Lord Blencathra:

Moved by Lord Blencathra

19: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—“Attendance requirement of 20%A member of the House of Lords who attended fewer than 20% of possible sittings in the 2019–2024 Parliament must retire from the House of Lords within two months of the day on which this Act is passed.”Member's explanatory statementAlongside other amendments in the name of Lord Blencathra, this amendment has been tabled to permit the House to vote on three options for requiring peers who have made little recent contribution to the work of the House to retire. According to analysis of Library figures, requiring a minimum attendance of 20% of sittings between 2019 and 2024 could remove 154 peers.

My Lords, the Labour manifesto said that

“we will introduce a new participation requirement”.

My Amendment 26, in the next group, deals specifically with the very small number of Peers who turn up and then do nothing.

The Government keep complaining that many amendments to this Bill have nothing to do with the removal of hereditary Peers, saying that the Bill is narrowly focused. That is true, but it was a political decision by the Government to make it so narrow and not include the other priority issues from their manifesto. The Government are seeking to give the impression that dealing only with hereditary Peers is somehow sacrosanct or ordained from on high. If we were in the Moses Room right now, I would be looking at the tablets that he brought down from Sinai to see if there was an 11th commandment saying, “Thou shalt have no other provisions in thy Bill except the removal of hereditary Peers”. Governments often widen the scope of Bills and adjust the Long Title. Indeed, today in the other place the Government have tabled Amendments 262 and 263, which will amend the Long Title to the Employment Rights Bill. They could do so for this one also if they were so minded.

With these amendments, I am seeking to explore the possibility of retiring Peers who have attended few of our sittings. Let me make it crystal clear that I reject the idea of a full-time House of political professionals. The great strength of this revising Chamber is that, with a very wide range of expertise to call on, most noble Lords do not sit here all the time intervening on issues that are not their speciality, but participate in our debates and Select Committees on issues on which they are expert.

I recall a debate on an amendment to the precision breeding Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, was debating a point with the noble Lord, Lord Winston, concerning recombinant DNA—whatever that is. The rest of us sat there watching a very civilised ping-pong match, and they were the only two in the whole Chamber who knew what they were talking about. Indeed, when my noble friend the Minister wound up, he said that neither he nor his officials in the Box knew anything about the subject, either, and would both noble Lords come to the department and explain it to them? That is one tiny example of the superb strengths of this House—that is the House of Lords in action. For the record, both noble Lords had attendances in the last Parliament well above 30% and 40%.

I turn once again to the Excel spreadsheets produced by the Library, which have the attendance record for all Peers in the last Parliament. There may be some names missing and there are other little technical errors; however, these figures are not the full picture, since the attendance data is based on contributions made in the Chamber and Grand Committee and does not include participation in other committee meetings. The Library tells me:

“This is because of the way in which different types of data are stored in the House of Lords’ internal systems and the challenges in extracting it to provide a dataset which we can be confident is accurate for all members and across the full duration of the Parliament, unlike chamber contributions which we can be sure is robust. We are actively looking at ways of incorporating committee attendance into this analysis and hope to resolve this in future releases, conscious that we want to present as comprehensive a picture as possible.”

Nor do the attendance figures count all the days that Ministers are working away from the Lords in their departments, or abroad. Nor do they include the 25 days per annum when 23 Members of this House are away serving at the Council of Europe, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the OSCE.

With those caveats, the figures are nevertheless accurate enough for us to debate the concept of retiring Peers below certain attendance thresholds, and they give us a fairly good picture of attendance. If we retired Peers who attended fewer than 20% of possible sitting days in the previous Parliament, that would be 154 Peers. What does 20% mean in actual sitting days? Over the past 10 years—I have done the number-crunching myself —the number of sitting days has averaged 148.1 per annum. That ranged from just 15 days in 2019 to 350 during the 2017-19 Session; thus, an annual average is more accurate than a sessional average. Peers who attended 20% of the time therefore attended for just 30 days out of 148. Peers who attended 15% of the time attended 22 days out of 148, and those who attended just 10% of the time were present here for just 15 days.

If noble Lords access the spreadsheet, they can come to their own conclusions on whether the occasions on which some of those 154 Peers spoke or participated merit continuance in this House. I have seen a few names who made worthwhile speeches, but my recollection is that the vast majority of the 154 Peers in this category have not contributed much to the work of this House. Those who attended fewer than 15% of possible sittings number 118 Peers. When I look at the 10% and below—the 70 Peers who turned up for a maximum of 15 days per annum—I cannot see, in my opinion, any whose contribution was so essential or vital that we should retain their presence in this House for their very rare words of wisdom. Indeed, I can recall only three of them making any speech, and none has served on any of our committees.

This is not one of my amendments, but if we opted for removing those who have attended 5% or less of the time, that would be just 39 Peers. My noble friend Lord Hailsham has suggested a 1% threshold, but that is 12 Peers and, in my opinion, it would make us look a bit silly if we went that low. However, I agree with his other amendments: of course we must exempt those on leave of absence—but not for too long—or those with royal duties, such as the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, or the new Lord Chamberlain, the noble Lord, Lord Benyon.

These figures are out by about eight because of judicial appointments and some deaths since the Library compiled them last year, but noble Lords can see the ballpark figure—if that American term is still acceptable. Noble Lords may say, “What does it matter if they don’t turn up? They are not getting any allowance and not costing anything”. I agree with that view, but we are here today because the Government say that there are too many Peers, and the Government’s solution is to get rid of 88 hereditaries, many of whom are assiduous attenders. Indeed, there are only 14 hereditaries who have attended less than 20% of sittings.

I do not have a firm view on my options, but I think that noble Lords would consider the 20% or 15% thresholds to be on the high side and a bridge too far to begin with. When noble Lords look at the names of the 70 who would be retired for an attendance figure of fewer than 15 days per annum, I think we might have some consensus around that, with the necessary exemptions suggested by my noble friend Lord Hailsham.

