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Good morning and may I welcome you to this session of the public | :00:54. | :01:01. | |
administration public affairs committee about our inquiry into the | :01:02. | :01:05. | |
next step of reform for the House of Lords. You arrive on the morning of | :01:06. | :01:11. | |
a very topical time. Where the House of Lords has been | :01:12. | :01:18. | |
very much in the news, both with the documentary and with recent | :01:19. | :01:23. | |
political events. Formerly, I have to ask you to | :01:24. | :01:27. | |
introduce each of yourselves for the record, please. | :01:28. | :01:36. | |
Amanda Smith. Baroness of Basildon for these purpose and the Labour | :01:37. | :01:40. | |
leader in the House of Lords opposition. I'm David Halt, the | :01:41. | :01:50. | |
convener of the cross-bench pers. Grateful to you all for coming. We | :01:51. | :01:56. | |
will ask short questions, and if uppion can give fairly crisp answers | :01:57. | :02:02. | |
that will be helpful. If the answers are going on longer, I may wish to | :02:03. | :02:08. | |
shorten them. So, could we have our first question, please, Paul Anyone? | :02:09. | :02:13. | |
Could I state as a practitioner in this place for a long time, my | :02:14. | :02:20. | |
admiration for your House as a body for scrutinising legislation, | :02:21. | :02:22. | |
superior to what happens here. But the position of the Lord's, | :02:23. | :02:28. | |
which is nothing to do with you, is one that is indefensible in so many | :02:29. | :02:33. | |
ways in the number of peers, and the fact it is possible to buy a place | :02:34. | :02:38. | |
in the Lord's if you contribute to any of the three main parties. The | :02:39. | :02:44. | |
fact it overrepresents London and under-represents Scotland and that | :02:45. | :02:49. | |
will get worse, all of the problems that arice and the illogical things | :02:50. | :02:53. | |
that come from it. We are stuck with it now. There have been attempts to | :02:54. | :03:03. | |
reform it. As a bemused nation watches the ermine-clad antics in | :03:04. | :03:06. | |
the Lord's and on the television programme, where there is serious | :03:07. | :03:10. | |
work going on there, can you list practical ways to reforming it, from | :03:11. | :03:16. | |
the worst excesses in the near future? How can we do it? Are you | :03:17. | :03:22. | |
talking about worst excesses in appointments? I could go on. I think | :03:23. | :03:28. | |
I have the gives. Another problem is the apparent lack | :03:29. | :03:35. | |
of rules for conduct in the Lord's. Someone being interviewed as a | :03:36. | :03:39. | |
possible lobbyist says when they leave the House of Commons, in the | :03:40. | :03:43. | |
Lord's, they could do more for you for the money that is paid in the | :03:44. | :03:47. | |
Lord's because of the rules. But there is a number of perceptions of | :03:48. | :03:55. | |
the Lord's that are there and cannot be respected any more as a second | :03:56. | :04:03. | |
chamber. The question of reforms coming up, | :04:04. | :04:07. | |
the question on rules and lobbying, that is something that perhaps you | :04:08. | :04:13. | |
could address immediately? We have tightening up the rules on lobbying | :04:14. | :04:19. | |
considerably. I think that the privileges and the | :04:20. | :04:24. | |
conduct committee and subcommittee which looks at them has been | :04:25. | :04:31. | |
rigorous certainly in the years I have been on it, at making sure that | :04:32. | :04:39. | |
the rule which says you can't either have public paid advocacy in the | :04:40. | :04:48. | |
Lords or use your position to lobby ministers, has been rigorously | :04:49. | :04:50. | |
enforced and there have been sanctions against people. I think it | :04:51. | :04:55. | |
has tightened up a lot in recent years but I think now it is pretty | :04:56. | :05:02. | |
rigorous. I would agree. Anyone who uses their | :05:03. | :05:08. | |
position inappropriately would be dealt with swiftly, if there are | :05:09. | :05:12. | |
suggestions as to how it can be improved I would be open to | :05:13. | :05:17. | |
suggestions. But no-one would tolerate members of the House of | :05:18. | :05:21. | |
Commons using their position, either paid positions or positions that the | :05:22. | :05:26. | |
public might think that they are acting inappropriately would be | :05:27. | :05:29. | |
acceptable in any way. Could we take the I pointments. The | :05:30. | :05:36. | |
reason we are in such a mess is to solve problems within internal party | :05:37. | :05:41. | |
problems, that have been existing because of the cruelly and people | :05:42. | :05:48. | |
are adding to the number in the Lords, in order to solve internal | :05:49. | :05:55. | |
political party problems. I think you find across the House of Lords | :05:56. | :06:00. | |
broad agreement with evidence by debates that we have had and issues | :06:01. | :06:10. | |
raised that the House of Lords has a size that is beyond that which the | :06:11. | :06:15. | |
job is required of it. I think that we will come to these | :06:16. | :06:21. | |
questions... Shall I continue to answer or shall await? I think we | :06:22. | :06:26. | |
will wait. The general question is what can we | :06:27. | :06:31. | |
do about it? We have other questions... If we are arguing about | :06:32. | :06:41. | |
the conduct, I would refer to you two cases recently, that suggests | :06:42. | :06:47. | |
that the rules that have been imposed, par tick Latin America with | :06:48. | :06:52. | |
one case, with a complaint I made where it took two hearings for it to | :06:53. | :06:58. | |
go through where there seemed observe abuse on rules of lobbying, | :06:59. | :07:03. | |
it must have been done in two stages and it was nothing rigorous, the | :07:04. | :07:07. | |
Lord was asked to make a brief apology, and then the whole thing | :07:08. | :07:11. | |
forgotten about. Is there more to be done on this | :07:12. | :07:17. | |
question, Lord Hope? The committee takes a close eye on what is going | :07:18. | :07:21. | |
on. There is a subcommittee within that committee that works with the | :07:22. | :07:26. | |
commissioner to investigate these case, you must look carefully at the | :07:27. | :07:30. | |
facts before forming a judgment as to the result of the process. But | :07:31. | :07:35. | |
when something is exposed like let's say in this case, we all appreciate | :07:36. | :07:39. | |
that something went wrong and we learn from it. A great deal of | :07:40. | :07:46. | |
effort is taken with new peers to explain the rules and make it clear | :07:47. | :07:52. | |
that there is a boundary beyond which they must not go. | :07:53. | :07:58. | |
And how do we stop people buying places in the Lords? W... As far as | :07:59. | :08:08. | |
the cross-benchers are concerned it different. There are two routes, one | :08:09. | :08:14. | |
is the Prime Minister's appointment system, ten appointees in the life | :08:15. | :08:19. | |
of a Parliament, Cabinet secaries senior military figures and so on, | :08:20. | :08:25. | |
the other is through the Appointment's Commission, we are | :08:26. | :08:28. | |
allowed two a year. It is a separate process from politics. There is no | :08:29. | :08:33. | |
question of buying your way in. It is a competitive process. The | :08:34. | :08:39. | |
cross-benchers must be understood against that background. | :08:40. | :08:42. | |
Well are well aware of that system. It is one that is entirely | :08:43. | :08:48. | |
defencible. The problem is that politicians, former MPs appoint the | :08:49. | :08:51. | |
people who have given their party money. This is going back even | :08:52. | :08:59. | |
before my time in this Parliament. The question about the appointment | :09:00. | :09:04. | |
of peers, there are a number of issues that I would like to see | :09:05. | :09:09. | |
changed. I would like a cap on the number of peers appointed to the | :09:10. | :09:14. | |
House of Lords. A more proactive role for the current appointment's | :09:15. | :09:20. | |
commission or a separate body that looks at the propiraty of the peers | :09:21. | :09:24. | |
appointed and the contribution that they can make to the Lords. And take | :09:25. | :09:32. | |
into account the work that the Lords have done. There are issues around | :09:33. | :09:40. | |
ensuring that those appointed can be properly vetted, checked to ensure | :09:41. | :09:43. | |
that they can provide a contribution. The current system | :09:44. | :09:47. | |
does not do that as well as it could and if it is looking at the | :09:48. | :09:53. | |
Appointment's Commissioner, we must look at the resources and the time | :09:54. | :09:57. | |
given where in a number of occasions with the limited powers on | :09:58. | :10:02. | |
appointments they are not given enough time to fully look and fulfil | :10:03. | :10:09. | |
their functions. I would have no problem looking at all appointments | :10:10. | :10:14. | |
but there must be a clear criteria set out first. | :10:15. | :10:21. | |
I think one of the key thing is the appointments Commission should do is | :10:22. | :10:28. | |
to seek an assurance from party appointees that they intend to play | :10:29. | :10:36. | |
that part. I think that would deal with Mr Flynn's point about people | :10:37. | :10:40. | |
who have been party donors, who in some cases come in with no | :10:41. | :10:46. | |
expectation of of doing a hand's turn and that seems to be wrong in | :10:47. | :10:55. | |
principle and I think the only way you can get the principle of a | :10:56. | :11:01. | |
working appear as if the appointments committee where on a | :11:02. | :11:06. | |
statutory basis and had powers to quiz potential appointees about | :11:07. | :11:11. | |
their future commitments. As far as crossbenchers are concerned, the | :11:12. | :11:16. | |
system is more rigorous than in the case of political parties and | :11:17. | :11:18. | |
everybody who comes in through that route has tested as to whether they | :11:19. | :11:21. | |
are prepared to make a contribution and indeed whether the contribution | :11:22. | :11:26. | |
they can make is worth having. So, it is a rigorous one and one might | :11:27. | :11:30. | |
want to explore the ability of the Commission to expand a rigorous | :11:31. | :11:36. | |
process... We will come to that. Can I ask a first principles question? | :11:37. | :11:41. | |
Do we all agree what the appropriate role of the House of Lords actually | :11:42. | :11:47. | |
is? Would you like to have a stab at all three of you agreeing on what it | :11:48. | :11:51. | |
is? There may or may not be agreement. I tend to vary slightly | :11:52. | :12:03. | |
from the scrutiny description. A House of sober second thought is the | :12:04. | :12:07. | |
Canadian edition and I think that's a nice description of what we do. We | :12:08. | :12:13. | |
give breathing space and the House of Lords gave the opportunity for | :12:14. | :12:16. | |
the House of Commons to look again at an issue recently. There is | :12:17. | :12:20. | |
difference between us on the panel what we do in the House but that | :12:21. | :12:28. | |
sober second thought that allows the Commons to think again, I think | :12:29. | :12:31. | |
there has been some difficulty with that. Not the House of Lords, we | :12:32. | :12:36. | |
have seen a lot of attacks on the House of Lords suggesting we have | :12:37. | :12:40. | |
exceeded agreement. I think we have not exceeded that agreement. Tax | :12:41. | :12:46. | |
credits was when that allegation started. When we Government to look | :12:47. | :12:52. | |
again, that led to the Strathclyde report. And before the Brexit | :12:53. | :12:57. | |
process even started, the House of Lords was being threatened with | :12:58. | :13:01. | |
abolition and 1000 extra peers to get the Bill through. It would've | :13:02. | :13:04. | |
taken two years to get 1000 extra peers but the comments were still | :13:05. | :13:09. | |
made. So, I think how the Government response to the House of Lords, | :13:10. | :13:13. | |
asking the House of Commons to think again, has changed. And that, | :13:14. | :13:17. | |
perhaps, is a wider issue. I think we're quite clear on how a row. If | :13:18. | :13:23. | |
you cut the number of fatal motions, the number of times the Commons has | :13:24. | :13:28. | |
been able to think again, nothing significant has changed on that over | :13:29. | :13:32. | |
