Lord Newby (LD)

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?