House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Report (2nd Day) (Continued)

Amendment 22 not moved.

Amendment 23

23: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause— “Restriction on nominating new life peers(1) In the period between the commencement of this Act and the first General Election thereafter, the number of recommendations made to His Majesty for the granting of new life peerages under section 1 of the Life Peerages Act 1958 (power to confer life peerages) must not exceed one new peer for every life peer who leaves the House through retirement or death. (2) Following the first General Election after the commencement of this Act, and for as long as the membership of the House of Lords exceeds the membership of the House of Commons, the number of recommendations made to His Majesty for the granting of new life peerages under section 1 of the Life Peerages Act 1958 must not exceed one new peer for every two life peers who leave the House through retirement or death.(3) Once the membership of the House of Lords is equal to or less than the membership of the House of Commons, recommendations made to His Majesty for the granting of new life peerages under section 1 of that Act must not be such that they would cause the membership of the House of Lords to exceed the membership of the House of Commons.”

My Lords, I welcomed the statement from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, at the beginning of Report and her proposal to establish a dedicated Select Committee to undertake future work once the Bill becomes law. She highlighted two specific proposals in the Government’s manifesto—on retirement and participation—on which she would like to make progress in the Select Committee. She suggested that there seemed to be consensus in the House on these issues and I think many of us would agree.

However, in response to a question from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, the Leader did not include controlling the size of the House as one of the topics that might be considered by this Select Committee. She suggested that it could possibly be covered by a subsequent committee. To me, this was surprising, as the manifesto also stated that the House of Lords is “too big”, which could, at a bit of a stretch, be interpreted as a commitment. I am grateful to the Leader for several useful conversations on this matter in recent weeks.

As the House knows, my view is that if we are to address the issue of the size of the House, we must address appointments as well as departures, either in this Bill or subsequently. Both matters are important. However, during the debate on the Bill, considerably more attention has been given to measures that would increase the number of Peers leaving than to the number of appointments. The cross-party committee which I chair for the Lord Speaker concluded that these measures to increase the numbers leaving may be in vain if no action is taken also to constrain the number of appointments.

The manifesto states that the reason the House is too big is that “appointments are for life”. However, an additional and more important reason for the present size of the House is the Prime Minister’s power of patronage in the appointment of Members. With rare exceptions, there has been a persistent tendency for the number of appointments to exceed the number of leavers, on occasions by very large amounts. There are no guardrails on appointments, as we seem to call them these days. Prime Ministers can make more appointments than Members who leave, and often do. To make matters worse, they can appoint disproportionately to their own party when in office, and often do. As the saying goes, you do not have to gaze into a crystal ball when you can read an open book—or even a Select Committee report.

There is a regular pattern. When a new Government are elected, particularly after a long period in Opposition, they typically find themselves with fewer Members of this House than the Opposition. They then use the power of appointment to try to make up for this deficit. They can end up establishing a position where they have a significant majority over the Opposition. The consequence is an increasing size of the House.

The present Government have found themselves in this position since the election. They came to office with many fewer Members of this House than the Conservative Opposition. After one year in office, Labour still has 75 fewer Members than the Conservative Opposition and, in terms of life Peers, there remains a gap of 35. If it was not for the Hereditary Peers Bill, and if this Government followed the pattern of other Governments over the past 30 years, we would be approaching a House of 900 by the end of this Parliament. What do noble Lords think would follow if there was further political upheaval at the next election?

Past practice suggests we would not be able to maintain the House’s lower size without addressing the Government’s unchecked appointment power. A mechanism is needed to limit the Prime Minister’s appointments beyond the number of departures. Additionally, a fair distribution of new appointments is crucial, reflecting changing political dynamics while preventing Prime Ministers packing their Benches. This amendment focuses on the first issue: preventing any reduction in the House’s size, including because of this Bill, being undone by unconstrained appointments. The second issue—a fair distribution of new appointments —is equally important, but can be taken separately over time.

I appreciate the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, in helping me with this amendment, and their advice during discussions. The first part of the amendment proposes that, while the Bill becomes law at the end of this Session, the number of life Peer appointments should be limited to the number of life Peer departures until the next general election. This one in, one out for life Peers aims to give the Government the opportunity to achieve broad parity with the Conservative Opposition, as advocated by the Leader. It provides ample opportunity, without increasing the House’s size. Moreover, since each life Peer appointment replaces one life Peer departure, it does not undo the reduction in size following the departure of the hereditary Peers. The Prime Minister, if they wish, can appoint fewer than the number of those who depart, and could also get the process of shrinking the size of the House under way before the general election.