time. Feared the other two witnesses differ from that? Fifa the answer | :13:33. | :13:40. | |
while Skiff is firstly, scrutiny of legislation. Secondly, daily holding | :13:41. | :13:48. | |
of account through questions and debates and thirdly, the House of | :13:49. | :13:53. | |
Lords has been reasonably good at having early-stage debates on big | :13:54. | :13:57. | |
public policy issues which are contentious and which there is no | :13:58. | :14:03. | |
consensus on. Right to die is an obvious area but some of these big | :14:04. | :14:08. | |
issues have been discussed in the Lords and brought to public view in | :14:09. | :14:13. | |
a way that doesn't happen in quite the same way in the Commons. All I | :14:14. | :14:19. | |
would add is to stress the work of the committees on the committee work | :14:20. | :14:24. | |
that goes on the House of Lords, in the EU field and legislation, as we | :14:25. | :14:28. | |
looked at with HS2, the committee work is of a very high standard and | :14:29. | :14:32. | |
a lot of effort is put in by people who perhaps don't play a big part in | :14:33. | :14:36. | |
the Chamber but are working hard on committees to develop the thinking | :14:37. | :14:44. | |
through them. Can I just pick up on one point from the previous | :14:45. | :14:54. | |
question. On that last answer, I shall get nearer to the microphone, | :14:55. | :14:57. | |
I can be slightly soft-spoken sometimes. In terms of the rove the | :14:58. | :15:04. | |
House of Lords, how much do you feel the role is helped or hindered by | :15:05. | :15:09. | |
the fact that you do not have a constituency party group of members, | :15:10. | :15:18. | |
sometimes scrutinising and focusing on what you may or may not be doing, | :15:19. | :15:22. | |
in terms of your potential reselection or not, into your role? | :15:23. | :15:32. | |
I'm in the best place, having been about the House of Commons on the | :15:33. | :15:36. | |
House of Lords. 13 years in the House of Commons as a backbencher | :15:37. | :15:40. | |
and as a minister and now six in the House of Lords. I see the rules is | :15:41. | :15:45. | |
very different. A complimentary. I think it is right the final say is | :15:46. | :15:49. | |
with the House of Commons and privacy allows for the House of | :15:50. | :15:52. | |
Commons because we are an elected House. It does not stop me and my | :15:53. | :16:00. | |
colleagues in the House of Lords may agree, from having feelings about | :16:01. | :16:08. | |
issues and letters no lack of direct contact. We're not representatives, | :16:09. | :16:13. | |
so it's a different role. I'm talking about the selection of MPs, | :16:14. | :16:27. | |
have to you feel about not having to pander to the line with a thought of | :16:28. | :16:39. | |
reselection? In a sense, you come to it knowing that that is the deal. It | :16:40. | :16:43. | |
is obviously different from being an MP. I think what has changed during | :16:44. | :16:48. | |
my time there is that when I started, you were operating in a | :16:49. | :16:53. | |
closed box. If you received very few letters. Now, particularly with | :16:54. | :16:56. | |
e-mail, that has changed significantly. I have had over 500 | :16:57. | :17:07. | |
e-mails about the Article 50 Bill in the last week, expressing a wide | :17:08. | :17:12. | |
range of opinion. Although people don't feel we are accountable in the | :17:13. | :17:18. | |
same way as MPs, we feel that they are, or I feel, leaving aside any | :17:19. | :17:23. | |
political or tragic campaigning, but I am exposed more to public opinion, | :17:24. | :17:28. | |
is it where, and to individuals with views in which I speak and have done | :17:29. | :17:38. | |
in the past. Crossbenchers contribute expertise, people from | :17:39. | :17:42. | |
various backgrounds, medicine, University, military, for example, | :17:43. | :17:45. | |
lawyers, and that is the contribution they make, it is not | :17:46. | :17:51. | |
based on constituency work and most, not all, would never dream of | :17:52. | :17:54. | |
standing for election, partly because they do not have time to do | :17:55. | :17:58. | |
that but that is one might like to think about who to sometimes said to | :17:59. | :18:02. | |
me that they feel they do represent a constituency and that is the | :18:03. | :18:08. | |
bishops who are dealing... You may laugh but they do speak to people of | :18:09. | :18:12. | |
different faiths who contribute their thoughts through them. People | :18:13. | :18:18. | |
know they exist. Through their Diocese, which is a large area, they | :18:19. | :18:23. | |
develop ideas. The questions they ask at question time are often based | :18:24. | :18:27. | |
on their understanding of how things are within their dioceses. Of | :18:28. | :18:31. | |
course, it is very easy to laugh at this but it is fact that they do try | :18:32. | :18:42. | |
to represent their Diocese. Bishops being representative of different | :18:43. | :18:50. | |
faiths... Well, the people I speak to say they are approached by other | :18:51. | :18:55. | |
faiths, who know they are there and they contribute their ideas to them. | :18:56. | :19:01. | |
Would you not be better to give those other faiths a voice? There | :19:02. | :19:06. | |
are other faiths in the House. Lord Singh, and there are people other | :19:07. | :19:16. | |
than that and the point I am making is the Bishop does not just | :19:17. | :19:21. | |
represent themselves as individuals. But we could help by giving voice to | :19:22. | :19:24. | |
other faiths within the House of Lords. They're there. I would | :19:25. | :19:32. | |
welcome more faiths on the crossbenchers, it is a question of | :19:33. | :19:35. | |
getting in and through the process and we have several better already. | :19:36. | :19:45. | |
Thank you. I didn't get to where I wanted to be those questions but | :19:46. | :19:52. | |
anyway... On more substantive questions about House of Lords | :19:53. | :19:55. | |
reform, generally speaking, more incremental reform has been more | :19:56. | :20:02. | |
successful than radical reform. I wonder from your perspective, each | :20:03. | :20:06. | |
of you in turn, starting with Baroness Smith, for which you | :20:07. | :20:13. | |
suggest is the next small essential Lords reform? I think there are a | :20:14. | :20:16. | |
number of incremental reforms which could be easily achieved. The | :20:17. | :20:23. | |
hereditary by-elections, we should end those, which are on nonsense and | :20:24. | :20:26. | |
an embarrassment to the House. That could be done tomorrow. That could | :20:27. | :20:30. | |
be reversed. Visit Private Members' Bill in existence. The Government | :20:31. | :20:36. | |
takes a few should be consensus. To get complete consensus on anything | :20:37. | :20:39. | |
is very difficult. To get a broad consensus is easy. Also on powers of | :20:40. | :20:50. | |
blocking, I think Maccabi an easy one to do. In another paper, it was | :20:51. | :20:56. | |
looked at revising powers and limiting blocking powers. Blocking | :20:57. | :21:04. | |
powers are so rarely use it. I wouldn't get rid all together but | :21:05. | :21:07. | |
you could extend revising powers, for example on NSIs. Also, looking | :21:08. | :21:17. | |
at the size of the House, I think there is broad agreement the size of | :21:18. | :21:21. | |
the House does need to be addressed. It has largely come about, partly as | :21:22. | :21:27. | |
a result of the Coalition Government, David Cameron wanted to | :21:28. | :21:34. | |
have more peers and appointed peers at a faster rate than 1958 | :21:35. | :21:40. | |
potted-mac I will come back to that point in a moment. But the | :21:41. | :21:47. | |
incremental reform you suggest tips, ending hereditary by-elections, that | :21:48. | :21:54. | |
is only going to gradually erode... It is not a numbers issue. That is | :21:55. | :22:02. | |
one easy suggestion. Lord Newby? There is no consensus on virtually | :22:03. | :22:13. | |
nothing. So, that means that. No absolute consensus. There is a broad | :22:14. | :22:17. | |
consensus that we should reduce numbers House of Lords but there is | :22:18. | :22:21. | |
no consensus thereafter on how to do it. Parties are differentially | :22:22. | :22:24. | |
affected by virtually any reform we might care to make. In terms of what | :22:25. | :22:29. | |
could become in the relatively short-term, without major | :22:30. | :22:36. | |
legislation, you could strengthen the appointments Commission, as we | :22:37. | :22:39. | |
have said, you could stop hereditary by-elections and you could have a | :22:40. | :22:45. | |
moratorium so that at least you are turning off the tap temporarily. We | :22:46. | :22:52. | |
could go a bit further in encouraging people to retire, | :22:53. | :22:54. | |
although I think that scheme has worked pretty well, really, and it | :22:55. | :23:01. | |
is now more acceptable for people to retire and I think more to do so in | :23:02. | :23:06. | |
future. Alike can I count on retirement, I agree. There are | :23:07. | :23:13. | |
people in the House that would retire, certainly on my side, who | :23:14. | :23:17. | |
would consider retirement because our appointment level has been so | :23:18. | :23:21. | |
low since 2010, they don't feel their numbers would be replaced, it | :23:22. | :23:25. | |
would be replaced by someone from a Government party, so I think not | :23:26. | :23:28. | |
just looking at size but the political balance of how the House | :23:29. | :23:31. | |
works have to be part of the same debate. You both agree on a cap on | :23:32. | :23:39. | |
size? Yes, an absolute cap or something doesn't ban but a cap on | :23:40. | :23:46. | |
size. Regard it as part of my job to spread the message of retirement it | :23:47. | :23:51. | |
is said that on the whole, our group is rather older than others. It is | :23:52. | :23:56. | |
done to the way people coming and I have worked hard to achieve more | :23:57. | :24:00. | |
retirements. Can I come back to hereditary peers? | :24:01. | :24:08. | |
Dmrb In my case it is about 15% of my group. I recognise it is absurd, | :24:09. | :24:16. | |
having the by-elections but if it is to be stopped, I would like the ways | :24:17. | :24:21. | |
into the Crossbench group widened, otherwise I'm losing people in | :24:22. | :24:27. | |
retirement and indeed mortality without replacements. | :24:28. | :24:33. | |
It really must be a quid pro quo. It was always a temporary measure to | :24:34. | :24:37. | |
hold the position until a proper reform of the House of Lords was | :24:38. | :24:41. | |
achieved. So from my position, I don't think it would be right to | :24:42. | :24:46. | |
just terminate it without looking at the consequences for my group. | :24:47. | :24:52. | |
This is where there is an agreement across the House of Lords, there is | :24:53. | :24:56. | |
an agreement generally in the House of Lords from what you all said that | :24:57. | :25:04. | |
the House of Lords is too big. 200 more peers therein MPs at the | :25:05. | :25:08. | |
moment. That is the general analysis. But there seems to be | :25:09. | :25:17. | |
disagreement as Lord Newby said even amongst the emphasis that Baroness | :25:18. | :25:22. | |
Smith put on the issue of the hereditary by-elections and the | :25:23. | :25:27. | |
impact it would have as Lord hope has indicated on a particular | :25:28. | :25:32. | |
subject. So I am wondering in this if you had to choose between making | :25:33. | :25:37. | |
an argument for incremental change where there is a lot of disagreement | :25:38. | :25:43. | |
about what the change is and putting a cap or a moratorium on new members | :25:44. | :25:48. | |
or something along the lines, which of those would you choose as a crude | :25:49. | :25:54. | |
mechanism to deliver some level of reform? I would like an absolute | :25:55. | :25:59. | |
cap. But it depends on the co-operation of the Prime Minister, | :26:00. | :26:10. | |
whose perogative is along with the appointments she makes. There was a | :26:11. | :26:16. | |
vote and the total figure voting was 633. You test that against the | :26:17. | :26:21. | |
nominal number of the membership which is over 800 and you can see in | :26:22. | :26:25. | |
practice with the efforts to get people in we don't get anything like | :26:26. | :26:30. | |
the 800 people coming in. So there is a question as to the working | :26:31. | :26:35. | |
numbers as opposed to the nominal number that is worth considering. | :26:36. | :26:39. | |