Now, where this gets really interesting is if one combines an age cut-off and an attendance cut-off. The Excel spreadsheet gives some interesting figures. I will not waste time by running through the extremes: at one end, a retirement age of 90 and an attendance of just 1% would retire 89 Peers; at the other, retirement at 80 and a 20% attendance cut-off would retire 420 Peers, which I think would be a tad excessive.

The more sensible criteria might be a retirement age of 85 and an attendance of 10%; that would retire 304 Peers by 2029. A retirement age of 85 and an attendance of 5% would retire 213 Peers. I suggest that that figure is on the edge of a possible solution, reducing our numbers to those who turn up, take part and are not perceived from outside as too old to do the job.

I have a couple of final points on attendance. I think that it has to be retrospective and based on attendance in the previous Parliament. That is highly contentious, but if we introduced, say, a 10% threshold for about 15 days in future, we would have some colleagues counting their attendance and rushing in to attend for a few days at the end of the year just to get over the threshold. We would also need some special appeal mechanism—a committee to which Peers could appeal if they felt that they were being wrongly excluded. I will say more about that when we debate Amendment 26.

I appreciate that this is contentious and goes against the precedents we have had for centuries. But I come back to my starting point that retirement of those who turn up infrequently and say little is infinitely preferable to throwing out all hereditaries, over 70 of whom who turn up regularly and participate fully in the work of this House.

Of course, if we were to go down this route in future, we would need complete and accurate figures for attendance in the Chamber, the Grand Committee and all our committees, as well as on Ministers and shadow Cabinet Ministers working away from the precincts of this building and those Peers on foreign delegations.

In conclusion, I look forward to the unanimous support of my noble friends, and I beg to move.

I rise very briefly to speak to the four amendments in my name, Amendments 22 to 25. The first three would amend the lead amendment, Amendment 19, moved by my noble friend. For reasons that I shall come to shortly, I very strongly disagree with it.

First, I express some cautious agreement with my noble friend as regards future participation. My noble friend Lord Blencathra has urged the case for requiring a future minimum degree of engagement as a condition of membership of this House, and there is clearly a case for that. My own Amendment 25 suggests a participation record of 10%. However, I would be a bit cautious about setting too high a requirement; first, because occasional interventions from those who are not regular attenders can be very valuable, sometimes on esoteric subjects, although not exclusively so.

Moreover, and more generally, there is a danger that too demanding a requirement could encourage interventions for the purpose of meeting the criteria from those who are not currently great participators. We all know that speeches in major debates are time-limited, and very often the time available is very short. The question that arises is: do we want to make a more restrictive timetable? I think not, but that could well be a consequence of an increased participation requirement. As my noble friend touched on, there needs to be a degree of flexibility with regard to minimum requirements. Members may very well have good reasons for not participating: illness, leave of absence, overseas commitments, family problems and so forth. My suggestions in Amendments 22, 24 and 25 are designed to address these problems.

Where I actively and positively disagree with my noble friend is in his Amendment 19 and his related Amendments 20 and 21. Your Lordships will have noticed that those amendments relate to the 2019-24 Session. That is retrospective in character, and my noble friend is suggesting that if a Member fails to satisfy the stated participation level in the past Parliament, he must retire.

I am against retrospective requirements or sanctions. My noble friend’s proposal is just that. It imposes a penalty which is entirely retrospective in character, in respect of a failure to meet a requirement which did not exist at the relevant time. I regard that as a thoroughly objectionable proposition and I very much hope that this Committee will not go down that road.

My Lords, I rise briefly to speak to Amendment 64 in my name, to which the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, has added his name. Like the other amendments in this group, it addresses the question of attendance.

By amending the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, which sets a minimum attendance of one sitting day every Session of Parliament, my amendment aims to ensure that Members attend a minimum of 10% of sitting days in each Session, which is similar to some of the amendments already mentioned. As I have said previously, I am of the view that the broad and largely amateur membership of your Lordships’ House is one of its enduring strengths. The fact that those who sit are, for the most part, not professional legislators is important to ensure that a diversity of experience and views are heard from a wide range of backgrounds. I believe that that was the consensus view of the House when we debated an elected House on Monday.

That said, a minimum attendance is entirely reasonable and this amendment puts that at 10% of the sitting days in any one Session. Such a modest attendance will ensure that Members are committed to service in the House and are able to keep suitably abreast of developments in Westminster. It will not, however, require Members to attend so often as to preclude them from continuing to maintain their outside interests, and will equally not require them to make unnecessary and numerous interventions, slowing down the business of the House as Members seek to pad their records of contribution. This is in nobody’s interests.

I note that the amendment is similar to Amendment 21, proposed so excellently and with so much Excel detail by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, but his amendment would require 10% of sitting days within any one Parliament, whereas Amendment 64 requires it in any one Session, which will ensure a greater regularity and spread of attendance. On that basis, I recommend it to the Committee.

My Lords, I have Amendment 37 in this group. I think we have Members of extreme expertise in here but, unlike my noble friend Lord Hailsham, that we do not want to hear from them only when that particular expertise is engaged. We want their broader contribution and wider understanding of life; we want them to bring that expertise into our wider debates. We should expect people who are part of this House to turn up for a reasonable percentage of time—certainly 10%. As I learned from my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, Peers whose habit is to blow in, blow off and blow out are really no use to this House whatever.

The other characteristics of my amendment, compared with others, are to leave a lot of flexibility to the House of Lords in saying what the level should be and how it should be determined. That is rather better expressed in Amendment 32, which we will come to in a while and which I thoroughly support.

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 64, which is the one I am most attracted by in this group. I have in my right hand a copy of the Writ of Summons that we each receive when we come here. I am going to read an extract:

“We, strictly enjoining, command you upon the faith and allegiance by which you are bound to Us that considering the difficulty of the said affairs and dangers impending (waiving all excuses) you be personally present at Our aforesaid Parliament with Us and with the Prelates, Nobles and Peers of Our said Kingdom to treat and give your counsel”.

