I hope my noble friend will forgive me if I make the observation that those who think that an elected House would be a good idea may want to reflect on what happened to our procedures during the Committee stage of this Bill and consider what the impact might be in the future. Further, those who feel that the Opposition should perhaps have given way earlier to the views of the Commons might want to reflect on how we would all behave if we were elected and had constituents. I suggest that we would be gridlocked on legislation like this, perhaps spending a whole Session on one Bill. So I look forward to seeing what the proposals are, but I find it very difficult to understand, if one is going to make a radical change to the composition of the House, why one would expand its size so rapidly. I hope very much that that will have reached a conclusion. It may well be that the Deputy Prime Minister has found the Holy Grail for reform of this place, but observing this disparate series of constitutional reforms, it looks to me a bit like someone taking apart a fine clock and the wheels building up on the table. I have a horrible feeling that when the clock is put back together again, there will be some wheels that do not quite work and the clock will not actually tell the time of day. I appreciate that moving this amendment in this Bill is a little opportunistic, and I know that the purists will argue that the size and composition of the House of Lords is in no way connected to the other place, that we are a separate House and they should not be linked. But there does seem to be a link in so far as the Government are proposing a reduction in the size of the House of Commons at the same time as increasing the size of this House. We did have a Royal Commission which was set up by the previous Government and very ably chaired by my noble friend Lord Wakeham. To be fair, the Royal Commission said that there should not be a limit set on the size of the House but that it thought it should be around 550 Peers, and put forward some persuasive arguments in support of that proposal. It also said that the peerage should be separated from the right to sit in this House, and that the power to appoint people to this place should be removed from the Prime Minister and should instead go to a statutory appointments commission. I think that my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood has now had three goes at bringing forward a Bill which would establish a statutory appointments commission, but that Bill has been unable to find the support necessary to bring it forward. In the interests of maintaining the reputation of this House, I believe that it is important that the Government indicate how many more people they think can be appointed to this place. They should also explain to us how it is that they are increasing the size of this House while, at the same time, arguing for a reduction in the size of the House of Commons and how they believe that we can protect the reputation and standing of this House, which is very high in the country. That is in part because of the way that we have conducted our affairs, which I believe are being undermined by the way in which this House has been treated. On that latter point, I spoke earlier on the issue of unpaid Ministers in this House. I imply no criticism at all of my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who has done a marvellous job in handling this Bill. However, in its handling it is absolutely apparent that Ministers in the other place have not quite tuned in to how this place operates. They have not given Ministers the freedom that they need in order to be able to respond to argument, which is a disaster. I know how it has happened because I plead guilty to being the same when I was down the other end of the Corridor. I had no understanding of how this place operated or of how much it contributed. This is a confession that we hear regularly from those who were Ministers in the other place—I dare say that even some former Deputy Chief Whips have been converted by their arrival here. This is a serious problem and one which needs to be addressed. That is why I am moving this amendment tonight.