The second part of the amendment aims to reduce the number of Members to below that of the size of the Commons during the following Parliament. To achieve that, it proposes a two out, one in mechanism if this House has more Members than the Commons, as was recommended by the Lord Speaker’s committee, which I chaired. The duration of this two-for-one period and its necessity will depend on the details of any retirement and participation changes introduced in the meantime.

The third part of the amendment ensures that, once the House’s size equals that of the Commons, the number of appointments should be constrained to prevent membership levels rising again, as the Lord Speaker’s committee also suggested years ago. The amendment therefore suggests a long-term commitment to appointments being restricted to no higher than the number of departures.

We need to end the process of leap-frogging; I have argued this on many occasions in these debates. Normal practice should be that appointments are made only to fill the gaps left by leavers, as in every other parliamentary Chamber in the world. To avoid the destabilising behaviour of the past and the constant creep in the size of the House, we need sensible rules or conventions about the overall balance between appointments and departures, and a fair sharing of appointments between parties. The Leader has suggested that broadly equal numbers between the Government and the Opposition give the best chance of stability, which aligns with these proposals.

My purpose is basically to persuade the House that limiting appointments to the number of departures will be a key principle in maintaining this House no larger than the Commons for the longer term. I also hope that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House recognises that this issue should be an integral part of the discussions of the proposed Select Committee. If the measures she has mentioned are successful in reducing the House’s size, it is crucial that they are not offset by a surge in appointments. This amendment will prevent that happening, and I look forward to her response. I beg to move.

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 23, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and I will add a brief footnote to his speech.

When this country is confronted with a controversial issue, it frequently turns to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, for an answer. Those of us with long memories recall his Committee of Inquiry into Hunting with Dogs in 1999 and his Independent Commission on Freedom of Information in 2015. No sooner was that completed than we had the Burns commission on the size of the House in 2016. That followed a debate on 5 December 2016, in which the House agreed, without a Division, that

“its size should be reduced and method should be explored by which this should be achieved”.

The Burns report recommended that the size of the House should be reduced to that of the other place—then 600, now 650—and that the target should be achieved over time by a two out, one in rule. It suggested that, when it reached the cap, new appointments should reflect the result of the last election and be on a one in, one out principle. The report was welcomed by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in the other place.

We debated that on 19 December 2017; 72 noble Lords spoke and there was general approval. Winding up, the noble Lord, Lord Burns, said:

“The question I asked myself and members of the committee asked themselves was whether we should wait to make any progress on these other issues until we had a slot for legislation, or should try to put together a system that could be worked on on a non-legislative basis, but which legislation could be brought to bear on at a later point. That certainly remains my position, having heard the points that have been made today”.—[Official Report, 19/12/17; col. 2106.]

That is what then happened. We proceeded on a non-legislative basis and it clearly has not worked—the House is bigger now than it was then. That is not because noble Lords have not risen to the challenge by retiring—or, indeed, dying—but because, with the notable exception of my noble friend Lady May, Prime Ministers have been overgenerous with their appointments.

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly in support of this amendment, to which I have added my name. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, has come up with an elegant formulation—as he did several years ago in the committee he chaired—for a way out of the conundrum that we have. However good our provisions in terms of people leaving the House are, if we do not have any constraint—any guardrails at all—on people coming into the House, when we have a general election where there is a large majority, we will always see the ratcheting effect. We have seen that recently; there is every possibility that we will see it again in the future. It is tremendously important that we try to take some steps now.

The size of the House overall does matter. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Gove, is in his place, and I am delighted that he obviously has become deeply affectionate and committed to the work of this House. I disagreed with most of his speech, but one thing he said that was incorrect was that the House was in danger of being bullied by those outside into thinking that it was too big and had to change. That is not the situation. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, just said, this House has repeatedly recognised the need for it not to grow exponentially, and has repeatedly recognised the danger of it being larger than the House of Commons. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Gove, that other second chambers across the world manage to find the right combination of expertise and experience without rising in their overall numbers to pretty near four figures—which is where we are in danger of going.

I believe it is tremendously important. There are those who say, “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Look at the average attendance figures. People aren’t claiming their allowances. None of this matters”. I spent five years as Lord Speaker and, in those five years, I do not know how many speeches I made about the House of Lords. The thing that most people knew about the House of Lords was not that it was brilliant at scrutiny, and not that it had fantastic Select Committees, but that only China’s National People’s Congress, in the whole world, had more members.

The noble Baroness saw me shaking my head. I was doing so only because I always refute that we are a part-time House. We are a full-time House with long hours, but many of our Members do not have to be here full-time.