I believe that the Writ of Summons is a very serious document and this is why I think that Section 2 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, which allows for only one day of participation, is not consistent with the Writ of Summons, frankly.

I have been looking at my own spreadsheet; my numbers came from the Journal Office, so they are no doubt slightly different. In looking at those numbers, I felt that, as I said in November and in December, by raising that one day to 10% of the days sat in a Session, we would lose between 50 and 100 of our number who did not live up to what is in our Writ of Summons. I felt that that was proportionate. However, although I clearly looked at other percentages as well, 10% is a figure that, selfishly, suits the Cross Benches, because we have a large number of people on our Benches who are low-frequency, high-impact Members. I need not name them, because all noble Lords will be able to think of several, but they are people at the very top of their professions. They are able to come here to give devastatingly good speeches, but they are not able to make more than 10% of the time here. They go on to our committees and do a lot of valuable work for our House. That is why I feel that 10% is the right number.

The pleasing thing about the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, is that, in it, attendance is measured as it is today, so the very methods that we use to measure attendance are there. The methods that we use if a Member wants to appeal a wrong marking out, as it were, are there and work well. I have confirmed with the Clerk of the Parliaments that these methods could be applied to this type of amendment. Therefore, in my eyes, the noble Earl has scored a hit.

My Lords, as is proposed in Amendment 37 by my noble friend Lord Lucas, this matter ought to be dealt with proactively; for, as may be inferred from that amendment, individual Peers should make their own commitments in the first place. Therefore, at the beginning of every Session of Parliament, each House of Lords Member would sign a declaration of intent to attend more than a certain proportion of sitting days during that Session. Nevertheless, a key question obviously remains: what should this minimum number of days be?

Here, once more, my noble friend Lord Blencathra assists our thinking and comes to the rescue. He has just done so by gently nudging imprecision and indecisive conjecture towards mathematical certainty. For, as he points out, if there had been a 20% attendance stipulation between 2019 and 2024, we would have lost 154 Peers; if there had there been a 15% attendance stipulation, we would have lost 118 Peers; and, through a 10% attendance stipulation, 70 Peers would have been asked to leave.

Yet, having got thus far, mathematics then slightly escapes and retreats back towards conjecture; for, given that there was no minimum percentage attendance requirement between 2019 and 2024—and given that these years would not suddenly come to penalise Peers retrospectively—that leaves us guessing, of course, as to the number of Peers who, in the knowledge that they would be expelled if they did not meet that requirement, would have in fact failed the attendance test. Obviously, these numbers of failures would not be the same as —instead, almost certainly be much less than—those figures between 2019 and 2024, as has already been quoted, when Peers knew that there was no minimum attendance requirement as high as 10% that they had to consider at all.

Included in this grouping is Amendment 64 in the names of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and my noble friend Lord Dobbs, to which the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, has referred. A minimum attendance requirement of 10% of House of Lords sittings is stipulated. Your Lordships may agree with that for two reasons, the amendment works efficiently and strikes a good balance when taken in conjunction with my noble friend Lord Lucas’s Amendment 37, as other speakers have said. First, following Amendment 64, Members would then know that if they do not adjust their diaries to a known quantity of 10% attendance, they will be asked to leave. Secondly, following Amendment 37, their necessary advance commitments to dates at the beginning of parliamentary Sessions would more than likely be made responsibly and, therefore, to well exceed a statutory minimum of 10% in any case.

My Lords, I offer a different opinion—perhaps a dissenting voice. My noble friend Lord Blencathra’s amendment is terrible. It is a bad amendment to a bad Bill. What he has not said is why, when he tabled it, he chose, for example, five years. What was the purpose of that? Was it one Parliament? Why not 10 years? Why not 15 years, as some noble Lords would like the Session to be? Why not go back further? In my case, the noble Lord could have gone back 50 years. I do not know what my attendance record would look like over that period—pretty shoddy, I suspect, but never mind.

It is a mistake to have this principle, because if it is carried forward we will find ourselves encouraging Lobby fodder—my noble friend is a former Chief Whip. Everybody would be here all the time to vote and get their name down but they would not participate in your Lordships’ House; they would just be here for the benefit of the Chief Whip. That is a bad thing. Also, if we are going to attract some younger Members to your Lordships’ House, they will have careers and other jobs, and maybe would not be able to attend all the time. Some noble Lords are retired and do not have other jobs to do.

This is a dangerous and bad precedent. It should be discarded and it should not be in this Bill. I welcome and look forward to hearing my noble friend’s response.

My Lords, this group and the next deal with the vexed question of how we ensure that Peers do the job for which they have been summoned by the monarch, when we know—the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has given us the statistics—that not everybody does. Equally, we are all of the view that everybody should.

This is an area where there is a dissonance, just as there is on retirement age, between what people outside think and what people inside think. All the discussion so far has been on how it affects us rather than how we are seen. If you say to most people, “I am an active Member of the House of Lords”, they might ask, “How often do you go?” If you reply, “Well, it’s very onerous you know; I’ve got to go 10% of the time”, then they would ask, “Well, what does that mean?” You would say, “It means that when the House is sitting I have to go—well, not once a fortnight, but roughly that”. They would then ask, “What time do you start?” “I probably go in at about 3.30 pm, 4 pm”, you would say. They would ask, “What time would you finish?” You would reply, “If it was a busy day, I might stay until the dinner hour”. This is not an onerous requirement. Suppose that it is 20%. That is once a fortnight, roughly speaking, possibly for a couple of hours. That, to most people outside, would not be seen as a hugely onerous requirement.