But I would go for a cap at around 600. | :26:40. | :26:44. | |
Agreed? I may go lower. But the key thing is, you are right, there to | :26:45. | :26:54. | |
say today oh, we can agree on this but on the hereditary by-elections, | :26:55. | :26:58. | |
David says how it affects his group more, it would over 30 years when | :26:59. | :27:05. | |
they have died out but anything we are look at has a different affect | :27:06. | :27:10. | |
on different groups. But trying to get down to the issues there will | :27:11. | :27:14. | |
not be one thing that is magic bullet. The moratorium would advance | :27:15. | :27:22. | |
you to the younger party, those with older groups would gradually fade | :27:23. | :27:26. | |
and the numbers would not perhaps improve the work of the lord lords. | :27:27. | :27:33. | |
So getting the Speaker's Committee to look at this, to come up with a | :27:34. | :27:39. | |
range of issues to get principles established, there could be some | :27:40. | :27:42. | |
agreement. I think that we do agree that the | :27:43. | :27:46. | |
House of Lords should be largely reduced. End of agreement. | :27:47. | :27:52. | |
I think it is too simplistic to say that we only agree on that. I would | :27:53. | :28:01. | |
put faith on the committee. We have Christine Crawley looking at this | :28:02. | :28:04. | |
issue, it will take work but there must be a determination from all of | :28:05. | :28:09. | |
them that although we think it should be reduced but also how to | :28:10. | :28:15. | |
reach that. The effectiveness of the retirement | :28:16. | :28:21. | |
system, has it exceeded your expectations or are you disappointed | :28:22. | :28:26. | |
with the number of people that exited? Disappointed? I have | :28:27. | :28:35. | |
colleagues on my side of the House that would retire if they thought | :28:36. | :28:40. | |
that their work would be under taken by somebody else but don't see a new | :28:41. | :28:45. | |
Labour appointment coming in. So if there was a cap on numbers and a | :28:46. | :28:50. | |
political balance, there would be more retirements. I think in our | :28:51. | :28:55. | |
group it has worked well. We have had people who have not | :28:56. | :29:02. | |
participated, coming to retire, and others like Shirley Williams who had | :29:03. | :29:06. | |
a high-profile, who took the view that given the age that they reached | :29:07. | :29:12. | |
they thought to withdraw. As I say, for my group it's worked pretty much | :29:13. | :29:18. | |
as I would have expected. It is true of the cross benchers but | :29:19. | :29:23. | |
it requires effort to look around to people reaching that point. The | :29:24. | :29:28. | |
numbers involved are low, it is not the cure-all. But it is something | :29:29. | :29:34. | |
that can be achieved and continue to be worked on. | :29:35. | :29:38. | |
One of the questions INAUDIBLE | :29:39. | :29:41. | |
I think you may have answered it for me is that the numbers here last | :29:42. | :29:52. | |
week were 633, is it really necessary, given all those efforts | :29:53. | :29:59. | |
to get people here? The ab-Hewitt maximum is virtually 633. | :30:00. | :30:05. | |
Somebody calculated that we need 450 to staff the committees and that's | :30:06. | :30:10. | |
the starting point. But you need extra residue on top, which is why I | :30:11. | :30:16. | |
go for about 600. There is a feature of the lord lords, that I noticed in | :30:17. | :30:23. | |
my time. The more you emphasise on attendance and participation being | :30:24. | :30:27. | |
necessary, there is less time for the people to speak in debates. | :30:28. | :30:32. | |
There is timed debates, two minutes or one minute each, that is a | :30:33. | :30:37. | |
feature of numbers. So it is one of these things where you must be | :30:38. | :30:42. | |
careful what you wish for. But the overall numbers of 800 is bad for | :30:43. | :30:48. | |
the image of the House and we could come down to 600 without diminishing | :30:49. | :30:52. | |
really the participation of people who really do participate. So if it | :30:53. | :30:57. | |
is image, you can reduce to 600 without too much loss of effort. | :30:58. | :31:05. | |
I would agree with that. Would start not from reducing | :31:06. | :31:09. | |
numbers but what is the number we need to fulfil the functions we have | :31:10. | :31:14. | |
to do? We did a report from the Labour peers in March 2014, starting | :31:15. | :31:20. | |
from the basis, when David said how many were needed to fulfil the | :31:21. | :31:25. | |
committee places and to fulfil the work of the House, I think you are | :31:26. | :31:30. | |
right just over 600 is the maximum to attend the House. Anyone who | :31:31. | :31:34. | |
could walk last week was there, pretty much. But I don't think it | :31:35. | :31:40. | |
shows the House in a good light. When the Government is proposing to | :31:41. | :31:43. | |
reduce the House of Commons, to receive so many appointments into | :31:44. | :31:46. | |
the House of Lords, I think is wrong. | :31:47. | :31:52. | |
As long as the House of Lords is appointed, it makes sense for it not | :31:53. | :31:58. | |
simply to be a House of full-time politicians, which means by | :31:59. | :32:01. | |
definition you need more than you would otherwise need as you are | :32:02. | :32:05. | |
having to spread it out. We have to all of us have to find people to sit | :32:06. | :32:10. | |
on committees for example. Well, if people are doing other jobs outside, | :32:11. | :32:15. | |
which we encourage, because that brings expertise in, the amount of | :32:16. | :32:19. | |
time that they then have to do committee and other work in the lord | :32:20. | :32:25. | |
lords is limited so you need other people to fulfil the positions. | :32:26. | :32:30. | |
So you are agreed on capping the size but now you are talking | :32:31. | :32:34. | |
yourself out of capping the size? No. The cap on size that we argued | :32:35. | :32:42. | |
for when talking about an elected House in the last Parliament was | :32:43. | :32:51. | |
450. But you need it to be larger than that for a full-time House. If | :32:52. | :32:56. | |
there is a cap on size, the Prime Minister can't go above the cap that | :32:57. | :33:00. | |
is the most critical point of all when thinking of numbers. It will be | :33:01. | :33:06. | |
a full-time house but not all the members are full-time. | :33:07. | :33:10. | |
An overwhelm majority in the House of Lords for a cap. | :33:11. | :33:16. | |
Effectively a reduction in the size of the House of Lords and the three | :33:17. | :33:20. | |
of you appear to support that view. So we now accept that the House of | :33:21. | :33:24. | |
Lords could take 600 as being the figure. So 600 is what is wanted as | :33:25. | :33:31. | |
the maximum in the House of Lords. What is the obstacle to achieving | :33:32. | :33:37. | |
that? I have had discussions with the Government previously, they were | :33:38. | :33:47. | |
not prepared to accept a cap. I was told you could not | :33:48. | :33:50. | |
INAUDIBLE Because of prime easterly | :33:51. | :33:53. | |
appointments, when I raised this the last time it was under a different | :33:54. | :33:57. | |
leader in the House of Lords but the Government at that time was not in | :33:58. | :34:02. | |
favour of a cap, so maybe things have changed but it has not been the | :34:03. | :34:06. | |
position so far. Let's ignore the Government's | :34:07. | :34:08. | |
perspective. The House of Lords think that there should be a | :34:09. | :34:12. | |
reduction in the number of peers, you are coming to a figure of 6 | :34:13. | :34:16. | |
hundreds. That is the figure that the House of Lords wishes to | :34:17. | :34:22. | |
achieve. What are the obstacles to getting there, ignoring the | :34:23. | :34:26. | |
Government? The obstacle is agreement. I am optimistic than a | :34:27. | :34:31. | |
Newburyie on this. We have the committee to meet to look at this | :34:32. | :34:39. | |
now. I don't know if this will solve the problem or X will solve the | :34:40. | :34:45. | |
problem. Retirement is there. But there are members in their 80s who | :34:46. | :34:53. | |
make a great contribution. Then there are others in their 30s who | :34:54. | :34:58. | |
you never see. So the committee will have to look at attendance, | :34:59. | :35:03. | |
activity, whilst not ignoring the people that bring in expertise when | :35:04. | :35:09. | |
they do come in. But a basic level of attendance. Some can be dealt | :35:10. | :35:16. | |
with. If you don't attend you should be automatically retired. So some | :35:17. | :35:20. | |
things must be addressed but I hope that the committee are looking at, I | :35:21. | :35:25. | |
look forward to the report, to bring the issues and see the impact of | :35:26. | :35:30. | |
them and coalesce around some to try to bring the size down. | :35:31. | :35:38. | |
So you see a direct link between composition and the membership et | :35:39. | :35:41. | |
cetera and the number, rather than just say 600 and then waiting for | :35:42. | :35:46. | |
the numbers to drop to 600? I think yes to work to get the numbers below | :35:47. | :35:51. | |
that level. So that the number is 600, and wait for people to die off | :35:52. | :35:56. | |
to get to that number, it that is unacceptable. | :35:57. | :36:00. | |
The answer is that you need leadership from Government. Not just | :36:01. | :36:04. | |
legislation to do this. If you say you want a cap of 600, A you have to | :36:05. | :36:11. | |
legislate for that. Then you need legislation probably in terms of how | :36:12. | :36:14. | |
to do it. The deafily is in the detail in the House of Lords in | :36:15. | :36:18. | |
terms of reducing it. As you have heard, all of the groups are | :36:19. | :36:22. | |
affected by the different methods of reducing numbers. You need a lead | :36:23. | :36:26. | |
from somebody. The only to give that lead are Government. They are going | :36:27. | :36:32. | |
to have to be resolute. There will be opposition as we have seen in the | :36:33. | :36:37. | |
past. Every single change proposed to the House of Lords, beyond | :36:38. | :36:41. | |
probably the cap, which you could easily get a majority for but | :36:42. | :36:45. | |
resolute leadership to push it through. | :36:46. | :36:56. | |
Or the advantage from the Crossbenchers' point of view that | :36:57. | :36:59. | |
the Crossbencher should amount to 20%. We achieve that with the | :37:00. | :37:05. | |
numbers of 180. Today we are 177. I would have to shed about 30 members | :37:06. | :37:10. | |
to bring myself down, 35, possibly, to the proportion within the cap. | :37:11. | :37:14. | |
We will come back to the size of groups and the composition in a | :37:15. | :37:19. | |
minute but the question on the obstacles that you see to achieving | :37:20. | :37:26. | |
a cob sensus on the agreement? I come back to the figures, given my | :37:27. | :37:31. | |
case, I am different to the other groups but if you regard the | :37:32. | :37:36. | |
Crossbenchers as a 20% figure in the total membership of the House I can | :37:37. | :37:42. | |
work on people in a variety of ways, attendance, age, state of health and | :37:43. | :37:45. | |
participation and useful contribution. It could be within our | :37:46. | :37:50. | |
group a question of persuading people to reduce but Lord Newby is | :37:51. | :37:54. | |
right at the end of the day legislation is needed for a critical | :37:55. | :38:00. | |
reason: We are all entitled to a writ somons when each Parliament | :38:01. | :38:05. | |
starts up that gives us an unchallengeable right to attend. | :38:06. | :38:08. | |
There must be something to stop that so that those people who are | :38:09. | :38:13. | |
regarded as no longer worth, or who should no longer be a part of the | :38:14. | :38:19. | |
House are no longer titled to waive their writ. | :38:20. | :38:24. | |
Does anyone agree that there should be a retirement age? There is for | :38:25. | :38:30. | |
the judges. In principle we agree. But the | :38:31. | :38:34. | |
difficulty is look at the House, and some of the best expertise comes | :38:35. | :38:40. | |
from the older members. There is the example of a retirement | :38:41. | :38:46. | |
age to 80 but not applying to anyone above the age of 77? | :38:47. | :38:53. | |
Everybody thinks there should be a retirement age, it's one of the | :38:54. | :39:03. | |
