Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)

My Lords, as probably the most recently retired unpaid Minister, I acknowledge the shop stewarding role of the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Forsyth. Clearly, they raise an issue of principle. As they have set out, the issue is around a Prime Minister’s management of MPs in the Commons and both Acts of 1975. Although I do not think this amendment is really appropriate in this Bill, it is a substantive issue and it is clearly unacceptable that Ministers of the Crown are unpaid. It reduces the talent pool from which to choose, and it has a flavour of cricket 50 years ago and gentlefolk amateurs. That is quite unfair, but it gives a flavour of those compared with professional politicians. How can this be solved? Of course, Prime Ministers could exercise rather more restraint over the number of Commons Ministers who are appointed—good luck with that. As the noble Lord, Lord True, said, we could also bring forward a little Bill to increase the number of paid Ministers allowed. I cannot believe—and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, put his finger on it—that a Government would ever increase the number of paid Ministers in the febrile atmosphere in which we currently operate. It is worth acknowledging that the inflation has gone down a bit. Research from the Library shows that in 2010, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, had 118 Ministers, which, by my reckoning, means at least nine were unpaid. The noble Baroness, Lady May, had a similar figure in 2015. Mr Johnson had nine unpaid in December 2019, according to a Parliamentary Answer. My figures show that Mr Sunak increased it to 17 unpaid Ministers, 15 of whom were in your Lordships’ House. Frankly, I am very dubious that we will see any improvement until we come back to the fundamental issue of substantive reform of your Lordships’ House. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, may shake his head, but the reality is that the Lords is treated in the way that it is because we are not legitimate at the moment. I am afraid that the sorts of amendments from the Lib Dems on an elected House, and even tinkering around in terms of the numbers, is not going to cut the cake until we decide what the role of the second Chamber should be, its powers, how its membership is arrived at and whether Ministers would be appropriate to serve in such a reformed second Chamber. Finally, the question which noble Lords and all other commentators will never answer is: what are the respective powers and relationships between the Lords and Commons, and how do you resolve differences? Let us get down to the real business and not go ahead with this proposal, which, I am afraid, is for the birds.