I also think that, following our Writ of Summons and as Members of a deliberative assembly, it is frankly not good enough to turn up just once or twice a year to discuss an issue on which you are an expert. In politics, many of the issues that we have to debate are ones that we would rather not debate, because we are not experts, but they are the most important. Some of them we would rather not debate because they are really difficult, and we are not experts. Take assisted dying: I am sure that many of us, in an ideal world, would at one level rather that other people took a decision on it, because it is so difficult. However, we are summoned by the monarch to give counsel on a range of things. If there is any suggestion, particularly in legislation, that a minimum level is acceptable, then that really would not be acceptable, even though that has been the pattern in the past.

I also have a question about whether legislation is the right place to put such an amendment, in terms of the amendments in both this group and the next. Apart from anything else, it goes in here and then it goes to the other place. Let us suppose that our colleagues in the Commons say, “Hang on a second, those people at the other end seem to think that 10% is enough—that’s ridiculous. Let’s change it and put in 50%. That sounds a bit more reasonable”. Are we then going to have ping-pong on what is the reasonable level of attendance here?

We need to give further thought to this issue—I am not being flippant about it—but I do not think that a legislative vehicle is the way to do it. The amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, which we are debating in the next group, should be expanded in scope so that we set in train a formal process under which we come back with a raft of measures that encourage people to play a bigger part in the work of your Lordships’ House. A narrow amendment, such as most of the amendments that we have before us today, is not the way to do it.

We should thank my noble friend Lord Blencathra for introducing this amendment. It is a subject worth discussing. Since this Bill is designed to fling out a cohort of your Lordships’ House who on the whole do turn up and play a part and some of whom hold very senior and important roles in the House, it is worth discussing for a few minutes those who hardly come at all and finding out whether there should be some kind of attendance threshold.

The amendment that we are discussing deals with attendance. My noble friend Lord Hailsham mentioned participation—but I think that participation, which is very important, is a very different issue from attendance, and we will come to it in the course of today’s deliberations. What the noble Earls, Lord Kinnoull and Lord Devon, said about the Cross Benches is very important. We do not want to discourage or reduce the ability of those Peers who have something to say but for a whole variety of reasons come less often than most of us; that is why the threshold should be realistic but relatively low.

I think that what my noble friend Lord Blencathra was saying was that, if it had been set at 10%, we would lose about 100 Peers, from past records. I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham that we should not do anything that is retrospective. I do not think there is a problem and that suddenly a whole bunch of Peers would turn up because they wanted to be above the threshold—because the Peers who come hardly at all have already decided that they do not want to play a part in your Lordships’ House, but do not want to retire or take leave of absence. So this is a useful amendment and a useful debate and discussion—and setting the threshold at 10% I do not think will put anybody off.

My Lords, I, too, support my noble friend Lord Blencathra in bringing forward this topic, and I very much agree with what my noble friend Lord Strathclyde has just said.

When I looked at my noble friend’s three amendments, I was inclined to think that Amendment 20 struck the right balance. It is important to retain the concept of the House of Lords as a part-time House, but I also believe that, to remain sufficiently involved in what is going on so as to be able to make a contribution to debates on matters in which noble Lords possess expertise and knowledge, a participation level of 10% may be on the low side. But, as long as your Lordships’ House retains its present sitting hours, 15% is a reasonable minimum participation level—although it would be difficult to maintain a full-time job outside the House and a 15% participation level if the House were to adopt similar sitting hours to the House of Commons.

However, my noble friend Lord Hailsham is right to provide in his Amendment 25 for the possibility that the House may resolve to exempt a noble Lord from compulsory retirement if it concludes that there was a good cause for that noble Lord’s non-attendance. I entirely agree with the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, about low-attendance, high-impact Members.

I also support Amendment 37, in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas. This amendment would allow the House to provide exceptions to compulsory retirement, but, interestingly, allows the possibility of first fixing and later changing the minimum participation rate through Standing Orders, which would provide for more flexibility. My noble friend Lord Blencathra is absolutely right to ask your Lordships to consider this matter, because the Labour Party manifesto also committed to introduce a new participation requirement, at the same time as excluding the excepted hereditary Peers. Those who believe that the House is too large may also support the introduction of a minimum participation level. I would expect that the retirement of a number of inactive Peers would make it easier for the Government to find a better way forward that would cause less disruption to the ability of the House to discharge its functions in a way that serves the country well.

My Lords, I find myself questioning the premise on which this amendment rests, and indeed on which the Bill it is amending rests—namely, that there are too many of us here. It is repeated very often, but it is rarely interrogated or properly analysed. The case against the amendment from my noble friend Lord Blencathra has been eloquently made by others, and I am not going to repeat the points that they have made. My noble friend Lord Astor made an extremely good point about the perverse incentives that it would bring in, my noble friend Lord Hailsham made a very good point about its retrospective nature, and who can disagree with the compelling case made by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, about the low-frequency but high-impact Members?

But we would not be having this debate at all if it were not for this general assumption that we need to free up space. Before I came here, I took that as axiomatic. We are always told that this is the second-biggest legislative chamber after the National People’s Congress in Peking. But too many Peers for what? Do we have difficulty finding a seat in the Chamber? I do not think so; if we look around, we see that there is plenty of space. Do we have difficulty booking a table in the Peers’ Dining Room? Do we not have our Written Questions accepted? Are we pullulating in such numbers that the ushers are unable to cope with us? I do not think so. If we are, the one lot of people we do not have a problem with are those who do not turn up very often. They, by definition, are the ones who are contributing least to the problem and, indeed, claiming least from it.

This Chamber has existed in one form or another since Magna Carta—at least if we count the conciliar form of government that took shape under King John and Henry III as the progenitor and ancestor of this Chamber—and at no stage has anyone felt the need to insert a minimum attendance requirement. It was assumed that it could be left to the patriotism and judgment of the bishops and barons to decide when something was sufficiently important to merit turning up. Have we completely junked that idea of trusting people’s own discretion and judgment?