problems we always have. Can I just pick up something? I don't think | :39:04. | :39:06. | |
it's for the Government to take a lead on this. We would have got | :39:07. | :39:15. | |
hereditary by-elections through the House, but the Government obstructed | :39:16. | :39:21. | |
it, we would have to accept we are not going to get everybody to | :39:22. | :39:24. | |
permanently agree on everything. So the Government has to say, if there | :39:25. | :39:29. | |
is a broad consensus, they will work on this. On age, I'm not necessarily | :39:30. | :39:38. | |
very representative of my group, but I would personally, and this will | :39:39. | :39:43. | |
make me very unpopular with some of my colleagues, personally submit a | :39:44. | :39:50. | |
retirement age. A question to look at is the age profile of people that | :39:51. | :39:55. | |
come in. In my group, it's between 50 and 60, you have to think about | :39:56. | :39:58. | |
that against the contribution they would want to make. If you come in | :39:59. | :40:04. | |
at 60, I would have thought 15 years' service is a reasonable | :40:05. | :40:07. | |
thing. It is a commendation of age and length of service. 15 years is | :40:08. | :40:14. | |
three parliaments, and it could be made clear by the appointments | :40:15. | :40:17. | |
Commission that that is what the expectation is. And you will be | :40:18. | :40:26. | |
expected to retire after one or two of these factors come into play. | :40:27. | :40:37. | |
I've got a solution to this manner which I'm sure you're not going to | :40:38. | :40:41. | |
like. Why do we scrap the House of Lords and have a second chamber | :40:42. | :40:45. | |
which is elected by the people of the UK, representing all the regions | :40:46. | :40:51. | |
of the UK. That would seem to solve all of our problems. I agree! Most | :40:52. | :41:01. | |
of the problems that Mr Flynn mentioned at the start would not be | :41:02. | :41:05. | |
resolved by-elections. And certainly the very significant | :41:06. | :41:09. | |
underrepresentation of the English regions, and of Scotland, and Wales, | :41:10. | :41:16. | |
would be dealt with by-elections. The Liberal Democrats who oppose | :41:17. | :41:20. | |
proposals for elections in the last Parliament, that we put forward, had | :41:21. | :41:26. | |
a 15 year term of office. -- the Liberal Democrats's proposals. The | :41:27. | :41:38. | |
chartists said people should be elected every year, but 15 years and | :41:39. | :41:41. | |
not being able to stand for re-election has no accountability in | :41:42. | :41:46. | |
it. I'm not a proponent of an elected house, but what I would say | :41:47. | :41:50. | |
is that it changes the nature, so I think there should be, if you are | :41:51. | :41:55. | |
looking at this, to look at how it impacts on the House of Commons as | :41:56. | :41:59. | |
well. I voted for the abolition of the House of Lords when I was a | :42:00. | :42:03. | |
member of Parliament because I did not support the proposals for an | :42:04. | :42:07. | |
elected house or a hybrid house. It wasn't that I didn't support the | :42:08. | :42:12. | |
notion of a second chamber, but we have to think quite carefully how we | :42:13. | :42:15. | |
do that, and my reluctance is just to say, I would not want a second | :42:16. | :42:21. | |
chamber to challenge the primacy of the House of Commons. So if there | :42:22. | :42:28. | |
are ways of looking at something, changes on that, I am relaxed about | :42:29. | :42:32. | |
that, but I think it has to be looked at in the context of | :42:33. | :42:35. | |
Parliament as a whole, and not thinking that by changing the House | :42:36. | :42:38. | |
of Lords you can make a change that doesn't impact on the House of | :42:39. | :42:47. | |
Commons. It would cease to elect if you made the body wholly elected. | :42:48. | :42:52. | |
Our group contributes very substantially to science and | :42:53. | :42:55. | |
technology, medicine, and so forth. But I am very much in favour of | :42:56. | :43:00. | |
something that would increase the representation from elsewhere than | :43:01. | :43:03. | |
London. I come from Scotland, travel down every week from Scotland, and I | :43:04. | :43:09. | |
am dependent on my ?300 to pay my accommodation. That's all we get, | :43:10. | :43:13. | |
apart from travelling costs. The question is, are people from | :43:14. | :43:16. | |
Scotland or Wales and the remoter parts of England prepared to | :43:17. | :43:20. | |
contribute to the work of the House, given that that's all they get out | :43:21. | :43:26. | |
of it from the point of view of covering their costs, and the time | :43:27. | :43:30. | |
and effort it takes to travel to and from the two places? We are short of | :43:31. | :43:34. | |
representation from Scotland and Wales does not it would be | :43:35. | :43:38. | |
determined by the number of members. We are not looking at electing 800 | :43:39. | :43:45. | |
or so people. So the numbers are going to come down substantially. | :43:46. | :43:50. | |
Yes, I'm not quite sure how you are going to solve the problem of | :43:51. | :43:56. | |
regional representation, without having something -- some greater | :43:57. | :44:00. | |
effort in persuading people to take part in the establishment, in the | :44:01. | :44:04. | |
institution. The numbers of people putting themselves forward to the | :44:05. | :44:07. | |
Commission as far as I know are very much centred around this part of the | :44:08. | :44:12. | |
country. Strangely enough we get more hereditary peers from Scotland | :44:13. | :44:18. | |
than we do by appointments through the other channels. Won people ask, | :44:19. | :44:34. | |
-- I think we do have to look at the Parliament as a whole, and I thought | :44:35. | :44:40. | |
we were talking about incremental reform, that would be a major | :44:41. | :44:48. | |
change, and I think we need to look at Parliament as a whole, and be | :44:49. | :44:50. | |
clear that the last proposals put forward for an elected house, I just | :44:51. | :44:55. | |
could not support. Maybe other proposals are good, but | :44:56. | :44:59. | |
I thought the 15 year term was unacceptable. Did you see a future | :45:00. | :45:08. | |
for 92 hereditary peers? In a macro I have been arguing that you could | :45:09. | :45:13. | |
end the by-elections immediately. To be honest nobody knows really who | :45:14. | :45:15. | |
are the by-elections immediately. To be honest nobody knows really who | :45:16. | :45:18. | |
other hereditary peers and who are not. I think the differentiation we | :45:19. | :45:24. | |
make in the House of Lords is between those who get on with a job | :45:25. | :45:28. | |
of work, and if people don't they are drawn to attention. But for | :45:29. | :45:32. | |
those who work, we don't know whether they are hereditary or not. | :45:33. | :45:36. | |
I raised this in debate recently, the Minister said, he could only | :45:37. | :45:40. | |
support incremental change, and that wasn't an incremental change. Well, | :45:41. | :45:44. | |
given the change would take place over 30 years, I think that is | :45:45. | :45:49. | |
pretty incremental. So I don't justify that. It was a deal that was | :45:50. | :45:53. | |
done that was supposed to be temporary, has lived its time. | :45:54. | :45:57. | |
That's not to criticise those who play a part in the House, across | :45:58. | :46:01. | |
parties and crossbenchers, but the by-election system is indefensible. | :46:02. | :46:11. | |
Lord Newby? I think the current -- the concern was expressed when the | :46:12. | :46:14. | |
reforms were proposed during the Coalition about challenging the | :46:15. | :46:20. | |
primacy of the Commons can be assuaged in part if the House of | :46:21. | :46:24. | |
Lords is seen to have a very different basis of representation, | :46:25. | :46:28. | |
which it would have had, namely people would have been elected on a | :46:29. | :46:33. | |
regional basis. Our constitutional proposals go further than just | :46:34. | :46:42. | |
electing the House of Lords, so in a sense they hang together. But I | :46:43. | :46:45. | |
think that electing people regionally would give a very | :46:46. | :46:52. | |
different background to their coming to this place, and I must say I have | :46:53. | :46:56. | |
never found any difficulty when we've been looking to even appoint | :46:57. | :47:01. | |
people from any part of the country to come to the House of Lords, it's | :47:02. | :47:07. | |
not a place which people tend to shy away from if given the opportunity | :47:08. | :47:12. | |
to come in my experience. I think an elected house would be more | :47:13. | :47:16. | |
powerful. If I was standing for election to anywhere, I would hardly | :47:17. | :47:21. | |
knock on doors to say, please vote for me because I want to be a member | :47:22. | :47:25. | |
of the second chamber, so I can advise or express an opinion to the | :47:26. | :47:28. | |
House of Commons. I think an elected house would want more power. So I | :47:29. | :47:35. | |
expect -- except Dick's comment, I think it would challenge primacy. | :47:36. | :47:40. | |
But there has to be a conscious decision for the way forward. There | :47:41. | :47:49. | |
is another possibility, which is elected apart from the 20% who are | :47:50. | :47:53. | |
crossbenches, who would be appointed. And you would preserve | :47:54. | :47:55. | |
the expertise through the appointment system. Which might be | :47:56. | :48:01. | |
more broadly spread around the regions. | :48:02. | :48:07. | |
This doesn't sound like part of the sort of most obvious consensual next | :48:08. | :48:12. | |
step. Given that there is consensus over the size, how can this be done | :48:13. | :48:18. | |
without greater control over appointments? It was suggested on | :48:19. | :48:30. | |
the 5th of December that it is not possible, and you agree with that | :48:31. | :48:37. | |
assessment? Entirely. I think you come back to the prerogative, in so | :48:38. | :48:42. | |
far as the people coming into the crossbenches are concerned, the | :48:43. | :48:44. | |
numbers are so few year by year that it doesn't affect the overall | :48:45. | :48:50. | |
numbers. So there is a cap on the size, and more control over the | :48:51. | :48:53. | |
prerogative? We are making progress. Question six? My views are more | :48:54. | :49:02. | |
radical than my question would imply... There are vested interests | :49:03. | :49:11. | |
in every term, and a major vested interest is that of the Prime | :49:12. | :49:16. | |
Minister. A more managed system implies greater limitations on the | :49:17. | :49:21. | |
Prime Minister, she is understandably reluctant to | :49:22. | :49:26. | |
surrender her patronage power. How do we overcome that conundrum? I | :49:27. | :49:36. | |
don't think we move the Prime Minister's patronage altogether, but | :49:37. | :49:39. | |
I think it's been an element of control and transparency and audit, | :49:40. | :49:45. | |
and although -- at the moment it's a different process, as David has | :49:46. | :49:50. | |
said, if you are a crossbench peer, you have undergone a different level | :49:51. | :49:57. | |
of check-in -- checking than if you are a party appointed peer. Whilst I | :49:58. | :50:08. | |
think -- I think issues... There could be a wider remit, and one of | :50:09. | :50:13. | |
the things you could ask, and this would be for the House of Lords | :50:14. | :50:18. | |
committee to look at, is say, can you suggest criteria who you think | :50:19. | :50:21. | |
it would be -- that you think it would be appropriate to look at if | :50:22. | :50:26. | |
you had a greater say, or a greater scrutiny role, on political | :50:27. | :50:33. | |
appointments? And if that isn't happening, then I think there has to | :50:34. | :50:39. | |
be a greater transparency. -- if that is happening. If they are going | :50:40. | :50:52. | |
to do an effective job of scrutiny, they need the time and resources to | :50:53. | :50:58. | |
do it in. I wouldn't say there is a suggestion of removing prime | :50:59. | :51:00. | |
ministerial patronage altogether, but it can't just be "I'm putting | :51:01. | :51:09. | |
these people in because I need to up my numbers." I think that has led to | :51:10. | :51:13. | |
the current position we have where the House is so large. You still | :51:14. | :51:19. | |
have prime ministerial patronage just as you have from the other | :51:20. | :51:24. | |
party leaders, if you have a cap, but I think the two constraints we | :51:25. | :51:28. | |
