Contribution
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.