If it really were a question of numbers and we really did feel that we were massively overloaded, why is it that almost every day we keep on admitting more Members here? If Ministers think that the problem is that this is too large a legislature, why do we seem to be gaining half a dozen people a week? I sometimes feel we are in one of those Gilbert and Sullivan operettas where everyone gets a peerage. I sometimes wonder whether that is the end game—that this country will end up becoming an oligarchy, where the real power is vested in the hands of the last remaining 500 people who still have the right to vote for the other place, and everyone else will have the right to sit here. But, you know, as long as they do not turn up, it is still not a problem—so I come back to saying that I dispute the premise.

I know that Ministers share my view, because they are not proposing a cut-off based on attendance, or indeed a cut-off based on age. They have looked beyond their manifesto and have decided to do the right thing, rather than be bound by the dots and commas of what their manifesto says. I hope they will extend that logic to the only democratically elected element of your Lordships’ Chamber, namely our hereditary colleagues.

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lord Hannan, but we do have a problem with numbers. We are constantly being compared with the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. It is a silly jibe but it does us damage. It makes us seem stuffed like a goose. When did we last see 800 Peers in this Chamber—or 700 or 600? Yet the impression out there is that there are far too many of us who are here only because we are stuffed geese. There is widespread, if not universal, agreement that our numbers should come down. That is why I was very happy to join the noble Earl, Lord Devon, on his amendment, which will help to achieve that objective.

The noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, talked about a part-time House. We all talk about the value of a part-time House. Do we want a full-time House? No, I do not think we do, but neither do we want a no-time house. A peerage is not a zero-hours contract.

It is strange that the Government set out their deckchairs in their manifesto—so far, so very clear about a number of different measures that would help bring down numbers—but for some reason they now seem content to sit on their principles and watch the boats sail by. It is baffling that they do not do what they said they would do, and why they aim their cannons simply at the hereditaries, rather than at, for instance, those who do not participate. A fellow might be forgiven for thinking that some in the Labour Party’s main interest is not so much reform as a bit of cynical old-fashioned class warfare—perish that thought.

I constantly bang on about the fundamental principle that inspires the relationship between individual Peers and our institution, which is that we are here to serve this House. This House does not exist to serve us. The institution, not the individual, must come first. It is not simply a numbers game. More fundamentally, it is about the need to refresh this House to ensure that its experience and advice are up to date and that this House remains relevant. Sometimes you need a fresh wind to blow away cobwebs. If numbers matter, and the Labour manifesto said that they do, I suggest that the amendments we are discussing today would help.

In a slightly wider context, we all know that the Government will get the Bill through, but why do it the hard way—the bitter way? Why strip away the desire to compromise? Why poison the well? Why not show a little willingness, allow a little wiggle room on the Bill? Is it really to be seen just as the use of naked power?

We have, of course, had different points of view expressed, even on this amendment. But I believe that a quick and honourable deal could be reached on the Bill and, indeed, on a wider reform package in line with Labour’s manifesto. That deal could be done this afternoon between the party leaders over a cup of tea, and even before that cup of tea has a chance to go cold.

It is important for the credibility of this Bill, this Government and this House that the Government should try, and be seen to be trying, to come to a broader agreement, than they have done so far. I hope that the Government will open their door and reach out for agreement. That would be so much more dignified and productive than simply being seen to reach out for our hereditaries’ throats.

My Lords, I ask noble Lords to forgive me for echoing what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said on Monday. I listened to some amazing speeches, but their delivery will be in the future, not with this Bill. This Bill is so small and its effect on hereditary Peers is absolutely terminal in the end. I am not a prophet, nor a prophet’s son, but I like to have a healthy check.

None of the amendments is going to end up in this Bill. They are for the future. I would be very surprised if the Leader of the House accepts any of those amendments, because they really have nothing to do with this Bill. The Leader will be right to resist them, and she has done so already. We are luxuriating ourselves about the future and giving amazing speeches. Some of them are pretty difficult to hear. Others are unbelievably hurtful. Others, I do not know whether they should be backed.

Why are we doing it? People will tell me that it is because the Labour Party’s manifesto indicated that there will be a reform. The Government have decided that the first step is to deal with something that has been going on for 25 years. Then they will face the rest of the amendments and questions. If this is a depository bank, in which we are depositing our views for the future, we should be very careful that termites do not get at them.

I say to my dear friends and noble Lords that I respect everyone who has spoken, but I am afraid I cannot make sense at all of any of these amendments getting into this Bill. If they do, I will be the first to resign.

My Lords, it is a huge privilege to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, who made some very compelling points. I want to pick up on three points and make a suggestion.

First, on this Chamber being overcrowded and everyone being completely under pressure wherever they go, I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Hannan. I come from the other place, where—as the Leader of the House will know only too well—in a Division, there can be up to 600 MPs voting. Even on a really busy Division here, there are never more than about 450, 470 or so. Frankly, when I was an MP, I often had difficulty finding a place in the Library or in the tea room. We do not have that problem here. The idea that that this House is ridiculously overcrowded is a non-starter. It is not the case.

I absolutely agree with what the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, mentioned. When those Members turn up here from time to time—but make a huge impact—the House is captivated by what they say. It would be a great shame to lose them by some rule around 10% or 20%. Would it not be better if the House looked at Section 85 of the Local Government Act 1972, which states that if a councillor fails to attend for a period of six months without due cause they can be disqualified? Would that not cover some of our colleagues who never turn up? If that rule was in place, would that not make them turn up? That would be better way of going about it than looking at 10% or 20%.

One of the reasons why the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, tabled these amendments was to show—and he made it clear enough—that there are many life Peers who hardly ever turn up and may have a lot to offer but do not take their role very seriously; whereas I am told by the Library that if we applied the 20% rule to hereditary Peers, only two hereditaries would be covered by that. All the other hereditaries have an attendance of more than 20%. None has an attendance of less than 10%. Their attendance record is quite excellent and impressive. Could the Minister comment on that point?