are suggesting we put on that patronage is firstly, on the | :51:29. | :51:34. | |
numbers. And secondly, saying that anybody that the Prime Minister put | :51:35. | :51:37. | |
forward would still have to go through a slightly more rigorous | :51:38. | :51:42. | |
process with the appointments Commission, to make sure that they | :51:43. | :51:47. | |
were people who we play a valuable part in the House of Lords, which | :51:48. | :51:52. | |
clearly hasn't always been the case in the past. | :51:53. | :51:56. | |
Migrant depends on the Prime Minister, first of all through the | :51:57. | :52:00. | |
ten per Parliament route. -- my group. It is for her to decide let's | :52:01. | :52:07. | |
say when a former Commons secretary should come in, but the Prime | :52:08. | :52:11. | |
Minister also controls entry through the selection Commission, and it's | :52:12. | :52:14. | |
quite interesting, David Cameron established the principle that they | :52:15. | :52:17. | |
would be too per year coming in through that route, but it broke | :52:18. | :52:21. | |
down towards the end of his period in his office, and those one year he | :52:22. | :52:24. | |
didn't appoint anybody although there were recommendations. Four | :52:25. | :52:30. | |
were then appointed to make up for that, in I think 2015, but we've had | :52:31. | :52:37. | |
no appointments since then, although the apartments Commission have at | :52:38. | :52:40. | |
least four people they have recommended. There has been a | :52:41. | :52:44. | |
moratorium on this for some reason I don't understand, so there are two | :52:45. | :52:47. | |
aspects to this, on the one hand you want to control the promised 's | :52:48. | :52:52. | |
appointments of political groups, but at the same time to encourage | :52:53. | :52:56. | |
more generous to show I say to the crossbenches, and in particular if | :52:57. | :52:59. | |
you end the hereditary peers, we would have to ask the Prime Minister | :53:00. | :53:03. | |
to be prepared to make up the gap if somebody dies who is a hereditary, | :53:04. | :53:07. | |
to be replaced through the appointments Commission. So that | :53:08. | :53:11. | |
side instability at as well. Couldn't the Prime Minister simply | :53:12. | :53:16. | |
be removed from the picture? There are some automatic people, former | :53:17. | :53:22. | |
Cabinet secretaries and so on. But the problem with the Prime | :53:23. | :53:25. | |
Minister's appointments is not just for the House of Lords, it's with | :53:26. | :53:29. | |
the House of Commons. Because it is a corrupting influence, is it not, | :53:30. | :53:33. | |
that people in the House of Commons, some, are looking to the mission of | :53:34. | :53:36. | |
the House of Lords, and will curry favour with the Prime Minister, and | :53:37. | :53:40. | |
be obliging when it comes to resigning their seats at a | :53:41. | :53:45. | |
convenient time of the Prime Minister can spot favourites and put | :53:46. | :53:48. | |
them in safe seats. These things go on. Isn't that a major problem? None | :53:49. | :53:55. | |
of our group come from that route. But appointments in general. | :53:56. | :54:01. | |
It is the effect on the House of Commons as much on the House of | :54:02. | :54:12. | |
Lords that, and indeed, the Blair and Cameron government, | :54:13. | :54:17. | |
particularly. The Blair government was adept to slotting people into | :54:18. | :54:20. | |
safe seats when they became available. One member what offered a | :54:21. | :54:29. | |
seat, we understand, he was replaced in his seat and then was not in the | :54:30. | :54:35. | |
House of Lords. He was angry. But these things damage our democracy? I | :54:36. | :54:41. | |
think I am right in saying that all of the recommendations of the House | :54:42. | :54:45. | |
have to pass through the hands of the Prime Minister to go through Her | :54:46. | :54:49. | |
Majesty. One has to think about that right. In my case, in the | :54:50. | :54:54. | |
Crossbenchers, we are not looking for people who have been in | :54:55. | :54:56. | |
Parliament before. That's the point of the group. I'm not sure the point | :54:57. | :55:03. | |
which I fully understand you are drawing my attention to, affects my | :55:04. | :55:08. | |
group at all. I don't know if I can satisfy you but if there are clear | :55:09. | :55:14. | |
criteria that somebody somebody has to meet as to what they bring and | :55:15. | :55:21. | |
contribute. One of my worries and issues, looking at what was | :55:22. | :55:25. | |
suggested that there should only be a 15-year term of who should stay in | :55:26. | :55:29. | |
the House of Lords that encourages it to the last 15 years of your | :55:30. | :55:34. | |
political life you go the House of Lords which is unacceptable but if | :55:35. | :55:41. | |
there is clear criteria you are expected to fulfil X, Y and Z, then | :55:42. | :55:47. | |
that happens. If some people go to the House of Lords to do the work | :55:48. | :55:52. | |
required of them but from a House of Lords powerful I'm not terrible | :55:53. | :55:56. | |
worried if they do the work but what I worry about is if people think | :55:57. | :56:01. | |
that they can take it easy, or if they get the seat in the House of | :56:02. | :56:05. | |
Lords, and I stand down. That influence. So my priority is it | :56:06. | :56:15. | |
would not resolve the issue but I think a criteria of which there are | :56:16. | :56:19. | |
expectations of which those that come in, the danger is that there | :56:20. | :56:22. | |
are some people who promise anything to get in. So the steps we have | :56:23. | :56:27. | |
started to take, that somebody does not tend a session, that they are | :56:28. | :56:32. | |
gone, that should be looked at more by the committee looking at this. | :56:33. | :56:38. | |
But always there will be an element of Prime Ministers having certain | :56:39. | :56:42. | |
appointments but firm that up with criteria, that will help. | :56:43. | :56:47. | |
And the great thing about the House of Commons, guilties Pete the fact | :56:48. | :56:53. | |
that parties try to control selections, awkward individuals get | :56:54. | :56:55. | |
into Parliament and make a difference. It is important to have | :56:56. | :57:01. | |
people who are going to be grit in the oyster, people that challenge | :57:02. | :57:05. | |
and not just go along. Now in the House of Lords that is almost | :57:06. | :57:10. | |
impossible. Especially since the hereditaryis a going. They used to | :57:11. | :57:16. | |
be more independent. Where I dispute that, once somebody | :57:17. | :57:20. | |
is given an appointment in the House of Lords, they are beholden to | :57:21. | :57:25. | |
nobody other than their conscious. In my group, people were thinking I | :57:26. | :57:29. | |
was appointed by the Prime Minister, have must agree with that point of | :57:30. | :57:33. | |
view but it doesn't work like that. There are numerous examples from all | :57:34. | :57:36. | |
political parties in the House of Lords where people might have been | :57:37. | :57:40. | |
expected to vote in a certain way, just don't. | :57:41. | :57:48. | |
There is, I would have to say, perhaps say, a perception... There | :57:49. | :57:51. | |
isn't the same whipping operation in the House of Lords as in the House | :57:52. | :57:56. | |
of Commons. People don't feel the same way, they have party | :57:57. | :58:01. | |
allegiances but that is not abroute. If you look at rebellions you find | :58:02. | :58:05. | |
there is more independence in the House of Lords. | :58:06. | :58:11. | |
That is one of the advantages of an unelected House. Moving on. Some of | :58:12. | :58:17. | |
what is in front is covered. On the issue of the pure of the | :58:18. | :58:22. | |
Prime Minister, the patronage. If we were capped at 600 and curtailed the | :58:23. | :58:28. | |
Prime Minister's patronage in terms of appoint to the 600, should the | :58:29. | :58:33. | |
Prime Minister still have the ability to appoint ministers over | :58:34. | :58:40. | |
and above the 600 as a principle? I would argue no. My idea has always | :58:41. | :58:46. | |
been a band where the ministers come from. | :58:47. | :58:53. | |
Yes, no problem. Yes, I follow. | :58:54. | :58:59. | |
There is agreement. Although I have suggested a band of | :59:00. | :59:03. | |
a number but the Prime Minister can go below or keep a few in his | :59:04. | :59:08. | |
pocket. No problem with that. Again. Yes broadly attempted a limit | :59:09. | :59:13. | |
to the size of the House of Lords. But then the issue of the groupings | :59:14. | :59:18. | |
within that number. What sort of principles should apply to how we | :59:19. | :59:23. | |
balance between the political parties arched the Crossbenchers, | :59:24. | :59:27. | |
and any future new political parties that may form? How do we go about | :59:28. | :59:33. | |
dealing with the composition of the 600? We want it elected. That deals | :59:34. | :59:39. | |
with it automatically. I do agree. | :59:40. | :59:44. | |
But on the assumption it is not? If you are not going to do that, I | :59:45. | :59:49. | |
think it would be possible, although I think it would be difficult to get | :59:50. | :59:55. | |
a consensus on it, to reach a system under which you looked at results | :59:56. | :00:01. | |
from possibly two or three cycles of elections and had some combination | :00:02. | :00:04. | |
of votes and seats taken into account. I think any system has its | :00:05. | :00:13. | |
short comings but I think that will be probably the best way of dealing | :00:14. | :00:17. | |
with this. Of course at the moment we've got the situation that the SNP | :00:18. | :00:22. | |
under the current rules refuse to be in the House of Lords. That means | :00:23. | :00:31. | |
that is Askew in the system. So I think... You could say that the | :00:32. | :00:35. | |
Liberal Democrats are overrepresented? Well, the Liberal | :00:36. | :00:42. | |
Democrats throughout their last few decades have beened | :00:43. | :00:45. | |
under-represented in the Lord's. Temporarily taking the House of | :00:46. | :00:50. | |
Lords alone, we are overrepresented. Taking Parliament as a whole, about | :00:51. | :01:00. | |
8%... But the principles that you think should apply? That is what I | :01:01. | :01:05. | |
was saying you must look at a combination. | :01:06. | :01:09. | |
Clearly on any individual election, any party as we know to our cost, | :01:10. | :01:14. | |
can go up and down a bit. I think stability, this is not a Lib Dem | :01:15. | :01:17. | |
point but stability in the House of Lords makes a lot of sense. | :01:18. | :01:26. | |
Baroness Smith? Largely the same. The principles are about 3% and 20% | :01:27. | :01:33. | |
Crossbenchers. The public think of independents in the House. They | :01:34. | :01:39. | |
rather like that. And the other principles is that the governments | :01:40. | :01:42. | |
should not have majorities. It doesn't mean that they can't be the | :01:43. | :01:47. | |
biggest party but tend to become the biggest party over time. We were the | :01:48. | :01:52. | |
largest party in 2005, this government have done it much more | :01:53. | :01:56. | |
quickly because of the rate of the appointments that they have made. | :01:57. | :02:01. | |
The Labour Party has always governed without a majority in the House of | :02:02. | :02:05. | |
Lords. By and large it gets the business through because of the | :02:06. | :02:10. | |
Commons. So I think that is quite a good principle. It challenges the | :02:11. | :02:14. | |
Government make a better case and to engage in debate with the Commons | :02:15. | :02:19. | |
when they have the final say. And there must be recognition of other | :02:20. | :02:22. | |
political parties and off 1458 opposition. The Liberal Democrats | :02:23. | :02:28. | |
are overrepresented. There is the SNP are under-represented and Ukip | :02:29. | :02:33. | |
are under-represented as well. So I don't think that there can be a | :02:34. | :02:38. | |
direct link with election. Up about I think if you look at probably two, | :02:39. | :02:46. | |
three or four election cycling you would gradually move to ensuring it | :02:47. | :02:49. | |
was not out of kilter from the House of Commons but neither a reflection | :02:50. | :02:53. | |
of the House of Commons. I am sure that you will say 20%, | :02:54. | :02:59. | |
Lord hope. But what about the remaining 80%. | :03:00. | :03:02. | |
