House of Lords Reform — House of Lords, 2015-09-15
Topic: Government Operations
John Horam (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I do not think I have ever participated in a debate in the House of Lords where there has been so much consensus; it is almost embarrassing. As the noble Lord, Lord Luce, just said, the momentum since our last debate on this issue has been incredible. I am really heartened by the extent to which people are prepared to consider a cap at a significantly lower level than our present size As we know, one suggestion is that the House of Lords should be of a similar size to, or not bigger than, the House of Commons. There is a great deal of merit in that. Others have gone further, such as my noble friend Lord Jopling. In an interesting article in the Financial Times, Lord Grenfell, who recently retired from the Labour Benches, wrote that the figure should go down to 450 or 500, for various reasons which I shall not go into now. Personally—as someone who is perhaps showing a latent masochistic or even suicidal interest in this issue—I rather favour the lower number, but whatever the number, whether 500 or 600, the whole point is that it must be significantly and observably lower than our present number. I am heartened by the extent to which there is agreement on that fundamental point. If we can agree on that, the next issue, on which I think there is also agreement, is the proportion of the House that should constitute Cross-Benchers. One-fifth, or 20%, has been a common figure. That seems to me wholly right, because it fulfils the essential requirement that there should be no government majority under any circumstances in any conceivable carve-up of the political groups in the House. Beyond that, inevitably, there will be a carve-up of the political groups according to some formula related to the numbers in the Commons or the numbers of votes at the previous general election. That is inevitable and right, and I see no way round it I would not prescribe from the centre the way we get from here to there; the political groups should be left to decide. As my noble friend Lord Jopling said in his excellent speech, the groups know their own members best, and the caucus can come forward with a reduction in numbers or some other method. They understand their members—they understand the balance of age, experience, activity and so forth within that group—and I believe they can be trusted to take a decision on that basis. I would leave it to them, without a central diktat The other immediate question is exactly when we take that step. In my view, the most sensible idea is to do it in one fell swoop after the next general election. I appreciate that voices have been saying—this is perhaps the only real point of difference among the Benches—that the process should be more incremental. My noble friend Lord Lamont mentioned three out and one in. My problem with that is practical: I wonder whether it will actually achieve the reduction in numbers that we want. It will be an uncertain course; we will not be clear when the next hurdle will be arrived at. That is a practical problem. Nor will it have the same effect on public opinion—a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Soley, who has just left the Chamber We need to have a big number to show the public—my noble friend the Leader of the House made the point about the importance of public opinion—that we are really serious about this and that there is about to be a big reduction in the number of Lords. As the noble Lord, Lord Soley, said, the media strategy is important in this. To me, that is a persuasive argument for having a cull all at once, rather than the slowly, slowly approach of an incremental procedure. In the mean time, inevitably, we need a paper from an all-party group—I am so glad that various people are working on that—which will hopefully be published and set out some sort of framework Following that, we need rule changes, and I hope that we can avoid legislation. One thing that I have always said to aspirant Ministers when they have occasionally asked me about my experience of ministerial office is, always, under any circumstances, avoid legislation. It is a can of worms. It will always go wrong. It will absorb your civil servants. It will inevitably attract amendments that you do not want and there will be trouble in the House of Lords, so do not do it. If we can possibly avoid legislation, let us do so. If we can do this by rule change, we really should. That is extremely important I sense that this is our chance. If we do not take it now, in my view, we will not be fulfilling our responsibilities to both Parliament and country.