As the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, pointed out, we are going to be debating this in Committee for more than four days. We may progress, but, rightly, a lot of different subjects have been covered. We will then have a long time on Report and at Third Reading. Surely there is a compromise that can be found. The Government already know they are going to get rid of the elections. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, that it is very sad that the elections will mean that we will have no more hereditary Peers, but we have conceded that that will happen. If it is about numbers, then surely a deal can be done. Many of the hereditary Peers on our side—there are 40 or so left—have said that they are going to retire anyway. Some of the life Peers, well into their late 80s and early 90s, on our side have said that they would retire. Before you get too far, you find that figure of 40. Surely, we can have a compromise here. It would save everyone a huge amount of time, effort and money.

My Lords, it is a great privilege to speak after my noble friend Lord Bellingham, who makes very clear points very persuasively. Attendance in Parliament has been a long-standing issue throughout British history, and my noble friend Lord Hannan spoke extremely well about the motivations of parliamentarians. Previous monarchs have looked at this issue very closely, and both King James and Queen Elizabeth brought in roll-calls and fines because they struggled so much to get parliamentarians to attend.

Many parliaments around the world have attendance criteria. In Belgium, salaries are docked if you do not attend enough. In Oregon, you get only 10 spare days and if you miss your 10 days you are not allowed to stand for re-election. This is an issue that many parliaments face.

The first three Lord Bethells never spoke in Parliament at all. They regarded it simply as an honour. That is a shame and not at all tolerated in modern times. The British public expect parliamentarians to play an active role, and they are absolutely right. I will say two things on that. First, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, made the point about “deep and infrequent”. I think that is right and I have enormously valued the participation of some Peers with enormous expertise but other commitments. Secondly, there is a collaboration element to being part of what is a collective House. Scrutinising legislation, our principal endeavour, requires an enormous amount of co-operation between Peers, and that requires a relationship that needs a little familiarity. If people do not turn up at all, you cannot build those bonds of trust and collaboration and cannot do your job properly.

For that reason, I strongly support the spirit of the amendments from my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lord Lucas, and endorse the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull.

My Lords, we are all here to bring different things, and I am not sure that participation rates are the best way of going about reform. Peers contribute differently. They bring their counsel, as we were reminded from the Cross Benches. Some bring their expertise or knowledge of a particular subject, and most bring their judgment on all subjects.

The options being proposed as we debate this short Bill are very different. Because there really is no agreement on the best way to proceed, I urge the Leader of the House to consider trying to find a consensus across the House to get some agreement, given the extraordinary differences we hear about how best we should proceed.

My Lords, I am glad that we are debating this question of attendance separately from the question of participation, because they are materially different. I share the scepticism of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, about the Government’s willingness to accept amendments to this Bill and, indeed, his salutary warning about being careful of what we say now and remembering that it is taken down in the official record. These other issues are being raised because we all care very deeply about the future of this House, and one of the great tragedies of this Bill is that some of the people who care most deeply will not be here to give their opinions on the further stages of reform or the Government’s adherence to the rest of their manifesto once the Bill is passed. I know he will understand why they are getting their arguments in early.

As the Convenor of the Cross Benches reminded us, our presence here is not thanks to a democratic mandate of our own or any of our achievements but in answer to a call. We sit here in response to a Writ of Summons from our sovereign, who has commanded us, waiving all excuses, to be at the Parliament holden here at Westminster, to treat and give our counsel on certain arduous and urgent affairs. I agree with the noble Lords who have said that we are invited and treated to give our opinions on arduous affairs, even if they are outwith our own areas of expertise.

It is up to each of us to decide how we answer that call, and it is clear that noble Lords across the House do so in different ways. But we have some insights into how they do so thanks to the spreadsheets of my noble friend Lord Blencathra and to the data dashboard provided by the House of Lords Library. That shows that during the last Parliament your Lordships’ House sat for 701 days. On average, noble Lords attended on just under half—46%—of the days that they were eligible to attend. Of the 966 people who were eligible to attend at least some of the last Parliament in your Lordships’ House, 28 Members did not attend at all. More than 100 Members—116—attended on less than 10% of the days that they were eligible to be here, which is the threshold that many noble Lords have mentioned.

Further interrogation of these data by the Library reveals some interesting points. During our last day in Committee, we debated the ideal age of Peers. The data from the last Parliament show that the younger Peers are more likely to attend than older ones. Noble Lords aged 59 and under attended on more than half of our sitting days in the last Parliament. Noble Lords aged 60 or above were absent for most. While noble Lords in their 80s were with us on 45% of sitting days and those in their 90s managed 31%, those in their 30s were here on 55% of sitting days and the sole noble Lord in her 20s—the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes—was here 78% of the time, despite travelling from much further afield than most.

Perhaps most pertinently for this Bill, average attendance rates were highest for our hereditary colleagues, at 49%. For life Peers it was 47%. For the Lords spiritual it was 14%, although we know that the right reverend Prelates have many other duties in tending to their flocks. Our remaining Law Lords were here on just 12% of sitting days that they could have been. These statistics, interesting though they may be, should not be taken at face value. Some may very well think it is better to have 12% of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, than it is to have half of a thirtysomething.

Noble Lords:

Oh!

I am 41. We benefit from having busy people who are active in many areas of civic life and who bring their experience to bear on our deliberations as they see fit. As my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lord Hailsham said, they contribute with great expertise on esoteric topics.

There are many good reasons for noble Lords’ absence. Many are still active in business and charities. Some serve as chancellors and vice-chancellors, or as ambassadors and high commissioners. Others serve in the no less noble roles of husbands, wives, grandparents and carers. Some are suffering the illnesses and ailments that afflict us all, and they speak very movingly about it when they do. Most of those people would, I think, still be able to meet the modest requirements of Amendment 64 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, particularly if combined with some of the leniency expressed by my noble friend Lord Lucas in his Amendment 37.