I argue against a hard and a fast line. One of the problems of an | :03:03. | :03:08. | |
unelected House, you cannot be too precise. I say 20% but tomorrow I | :03:09. | :03:13. | |
may persuade three people to retire and I'm below the 20%. How do I make | :03:14. | :03:20. | |
that up instantly? I can't. Also there is movement across the groups. | :03:21. | :03:28. | |
I receive one or two people who decided to leave the Liberal | :03:29. | :03:31. | |
Democrats or the Labour Party. Some of the people do so in the case of | :03:32. | :03:35. | |
the Tories and the Labour Party, they were appointed to be ministers | :03:36. | :03:40. | |
without any previous party affiliation, they have served their | :03:41. | :03:44. | |
time as ministers and would proffer to be on the Crossbenchers. So a | :03:45. | :03:53. | |
certain amount of looseness. I am not a political animal, so don't | :03:54. | :03:57. | |
know how it can be resolved without a discussion between the political | :03:58. | :03:58. | |
parties. Lord hope I can press you on this. | :03:59. | :04:03. | |
It is possible that there will be a proposal at some stage that may | :04:04. | :04:08. | |
require you to exercise an opinion in one way or another sn. So what is | :04:09. | :04:17. | |
your view? I don't think one can do better than to try to reflect the | :04:18. | :04:22. | |
performance of the parties at the last election. But the problem is if | :04:23. | :04:29. | |
there is a big switch in the parties for one or the other, how can you | :04:30. | :04:34. | |
adjust it to reflect the performance of the election? But broadly | :04:35. | :04:38. | |
speaking thinking of appointments coming in they should do their best | :04:39. | :04:42. | |
to reflect the results of the election. That is ar pass ars can | :04:43. | :04:47. | |
take it. A suggestion made is in order to adjust the size of the | :04:48. | :04:52. | |
party groupings that the party groupings themselves.should have | :04:53. | :04:59. | |
elections to elect from their own number the requisite number for that | :05:00. | :05:05. | |
Parliament, be what it may what do you think of that proposal? That | :05:06. | :05:14. | |
would suggest that one of the party groups which has lost heavily within | :05:15. | :05:19. | |
the selection would have to asked a member of their party to leave to | :05:20. | :05:25. | |
rebalance the positions. But to achieve that will be difficult | :05:26. | :05:29. | |
without some kind of statutory backing. What about the principle of | :05:30. | :05:36. | |
it? I can see the value of the principle but how to achieve it with | :05:37. | :05:41. | |
people who like the position? Baroness Smith That is a reason I | :05:42. | :05:50. | |
would not support, looking at a reflection of the elections, looking | :05:51. | :05:58. | |
at the cycles. I think once you have the proportions decided and the | :05:59. | :06:00. | |
committee hopefully will come up with something and we have to work | :06:01. | :06:04. | |
to the numbers then there must be a discussion within the groups of how | :06:05. | :06:08. | |
to achieve the numbers that they are expected to have. | :06:09. | :06:12. | |
But it must be something repeated. It can't be a one off? It can't be a | :06:13. | :06:21. | |
one-off but looking at a three year cycle, there won't be dramatic | :06:22. | :06:24. | |
changes and all of us must agree that there is a churn. In our case | :06:25. | :06:31. | |
it is members leaving, often not of their own volition. We have a number | :06:32. | :06:38. | |
who can no longer attend because of ill health or have died. You do get | :06:39. | :06:43. | |
that churn. Maybe you ask others if they are going to retire? I don't | :06:44. | :06:48. | |
know how but to avoid dramatic changes from election to election. | :06:49. | :06:55. | |
That is not how it is supposed to be reflected from election to election | :06:56. | :06:59. | |
but over a cycle of elections. This is a more difficult problem for | :07:00. | :07:08. | |
your party because of the way that the electoral diocese has fallen but | :07:09. | :07:13. | |
you said earlier, you could agree on a reflection of cycles of elections. | :07:14. | :07:20. | |
Is that where there could be consensus about the system of | :07:21. | :07:24. | |
controlling the numbers? Yes, I think so. And we are great | :07:25. | :07:29. | |
optimists. Our current position is a temporary blip. But I think that | :07:30. | :07:34. | |
doing something over cycles makes sense. That is what we were | :07:35. | :07:38. | |
proposing when we wanted the House of Lords elected, to be elected over | :07:39. | :07:46. | |
three cycles for less volatility in composition than we had potentially | :07:47. | :07:50. | |
in the Commons. I think that is the way you have to do it. | :07:51. | :07:56. | |
So, two cycles, three? We proposed three before. | :07:57. | :08:00. | |
Three? I said three or four. But I'm not opposed to three. | :08:01. | :08:06. | |
So the number of cycles reflects your optimism or not of the future | :08:07. | :08:13. | |
elections, perhaps? It reflects to manage stability of the House | :08:14. | :08:18. | |
alongside. The problem for suss that our members were largely appointed | :08:19. | :08:25. | |
during Tony Blair's years, during the Labour governments. As there | :08:26. | :08:30. | |
have been so few appointments in 2010, the members are getting older. | :08:31. | :08:34. | |
So you have to refresh and regenerate. Younger people being | :08:35. | :08:44. | |
appointed. But there must be an understanding that there is work to | :08:45. | :08:49. | |
be done. That you reflect on that and replenish and rejuvenate the | :08:50. | :08:51. | |
members. So if there was a consensus between | :08:52. | :08:57. | |
the parties reflecting membership to a number of electoral cycles, what | :08:58. | :09:02. | |
would be the Crossbenchers's attitude? The figure of three seems | :09:03. | :09:04. | |
sensible. But it is up to the political | :09:05. | :09:14. | |
parties to decide whether they can work with that system. So we've | :09:15. | :09:19. | |
already discussed the House of Lords Appointments Commission quite | :09:20. | :09:23. | |
extensively, it has been suggested if it is to do more it needs more | :09:24. | :09:29. | |
resources and more powers, on the question of, I mean, at the most | :09:30. | :09:36. | |
limited extent, should it have a more interventionist role of vetting | :09:37. | :09:39. | |
the appointments recommended by political parties and proposed by | :09:40. | :09:47. | |
prime ministerial patronage? To what extent should it have a stronger | :09:48. | :09:51. | |
role? I think it should have a stronger role. I think one of the | :09:52. | :09:58. | |
key elements in that would be to seek assurances from people about | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
the part that they would play. I think they're probably all parties | :10:03. | :10:06. | |
can think of people who have been up -- appointed, who never had any | :10:07. | :10:10. | |
attention -- intention of playing an active role at the point at which | :10:11. | :10:20. | |
they were appointed. Incidentally, although crossbenches follow a | :10:21. | :10:24. | |
different system, there have been some crossbenches who have taken the | :10:25. | :10:26. | |
view that they were appointed but weren't intended to be very at -- | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
active until they had finished a particular bit of their career. But | :10:32. | :10:36. | |
I think it is patently sensible to require people to give some kind of | :10:37. | :10:40. | |
formal assurance that they are willing to take an active point -- | :10:41. | :10:44. | |
part in the House of Lords. Because I think that we deter some people | :10:45. | :10:47. | |
from allowing their names to go forward. But how should that be | :10:48. | :10:53. | |
done? With some kind of requirement to sign a statement of commitment? | :10:54. | :11:02. | |
Should there be a list of activities that somebody is undertaking to | :11:03. | :11:10. | |
perform over the role -- district -- a role over a defined period? How | :11:11. | :11:15. | |
should it be done's I think that comes down to how do you define what | :11:16. | :11:21. | |
the role is? I think you can see -- people can promise all kinds of | :11:22. | :11:25. | |
things that they have no intention, and once they are appointed there | :11:26. | :11:29. | |
has to be systems, if somebody does not attend, if they do not engage, | :11:30. | :11:33. | |
they can lose their membership. We have that partially in place now. | :11:34. | :11:39. | |
And I think we should look at people who take repeated leave of absence | :11:40. | :11:43. | |
to do other things, and only intend to come back to the House of Lords | :11:44. | :11:46. | |
when there is nothing else. I think that is abuse of the system. I think | :11:47. | :11:52. | |
it would be a useful thing to look at the criteria they would look at, | :11:53. | :11:55. | |
and I think you can probably gauge from the public and from those of us | :11:56. | :12:00. | |
in the House and politicians, what our expectations would be if | :12:01. | :12:04. | |
somebody's coming to the House, and what the expectation should be on | :12:05. | :12:08. | |
appointment. So if somebody's been appointed simply because they have | :12:09. | :12:12. | |
been a donor to a party, that would not be acceptable. As seen donors in | :12:13. | :12:18. | |
the House who I think, on one occasion, not from a party, I've | :12:19. | :12:21. | |
seen them speak once in the entire time they have been there. Whether | :12:22. | :12:26. | |
they worked on committee I don't know, but that isn't probably the | :12:27. | :12:29. | |
best way to do the job of work that is needed in the House. So I think | :12:30. | :12:34. | |
there should be a published criteria, open to the public and | :12:35. | :12:38. | |
parliament as a whole, of the expectations that should be | :12:39. | :12:41. | |
fulfilled. There should be relevant experience, that kind of thing. That | :12:42. | :12:47. | |
suggests to me, from the perspective of a chairman of a Select Committee, | :12:48. | :12:51. | |
that there should be some kind of proper capri appointment hearing for | :12:52. | :12:56. | |
each new pier. Just half an hour in front of -- proper appointment | :12:57. | :13:01. | |
hearing for each new pier. What do you think about proposal. | :13:02. | :13:18. | |
Lord Hope? You tend to find people who are suitable for the particular | :13:19. | :13:25. | |
committee you are talking about. If you are looking at science and | :13:26. | :13:29. | |
technology, you tend to look towards someone who has experience in that | :13:30. | :13:34. | |
field. You have ad hoc committees, which we set up for being discussed | :13:35. | :13:39. | |
at the moment to discuss particular topics. So there are particular | :13:40. | :13:43. | |
types of committees. You could have a selection process for standing | :13:44. | :13:47. | |
committees, so that when you have the ad hoc ones, you are probably | :13:48. | :13:52. | |
best thing for people who are most suited to it, and we know each other | :13:53. | :13:57. | |
reasonably well to be able to decide whether the particular person is | :13:58. | :14:00. | |
suited to carry that through. We had one of the NHS, and it was somebody | :14:01. | :14:06. | |
who is very qualified. But it sounds as though crossbenches are already | :14:07. | :14:10. | |
doing this. But how good are the party leaders at appointing people | :14:11. | :14:15. | |
but House of Lords Ashley needs? I think of the dearth of lawyers on | :14:16. | :14:19. | |
the Conservative benches, despite the pleadings behind the scenes of | :14:20. | :14:27. | |
successive leaders of the Conservatives in the House of Lords. | :14:28. | :14:30. | |
Other examples like that in other parties? I have not been involved in | :14:31. | :14:37. | |
any appointments in the party, but I haven't -- I think at the moment | :14:38. | :14:44. | |
that may come because there is a lack of confidence in the | :14:45. | :14:47. | |
appointments system. But if there was a public element that the | :14:48. | :14:52. | |
criteria was published, and that people knew who they were, that | :14:53. | :14:56. | |
might create a different atmosphere. So I haven't thought about that | :14:57. | :15:00. | |
before, haven't got a view about it, it is something to consider. But at | :15:01. | :15:06. | |
