House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-09-09
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Bowness (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for his clear and very reasonable introduction to his Bill. Although I concede that in time there is almost an inevitability about this, I do not support it at this time. It is true that the by-elections were intended to be temporary but so was the whole arrangement for the House of Lords in 1911, so that is not a good argument. I support my noble friend Lord Robathan’s comments about the public view. When I go to speak at various places, I find that many of the people who I speak to have not heard of the by-elections and are interested in the process. It takes some time to complete that explanation, and often their eyes start to glaze over, but I do not believe that the process is widely ridiculed by the public at large This House faces many problems, particularly regarding our numbers and appointments. The abolition of the by-elections to replace the 90 would do almost nothing to solve the problems. This situation is not the fault of the House or of any noble Lord, in whichever part of it they sit or for how long they have done so. It is the fault of the Government in the first year of this Parliament and during the period of coalition government The House of Lords has an ethos established originally by the hereditary peerage and carried on by the life Peers who followed them. Its way of working—observing conventions; compromise; courtesy; and a less partisan approach—has been recognised as of value to the legislative process but it is threatened by the sheer weight of numbers and an increasing urgency on the part of the Government to have their business as quickly as possible. The problems of numbers will not be solved easily. We will no doubt return to possible solutions shortly; suffice it to say that I am concerned about the ideas which have been mooted to cap overall numbers and that the membership should somehow reflect the votes cast at the next general election. This change would, in my view, lead to a further weakening of the independence of the House and its Members, and create a Chamber much more in tune with whichever party formed the Government and hence a stronger Executive. A solution to the numbers problem would be espoused by the Government for rather different reasons from those which motivated the House in putting them forward I agree with my noble friend Lord Norton about the need to establish a statutory Appointments Commission. Its creation, with agreed guidelines and oversight over appointment and numbers would preserve the Cross-Bench position and the position that there should be no overall majority. For me, that is becoming a condition precedent to any further changes that we might put forward in this House I recognise and pay tribute to the work of the group led by my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lord Norton. I accept, and apologise for this fact, that I have not been as regular an attender as I should. We should all be careful of what we wish for. We can all be victims in changed circumstances of the solutions we have put forward to solve problems which we thought would involve other people. We should be careful of drastic measures implemented over a very short time, and brought forward with the best of intentions, but which might have unforeseen and unintended consequences for the House and for Parliament. We would have done that to solve a problem not of our making but made by the previous Executive, who were incredibly careless of the nature, working and constitutional role of the House We do not know the scale of legislation which Brexit will bring; we do know that it will require vigorous scrutiny and time. I suggest that, in the eyes of the public, time spent on our composition will not be well spent. Of course noble Lords may say that I am advocating inaction. I recognise the problem but do not believe that we should take action without some signs from the Government that they share and understand our concern I advocate restraint by this new Government in the creation of further Members. I hope that my noble friend Lady Chisholm, who is on the Front Bench, will take that message to her colleagues. I advocate recognition that if this House is to continue to be an appointed House, as I hope it will, the creation of a statutory Appointments Commission is essential. If the by-elections continue, maybe candidates should be subject to that process before being approved to stand. Lastly, I advocate leadership within the House from all quarters of all parties, of the kind which in previous years led to the Salisbury/Addison convention and to the agreement between the then Viscount Cranborne—now the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury—and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, over the House of Lords reform Bill. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, we do not need the gradual sacrifice of the hereditary Peers’ contribution to what is already an increasingly partisan House and constant contemplation of ourselves, rather than the vital work which this House does and which I hope it will continue to do.