As my noble friend Lord Hannan of Kingsclere reminded us, a very important point is often forgotten when we look at attendance. If noble Lords choose not to be here or cannot be here, they cost the taxpayer nothing. They do not cancel out the votes of noble Lords who have chosen to express their view in a Division. I share my noble friend Lord Astor’s concern about stuffing your Lordships’ House with Lobby fodder. The people who are not here do not take up a seat in the Chamber or force us to queue longer for our sandwich at lunchtime—although, as we have heard, it is rarely a problem. What harm do they do? I am glad that my noble friend Lord Bethell picked up the point of history to correct our noble friend Lord Hannan, pointing out that, in some of the early English Parliaments, those who ignored their Writs of Summons found themselves fined. Perhaps that is an idea we should return to.

I think we should be wary of hounding out noble Lords who choose to exercise their privilege sparingly. Often, when covering DCMS matters, I think of Lord Lloyd-Webber, who retired from your Lordship’s House before I arrived here. He remains a very busy and hugely successful man in business, the arts and charity, but he found himself criticised for being a composer first and a politician second, so he left. How valuable it would have been if, during the pandemic, Lord Lloyd-Webber, that great impresario, had been able to challenge me and other Ministers about how we were working to protect our theatres and cultural organisations in the face of Covid. Instead, Lord Lloyd- Webber was able to speak in Parliament only when summoned as a witness before a Select Committee in another place. The truth is he never left us. All through those wild days, that mad existence, he kept his promise. Why keep our distance?

Lord Lloyd-Webber, like many noble Lords who are fortunate enough, never claimed a penny for his attendance in your Lordships’ House. A far greater problem than the irregular attenders or those who work hard as excepted hereditaries are those who attend your Lordships’ House but hardly take part. That category of Peer falls between this debate and the debate on the next group of amendments that we will have, but I hope we will not let them out of our sights—because we all know who they are. They grace us with their presence briefly, sitting just out of sight underneath the Gallery. They pop in for the first Question of the day, or take part in the first Division, and then are gone. If they linger here, it is only to sit in those plastic pods that have sprung up around this world heritage site, so that they can take their private phone calls or bring their business associates here to be impressed by the surroundings. They fail my noble friend Lord Dobbs’s test of serving the institution rather than themselves.

Today’s Guardian has a piece about the 15 Members of your Lordships’ House who did not say a word in the Chamber, sit on a committee or hold any Front-Bench post during the previous Parliament yet managed to claim more than £500,000 in allowances between them. I have some exceptions with that article, as I am sure the Minister will. Many of the people named in it have rendered conspicuous service in previous Parliaments and in both Houses. Some have played a role by asking Written Questions, even though they were not with us, but a dozen did not.

One of that dozen was somebody who, I must admit, I had not heard of. I will not name him, as I think it invidious to single out individuals, and I understand that he does not enjoy good health. But he is named in today’s Guardian, which points out that he came to your Lordships’ House at the recommendation of the House of Lords Appointments Commission in 2007, did nothing at all in the previous Parliament and claimed more than £27,000 for doing it. There may well be good reason for that, and I just take that as one example to illustrate what we all know is an awkward and inconvenient truth of a phenomenon that can be seen, sadly, on all Benches in this House. If we are seeking to reduce the size of your Lordships’ House and to improve its public standing, I suggest that that is the place to start.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I fear I have been set a challenge by my Leader to try to get Andrew Lloyd Webber’s lyrics into my speech, but with very little notice, so no one is going to cry for me today.

Before I start, I wish the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, a very happy birthday. I am sure he could think of no better way to spend his birthday than to be in a debate with your Lordships.

Since I joined in 2022, one of my favourite parts of being a Member of your Lordships’ House is the fact that every week I learn something. The calibre of debate in your Lordships’ Chamber is exceptional. When I am asked about it by my friends—who do not necessarily follow our debates as much as they should, although I believe my mother now watches every one—I suggest that, at least once a month, I have the privilege of listening to my own version of a Reith lecture. That is the quality of the debate that we have in this House, from those who the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, highlighted as high impact, and from noble Lords across your Lordships’ House. It is a privilege to be part of it, and I welcomed very much that part of the debate.

I thank all noble Lords who have contributed. The debate on this topic has been valuable and insightful. I am aware that the next group of amendments looks at different ways of devising a framework for the changes that have been discussed, so I will try to keep my remarks brief and confined to the attendance requirements outlined.

From debates that we have had in the past, as well as the one we have had today, it is clear that there is broad agreement that Members should attend and participate in the core functions of this House. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, highlighted, that looks very different internally and externally when it comes to quality and the demands that we may make on each other.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for sharing his data with the Committee and the Government, particularly my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal. It has provided a structure for the conversations that we are having.

As noble Lords will be aware, there are existing measures to remove Peers who fail to attend the House once during a Session, and this Government have indicated their intention to go further in relation to requiring participation. Although this Bill is not the right vehicle to make such a change, this debate has been very helpful in examining the ways in which it might be achieved.

There is rightly a public expectation—and, having listened to the debate today, an expectation among your Lordships—about how Members should contribute. That is why we are developing a new participation requirement, a process which could include looking at the attendance of Peers. It is my hope that we can work together across your Lordships’ House to define what this new participation requirement should look like and how often Members should attend. There are genuine arguments about the quality of attendance and participation, as the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, highlighted. The range of amendments tabled on this topic and those in the next group, which considers other forms of participation, demonstrates that, although we are not at that point yet, we are focused on finding some agreement. As the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, stated in his opening remarks, not even he has a firm view.

The amendments that we are debating in this group all identify attendance as the metric through which to judge a Member’s contributions to this place. As we will see when we come to debate the group of amendments concerned with participation, attendance is not the only way in which contributions could be measured. Is a simple requirement to attend the House for a certain amount of time, as proposed in the amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra and Lord Lucas, the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, a reasonable measure of participation, or should we be more specific about the type of activities that need to be undertaken? I will refrain from pre-empting the later debate on this point, but this will be an important matter to consider when we look to clarify what is expected of Members of this House.