the moment I would quite like to look at the existing system, if it | :15:07. | :15:10. | |
is more open, more transparent, I slightly worry about people who it | :15:11. | :15:13. | |
is public that their names have gone forward, and they are rejected only | :15:14. | :15:17. | |
because they do not fulfil the criteria at that time you have too | :15:18. | :15:21. | |
many doctors or lawyers. That might be seen as something that is | :15:22. | :15:26. | |
critical of them whereas is actually critical of the House, but their | :15:27. | :15:30. | |
particular skills are not needed. But I personally would like to have | :15:31. | :15:35. | |
a look at trying to beef up a Appointments Commission with more | :15:36. | :15:38. | |
transparency, more public accountability, and trying to create | :15:39. | :15:47. | |
more public confidence. Why aren't the advertisements or applications | :15:48. | :15:54. | |
and interviews, like any other public appointment? I don't have any | :15:55. | :16:00. | |
objections to that. I have most to do with Liberal Democrat | :16:01. | :16:05. | |
appointments as Chuck -- Charles Kennedy's chief of staff. We had a | :16:06. | :16:10. | |
system whereby a panel was elected by our conference representatives, | :16:11. | :16:15. | |
from which the leader was required to make most of his appointments, | :16:16. | :16:23. | |
and we had as it were a primary system for a list. And they had to | :16:24. | :16:27. | |
stand for election and publish their manifestos become -- before they got | :16:28. | :16:31. | |
on that list. And I think that was a very good system. There were still | :16:32. | :16:35. | |
some scope for the party leaders who appoint people who've been from the | :16:36. | :16:41. | |
House of Commons, but I have no objection in principle to having | :16:42. | :16:45. | |
greater public scrutiny of opponents to House of Lords, given that people | :16:46. | :16:48. | |
who come to the House of Lords as politicians completely avoid the | :16:49. | :16:54. | |
public scrutiny that the selection process -- -- of the selection | :16:55. | :17:00. | |
process that an MP requires. Finally, we have top a lot about the | :17:01. | :17:06. | |
need for diversity. But if you have got a Commission like HOLAC, how | :17:07. | :17:11. | |
capable is it of making anything but everything rather safe, and not | :17:12. | :17:14. | |
having very exciting people coming into the House of Lords? Analyst | :17:15. | :17:18. | |
party leaders take risks, and interesting people turn up as peers. | :17:19. | :17:24. | |
We might not be approved by some establishment quango. -- at least. | :17:25. | :17:30. | |
How do you keep the real diversity? You can have lots of people from | :17:31. | :17:34. | |
different parts of the UK, and different backgrounds, but if they | :17:35. | :17:40. | |
have all got political degrees from Oxford there is not much diversity. | :17:41. | :17:45. | |
The crossbenches have among their number Lord Birt, somebody who never | :17:46. | :17:51. | |
went to Oxford, who learned to read in prison. -- Lord Birt. | :17:52. | :17:55. | |
But who would have appointed Lord Pearson of Rannoch, apart from a | :17:56. | :18:10. | |
prior minister who liked him? -- a Prime Minister. Mr Chairman, I | :18:11. | :18:15. | |
thought what you were proposing was that the party leaders would still | :18:16. | :18:19. | |
make nominations, but in order for them to be ratified they would have | :18:20. | :18:23. | |
to go through public process, not that the party leaders would be | :18:24. | :18:28. | |
taken out of it altogether? Lord Pearson wrote to us and sent us | :18:29. | :18:34. | |
copies of letters he had from the previous per minister, saying he was | :18:35. | :18:37. | |
going to keep the representation of you kept under daily review | :18:38. | :18:43. | |
virtually, and I mean clearly, Ukip is protesting -- publicly | :18:44. | :18:49. | |
underrepresented in this House and your house. Of all the absurdities | :18:50. | :18:59. | |
that we have in our Constitution now, do you think it is appropriate | :19:00. | :19:03. | |
that the only one that the Government is going to put right | :19:04. | :19:08. | |
with any urgency, is to reduce the number of elected members here, | :19:09. | :19:14. | |
before the attempt to any of the other constitutional problems we | :19:15. | :19:20. | |
have? We have a balanced constitutional Commission to look at | :19:21. | :19:24. | |
all the problems that are there, and come up with some agreement, and | :19:25. | :19:27. | |
wouldn't the House of Lords contribute a great deal to a | :19:28. | :19:34. | |
rational constitution if they opposed the self interested decision | :19:35. | :19:38. | |
by the Conservative Government to enact the only reform that would | :19:39. | :19:45. | |
result in the election of more Conservative MPs? I think you have | :19:46. | :19:49. | |
my comments earlier, but I think it's completely appalling that the | :19:50. | :19:52. | |
Conservative Government is reducing the size of the House of Commons, | :19:53. | :19:56. | |
whilst increasing the size of the House of Lords. You may recall that | :19:57. | :20:02. | |
there have been numerous votes, I think the only all-night sitting I | :20:03. | :20:08. | |
recall as a member of the House of Lords, was on the issue of the | :20:09. | :20:12. | |
boundary spill, and indeed our last attempt to look at the boundary | :20:13. | :20:17. | |
spill was on a Statutory Instrument whereby the Electoral Commission | :20:18. | :20:22. | |
recommended that there should be delay in the effective date of the | :20:23. | :20:27. | |
register, and we lost that vote, the Conservative Party won it. But I | :20:28. | :20:37. | |
think the point you are making, Mr Chairman, about HOLAC, would it only | :20:38. | :20:41. | |
appoint the great and the good, I think there is an issue that prime | :20:42. | :20:44. | |
ministers would put their names forward to a committee. But I | :20:45. | :20:48. | |
question whether it should be HOLAC at another committee would look at | :20:49. | :20:53. | |
this. One of my concerns would be that if we are looking at people in | :20:54. | :20:57. | |
the medical profession for example, we have a few surgeons. We don't | :20:58. | :21:03. | |
have many nurses left, I think we have one, two only left in the | :21:04. | :21:08. | |
House. If you are ensuring you have representation on the crossbenches | :21:09. | :21:11. | |
as well from professions, it should be all levels, not just the highest | :21:12. | :21:15. | |
levels. If the person can make a contribution to the work of the | :21:16. | :21:20. | |
House. Do you think there is a new urgency, in that the overarching | :21:21. | :21:23. | |
priority of politics here and elsewhere without -- throughout the | :21:24. | :21:27. | |
whole world now, is the need to restore faith in politicians and | :21:28. | :21:32. | |
political systems, because the alternative is the election of | :21:33. | :21:36. | |
people like Donald Trump? And that that urgency should be expressed, | :21:37. | :21:44. | |
and that we do go all out to restore the facilitation of politics? I | :21:45. | :21:50. | |
think we are missing a trick, and misunderstanding if we think it is | :21:51. | :21:53. | |
all about structures. In all my years as an MP, I think I had two | :21:54. | :22:00. | |
people contact me about the House of Lords, but on issues like MPs' | :22:01. | :22:04. | |
expenses there were many more. So I think we make a mistake if we are | :22:05. | :22:10. | |
thinking we can address the issue of representation if we look at the | :22:11. | :22:13. | |
structure of Parliament, I think it is far deeper than that. But you see | :22:14. | :22:19. | |
my point, about the tendency for the establishment to achieve blandness. | :22:20. | :22:24. | |
I mean, I'm going to ask the House of Lords Appointments Commission, | :22:25. | :22:26. | |
how many Eurosceptics they have appointed during their period? How | :22:27. | :22:31. | |
many Eurosceptics are there on the crossbenches? Yellow macro well, I'm | :22:32. | :22:36. | |
not sure I can answer that. As convener, it is not my job to | :22:37. | :22:41. | |
interrogate people. It was a rhetorical question! I might have | :22:42. | :22:51. | |
asked the same issue about those who supported or opposed fox hunting. As | :22:52. | :22:55. | |
I was struggling to get legislation through on that. I think there are | :22:56. | :22:59. | |
political issues that arise that you would have asked that as a question, | :23:00. | :23:03. | |
so in the years where crossbench peers have been appointed, nobody | :23:04. | :23:07. | |
thought us, if Britain wanted to leave the EU in the future what | :23:08. | :23:11. | |
would be a view? But as issues arise, perhaps that should be | :23:12. | :23:16. | |
something fed into HOLAC on the Appointments Commission. My advice | :23:17. | :23:19. | |
to somebody applying to be a people's peer would be to be very | :23:20. | :23:23. | |
wary about the answer they gave. Anyway, moving on. Mr Hodkinson. | :23:24. | :23:35. | |
About how to achieve a reduction in the size of the House of Lords. It | :23:36. | :23:39. | |
seems this would be at the very least a political agreement between | :23:40. | :23:44. | |
the groups in the chamber, so how committed are you personally to the | :23:45. | :23:51. | |
idea of your group agreeing with other groups about reduction? We | :23:52. | :24:02. | |
think strongly that the House is too large and we're very happy to have | :24:03. | :24:10. | |
discussions with anybody in the search for an agreement. As you have | :24:11. | :24:15. | |
seen this morning, there is some elements of an agreement that may be | :24:16. | :24:21. | |
easily reached but others that are more contentious. | :24:22. | :24:27. | |
We can't be committed to agreement if other groups, anymore than any | :24:28. | :24:33. | |
other group can be committed to an agreement, unless other groups and | :24:34. | :24:36. | |
we agree. How much would you like to achieve | :24:37. | :24:40. | |
an agreement? Very much so. Is not the reality that each group | :24:41. | :24:47. | |
would be affected and you can say as long as it's some other group, not | :24:48. | :24:53. | |
my group, especially if it is overrepresented, is it not very | :24:54. | :24:59. | |
difficult? I think you are making overall much of the legislation of | :25:00. | :25:05. | |
the Lib Dems. We have significant reduced our numbers with elections. | :25:06. | :25:10. | |
I don't think that is the relevant point. We would be happy to have | :25:11. | :25:15. | |
discussions and reach agreement. The point that I have made several times | :25:16. | :25:22. | |
is that on my experience of trying to make an agreement, have been | :25:23. | :25:26. | |
found difficult in practice to achieve. | :25:27. | :25:30. | |
Baroness Smith? All agreements require a compromise. To move this | :25:31. | :25:36. | |
forward, to sit on a House that gets bigger and bigger each time the new | :25:37. | :25:43. | |
Prime Minister wants to put somebody in, it is unsustainable and does not | :25:44. | :25:47. | |
bring credit to the House. Also if it does not help the work we are | :25:48. | :25:52. | |
doing it is difficult. If we see people on my side, say, we would | :25:53. | :25:59. | |
retire but we would not get anyone to replace them, so they will stay. | :26:00. | :26:04. | |
They are still fairly active in the House and do a very good job, so to | :26:05. | :26:12. | |
inkeep increasing numbers for the Government party can't work. It will | :26:13. | :26:19. | |
involve compromise. I am putting faith in the Lord Speaker's | :26:20. | :26:25. | |
Committee. I know it is hard. But we are talking about under this system. | :26:26. | :26:30. | |
I think we will all have to accept that all of our numbers have to be | :26:31. | :26:35. | |
reduced and no group that can say I have not lost somebody that is | :26:36. | :26:40. | |
valuable. That is a worry. That is why when I think we see the report, | :26:41. | :26:46. | |
we look at it, establish the broad principles but narrow them to reduce | :26:47. | :26:50. | |
the size of the House. Once we have those, we can say how can we achieve | :26:51. | :26:56. | |
that. It may be a transition period over which we achieve it, we may not | :26:57. | :27:02. | |
reduce it next week but it might be over two years. But I am putting | :27:03. | :27:08. | |
faith in the committee. All parties on the Crossbenchers are on it. The | :27:09. | :27:14. | |
bishops have said that they would accept a reduction on their numbers, | :27:15. | :27:20. | |
so there is the onus on us all to reduce the numbers. | :27:21. | :27:27. | |
Littered burn, a Crossbencher is well aware of the views of the | :27:28. | :27:31. | |
Crossbenchers who have written in to him. I have encouraged members to | :27:32. | :27:39. | |
write in and express their views, I am looking for his recommendations | :27:40. | :27:43. | |
to achieve the reduction in numbers in our groups when I know what the | :27:44. | :27:48. | |
figures are. To me it is a relatively straightforward process. | :27:49. | :27:54. | |
If we reduce to 600, I will look to Lord burn's recommendations and on | :27:55. | :27:59. | |
the basis of that, I will be strengthened in my work to reduce | :28:00. | :28:04. | |
the numbers to reach that reduction. It is reasonable to do that. | :28:05. | :28:12. | |
Briefly, we have interviewed two former Lord Speakers, Baroness De | :28:13. | :28:18. | |
Sousa and it is clear from you too, that all of the changes you are | :28:19. | :28:25. | |
prepared to tolerate are minor, marginal, incremental change, to get | :28:26. | :28:30. | |
radical changes that they must come through parties and eelections and a | :28:31. | :28:33. | |
party getting elected and doing something different. Is that the | :28:34. | :28:41. | |
reality? Because there is such difficulty, as I have said, in | :28:42. | :28:45. | |
getting people to agree, because I think different individuals have | :28:46. | :28:48. | |
very different views. What does it take to get your groups | :28:49. | :28:54. | |
to come with you? It depends if you are talking about major change, | :28:55. | :29:00. | |
radical change or incremental change. Radical change, I agree it | :29:01. | :29:04. | |
must come from the political parties. It must be the Government | :29:05. | :29:08. | |
in power. It must bring forward legislation. So laying that to one | :29:09. | :29:13. | |
side, in terms of bringing the groups with us, for my group if | :29:14. | :29:17. | |
there is a reduction of numbers, I think that they will look to | :29:18. | :29:21. | |
fairness. I think that they have an open mind on it. Some people are | :29:22. | :29:26. | |
concerned... But the pain could be mitigated by the pace of the reform? | :29:27. | :29:30. | |
The pace and how fair they perceive it to be. | :29:31. | :29:34. | |
Yes. All agreed on that? Yes. | :29:35. | :29:39. | |
Yes. Mr Flynn, sorry, John? Do you think | :29:40. | :29:43. | |
that the initiative, though, should be coming from the House of Lords or | :29:44. | :29:47. | |
from the Government? It's coming from the House of Lords now. The | :29:48. | :29:55. | |
initiative in setting had you report has come from it. | :29:56. | :30:00. | |
To take it forward you need to bring in legislation or change, should | :30:01. | :30:03. | |
that initiative come from the House of Lords rather than than from the | :30:04. | :30:07. | |
Government? All of the initiatives from this come from the House of | :30:08. | :30:11. | |
Lords. The Government takes the view that unless there is not just broad | :30:12. | :30:15. | |
agreement but absalute consensus on something. That is not an assailable | :30:16. | :30:24. | |
position if legislation is needed. But all change requires legislation. | :30:25. | :30:30. | |
The miner changes have been done by privately members' bills. You could | :30:31. | :30:34. | |
do things by private members' bill... A couple have been blocked. | :30:35. | :30:41. | |
I was about to say that the problem is that it's a very uncertain path | :30:42. | :30:50. | |
is a private members' bill, start in the House of Lords not least because | :30:51. | :30:54. | |
it most come from the other place. If you are to have substantive | :30:55. | :30:59. | |
change you're going to need Government support for it anyway. So | :31:00. | :31:05. | |
if they took the lead and made any legislative change in a Government | :31:06. | :31:12. | |
Bill, that would be more likely to succeed than the private members' | :31:13. | :31:20. | |
bill. INAUDIBLE | :31:21. | :31:24. | |
Can I say that the purpose behind the Better than's committee's | :31:25. | :31:28. | |
Appointment is to achieve something that has a reasonable prospect of | :31:29. | :31:35. | |
being accepted by Government with a view to Government legislation... | :31:36. | :31:41. | |
For various reasons that's the best way to achieve that to find | :31:42. | :31:45. | |
consensus across the House for Government to agree with that to | :31:46. | :31:49. | |
agree on sufficient support to be passed. | :31:50. | :31:59. | |
You said Lord Flynn that there was influence by monarchy? Do you | :32:00. | :32:04. | |
believe that there is a role in the Monarch? The Monarch? The martyr of | :32:05. | :32:12. | |
monarchy being given to, I mean, check the but you said there was | :32:13. | :32:17. | |
this further check, the appointments had to be approved by the monarch? | :32:18. | :32:24. | |
Please, don't misunderstand me. That is figure rative. Every peer | :32:25. | :32:30. | |
receives a patent, that is under the signature of the Monarch. The | :32:31. | :32:33. | |
recommendation must go through the Prime Minister to the Monarch. | :32:34. | :32:41. | |
Are you suggesting that she takes any other part? But acts in the same | :32:42. | :32:51. | |
way as she does with the honours. And the only time she did was to | :32:52. | :32:59. | |
opponent out at one time when she was to appoint somebody who was | :33:00. | :33:02. | |
actually dead. The key person is the Prime Minister | :33:03. | :33:06. | |
and the speed at which things are done and the names put forward | :33:07. | :33:10. | |
depend on the initiative of the Prime Minister. | :33:11. | :33:14. | |
That's a relief. What could be achieved without | :33:15. | :33:18. | |
legislation? Could progress be made without legislation? If the Prime | :33:19. | :33:23. | |
Minister agreed to a cap on numbers, then I think you would find, I think | :33:24. | :33:28. | |
we could find a route to reduce numbers. Part of the obstacle has | :33:29. | :33:32. | |
been, especially with the discussions from the former leader | :33:33. | :33:38. | |
of the House is that no party is willing to reduce numbers if they | :33:39. | :33:42. | |
can be increased beyond that number whether in a year or five years, so | :33:43. | :33:47. | |
the cap on numbers is something that the Prime Minister could say and | :33:48. | :33:53. | |
serve as impetus to the parties to agree on a reduction. | :33:54. | :33:59. | |
Is that like offering a to the opposition a rod for your own back? | :34:00. | :34:05. | |
It is not necessarily so. If the Prime Minister were to agree that of | :34:06. | :34:10. | |
any party, any government, that they would be have to be reassured that | :34:11. | :34:16. | |
what they perceive as the imbalance against them inherited from the | :34:17. | :34:19. | |
previous Parliament would be redressed? This Government has done | :34:20. | :34:23. | |
that. They managed to become the largest party in the shortest space | :34:24. | :34:26. | |
of time. Yes, and we are in this endless arms | :34:27. | :34:33. | |
race. If you terminate elections, you | :34:34. | :34:36. | |
would have to address the question of the writ of summons, dealt with | :34:37. | :34:42. | |
in the 1999 act. You cannot have a system where we have agreed of | :34:43. | :34:48. | |
everything and then somebody turns up with a writ and has a right to | :34:49. | :34:54. | |
come in anyway. Yes, it can be interrupted by | :34:55. | :34:59. | |
individuals? Yes, you have to allow for that possibility. | :35:00. | :35:04. | |
And to allow for the possibility, eve finance the parties agreed, | :35:05. | :35:08. | |
voluntarily to put pressure on people to retire or bring down the | :35:09. | :35:11. | |
side, there is nothing to stop the member of one of our groups opting | :35:12. | :35:16. | |
to become an independent in order to avoid pressure from their party | :35:17. | :35:23. | |
group. So, it's a very imperfect system unless it is underpinned by | :35:24. | :35:26. | |
legislation. How do you deal with the | :35:27. | :35:30. | |
independents in the legislation? Well, that's a challenge. But you | :35:31. | :35:34. | |
would have to deal with the independents as otherwise you could | :35:35. | :35:39. | |
just get a seepage out of the independents and they would end up | :35:40. | :35:44. | |
by being a big, uncontrolled group. I can see the lawyer on this panel | :35:45. | :35:50. | |
is itching to kick in a definitive answer. I think we have to show | :35:51. | :35:55. | |
leadership within the groups. It is a very fair point. | :35:56. | :36:02. | |
There are a number of people who cheese to be non-aligned. And choose | :36:03. | :36:08. | |
to be. -- there are a number of people who | :36:09. | :36:17. | |
choose to be non-aligned. Could a law define categories of | :36:18. | :36:24. | |
peers, according to a party that they are affiliated to when they | :36:25. | :36:30. | |
first arrived in the House? I don't know if you can do it illegally but | :36:31. | :36:35. | |
a quirk of the system is that somebody Khan change party in life | :36:36. | :36:39. | |
but in death, if they are hereditary, they revert to the party | :36:40. | :36:42. | |
of which they were originally a member. So that if somebody, as has | :36:43. | :36:48. | |
been in our case, somebody was a Liberal Democrat hereditary but is | :36:49. | :36:53. | |
now a Crossbencher but on his death, the election for his successor would | :36:54. | :36:59. | |
be as a Liberal Democrat. Could this be addressed by the | :37:00. | :37:03. | |
standing order of the House rather than legislation? By-elections would | :37:04. | :37:10. | |
solve the problem! If there is nothing further anyone would like to | :37:11. | :37:16. | |
add? A brief one. This House has be-latedly got rid of | :37:17. | :37:23. | |
wigs, when is the House of Lords going to end the practice of | :37:24. | :37:28. | |
dressing up looking like playing cards and looking like a pantomime | :37:29. | :37:37. | |
and come into the 21st century? I think we are in the process of | :37:38. | :37:43. | |
changing that position on wigs for our clerks to bring out ofs into the | :37:44. | :37:47. | |
line with the House of Commons. What about the silver stick in | :37:48. | :37:54. | |
waiting, does he still exist? I don't know who the silver stick in | :37:55. | :38:00. | |
waiting is? Oh, dear. Robin Hood? We are going back a bit! | :38:01. | :38:08. | |
I have one very brief final question, relating to the point | :38:09. | :38:13. | |
raced earlier by Mr Flynn. How are the party groups to vote on the | :38:14. | :38:17. | |
boundary of the proposals when they come to your House? We are not going | :38:18. | :38:22. | |
to block them. We will vote for them. | :38:23. | :38:28. | |
The boundary proposals to reduce the size of Commons, how will your group | :38:29. | :38:32. | |
vote on that proposal? I have no idea. As a group we have no | :38:33. | :38:37. | |
corporate view on anything. Baroness Smith? As I understand it, | :38:38. | :38:44. | |
if it is legislation passed, there is not a constitutional reason for | :38:45. | :38:48. | |
us to vote against them, as much as we think that they are appalling | :38:49. | :38:53. | |
proposals, the bill is passed so, that all is left is legislation... | :38:54. | :39:00. | |
So you will not oppose it? Well, thank you very much. It has been a | :39:01. | :39:05. | |
very illuminating session. If I may say so, the degree of courtesy and | :39:06. | :39:11. | |
corporation between the three party groups is a great example of why | :39:12. | :39:16. | |
your House is so effective and a lesson to our own House. Thank you | :39:17. | :39:18. | |
very much. Order. Order. August 2013, and the Government | :39:19. | :39:57. | |
loses a vote asking Parliament for permission to vote -- bomb Bashar | :39:58. | :40:08. | |
al-Assad's forces in Syria. It is clear to me that the British | :40:09. | :40:12. | |
Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to | :40:13. | :40:16. | |
see British military action. I get that, and the Government will | :40:17. | :40:21. | |
accordingly. The vote was a serious blow to the Prime Minister. But he | :40:22. | :40:25. | |
didn't need to hold it to commit | :40:26. | :40:27. |