Before we consider the means by which we introduce a new participation requirement, I suggest that we should think not about the previous attendance records of the current membership, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has suggested in his amendments, but about a long-term solution that is fair to Members. A priority is to ensure clarity on what the right and expected level of participation is, whether it be attendance or some more specific contribution, and to ensure that this is adhered to in the future.

Briefly, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, for the series of amendments that he has tabled to further shape the proposals for an enhanced attendance requirement. He has made a number of sensible suggestions that should be considered when addressing the matter of participation, such as whether a Member is on an agreed leave of absence. Any work on this area will need to include reasonable exceptions, such as those identified by the noble Viscount. There is a question about the implementation of any enhanced attendance requirement: should the requirement be comprehensively set out in legislation, or should the detail be left to this House to decide and subsequently set out in our Standing Orders, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas?

I will briefly address the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, on the commencement of the Bill—Amendments 101E to 101G. I addressed these amendments during Monday’s debate. They would bring forward removal of the hereditary Peers to Royal Assent of this Bill, and make the noble Lord’s other amendments subject to a further resolution of the House, potentially delaying the measures indefinitely should both amendments be successful. The Government cannot support this change to the commencement of the Bill. The arrangements currently set out seek to balance the timely delivery of a manifesto commitment that promised an immediate reform, while not undermining the business of the House. As I have previously noted, they follow the approach set in the 1999 Act.

It is clear that the Committee wants to discuss this issue, and we welcome the suggestions that have been brought forward as part of that. There is positive momentum behind ensuring that there are clear expectations of Members, but this Bill is not the right vehicle to introduce this change. I therefore respectfully request that noble Lords do not press their amendments.

My Lords, I am grateful to every noble Lord who has taken part in this debate. Again, as with retirement ages on Monday, we might be seeing some consensus on the proposals from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, supported by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. I will very briefly rocket through the comments of some of those who have spoken.

I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Hailsham on retrospectivity. Others made that point as well and I think it would be possibly better. Well, the House would never approve that in any case—any changes would be for the future. He also made the point that there is a danger that a threshold would cause Peers to come in to speak just to get past the threshold.

The noble Earl, Lord Devon, with his idea of 10% of sitting days in the future, may be on to a winner. Of course, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, again supported that. It was a very good point about the Writ of Summons. It is not something that occurred to me—that the Writ of Summons would suggest that we should attend more frequently than some noble Lords do. I think my noble friend Lord Dundee also said no retrospectivity, and he also supported the 10% agreement in future.

My noble friend Lord Astor said there is a danger that it would encourage people just to turn up. And what about those brilliant young men and women, the executives, who could not afford to do 15 days per annum? I say to my noble friend that a threshold of 15 days per annum is not too high for brilliant whizz-kid young executives. If they boast about doing 18 hours a day in the City, I am sure they could manage to turn up here for 15 days per annum.

Oh—I am sorry. I should say, first and most importantly, a happy birthday to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, was highly supportive of a minimum threshold level, but I suspect that his strong support from the Lib Dems will not enamour him to my noble friends behind and around me. Nevertheless, he did say that we would need future legislation on this. I say to the noble Lord and other noble Lords: look at my Amendment 32, coming up later, because there I see that, in order to avoid future legislation, we can take a special delegated power, a regulation, to make any amendments the House decides in future without further Acts.

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde also said no retrospectivity, and I think he supported 10% as well. My noble friend Lord Trenchard suggested about 15%, so long as the House does not change its sitting hours, and that is a valid point. My noble friend Lord Hannan made a brilliant speech as usual—tremendous rhetoric—and I agree entirely with him. Having 850 Peers on the books is not a real problem, and it is not a problem if only 450 turn up regularly and the others do not come. They are not claiming any money and there is no cost to the system. But the reason we are here, I say again, is that the Government say it is a problem. The Government say there are far too many Peers. The Government want rid of Peers and their solution is to get rid of 88 hereditaries, 70 of whom do turn up. I suggest it is better, if we want to reduce the numbers, to do it through the measure I propose here.

My noble friend Lord Dobbs supports the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and says that the Government should reach out across the House to try to reach agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Sentamu, criticised having these amendments to the Bill—but, as I said at the start, it is perfectly legitimate to amend any Bill. The Government have drafted it very narrowly. They do not have to draft it narrowly; it is legitimate to amend it.

My noble friend Lord Bellingham again supported the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. He liked the idea of excluding those who do not turn up for six months at a time, following the Local Government Bill. It is an idea to be explored. My noble friend Lord Bethell said that parliamentarians need to appreciate—he thanked me kindly for raising this concept—that it is right that Peers do turn up.

My noble friend Lady Lawlor said that the Government should seek consensus across the House. I am grateful that my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay said he found the Excel spreadsheets useful. He made a brilliant and witty speech. But I am not quite sure what percentage he would recommend to the House. If I missed that, I am sure I will be corrected later on. He played a very careful sitting-on-the-fence game, which is an important political skill.

As for the Minister, I like her generally warm welcome for the concept of a threshold, and I think she was being very honest and sensible in saying that. Of course, she says it is not for this Bill. Again, I refer her and noble Lords to my Amendment 32, which may solve that problem.

So I am pleased to have tabled these amendments and I take credit for two things. I think my amendments have provoked and prompted better amendments from some other noble Peers, and of course the Excel spreadsheets have given us all something of substance to talk and argue about. Without those spreadsheets, we would be talking in vague generalities.

My conclusion is this: once again, the noble Earls, Lord Devon and Lord Kinnoull, have tabled amendments that the House seems to favour—that is, a 10% requirement per Session for the future. That may be the way to go forward on Report. With those words, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 19 withdrawn.

Amendment 20 not moved.

Amendment 21 not moved.