Lord Blencathra (Con)

My Lords, if one thought that my last amendment was slightly controversial, it is nothing in comparison to this one. I and the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, can again say to the Leader of the House, “Neither of us is from the Government but, again, we are here to help you”. We will help to implement the Labour Party manifesto that “we will introduce a new participation requirement”. Part of what I propose here is simple and straightforward, but another part would be difficult and highly contentious. The first question is: why is this necessary? We all know that there is a tiny number of Peers who, shall we say, clock in and then disappear without any participation. Even if it is only one Member or up to 10, that brings the House into disrepute. There is more than enough abuse in the media about hard-working Peers getting the £361 per day tax-free allowance, so we must root out the small number who turn up and do nothing. The easy bit is collecting the statistics, as per the list in the amendment’s proposed new subsection (3). Thus we know exactly who has spoken in the Chamber or in Grand Committee and how often. As the Library said, statistics are also being collected for our Select Committees. We know who has asked Oral and Written Questions, and how many. We may not record those who attend and work in other committees at the moment, as they do not count for attendance. That work is also vital to the functioning of this House. It can be very time consuming, but we can easily collect the names and statistics there also. We know who serves on international delegations such as the Council of Europe, NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and that is 23 Peers in this House. As an aside, if noble Lords will permit me, the half-allowance that we get for that work is nonsensical. The hours and threats that the noble Lords, Lord Dodds and Lord Lancaster, and I faced when we observed the elections in Georgia last November were far longer and tougher than anything we do in this place. I can also say, with all certainty, that those of us who serve in those three organisations are going to some very long and hard days in our next few meetings as we wrestle with the new security threats in Europe. All our meetings start at 08:30 and end at 20:00 and we get £15 per hour for our attendance. That was a personal aside—now, back to my amendment. My concluding item is to include any other work that a committee would consider to be participation in the work of the House. The only area in which I differ from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, is that I would not let any Secretary of State get his or her fingers on this. We can set this up ourselves without government help, and either call on the Procedure Committee to do it or create a new committee specifically to decide on the metrics for adequate participation. A new committee would probably be best—one that would keep this under constant review and act as an appeal body for those Peers who objected to retirement on the grounds of attendance below any threshold, and participation below any new threshold also. That is where the contentious parts will be. It is easy to collect the statistics, but how will we decide what minimum level of participation should entitle one to continued membership of this House? This is where I am looking forward to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, particularly on his proposed new subsection (3) on a minimum participation level and the metrics to set it. Neither of us can say today what that should be, but I can pose some of the questions that the committee would have to adjudicate on. If a Peer did nothing save put down a few Written Questions, would that suffice? If so, how many? Would one speech per annum in the Chamber or two in the Grand Committee qualify? Would we treat participation in all committees as equal, or would we say that some were more important than others and one would have to attend two or three lesser committees to equal one attendance at a more important one, however one defined “important”? Then there is the vexed question of effectiveness. As soon as I was elected in Penrith and The Border to succeed the great Willie Whitelaw, he said: “David, you must distinguish between activity and achievement. Many MPs run around being active but achieve very little”. Suppose that we have a Peer who has asked only one Written Question in the whole year, but it revealed some terrible scandal or made the Government change policy; or a Peer who came high up in the Private Members’ Bill ballot and his or her Bill became law and changed the lives of thousands—for the better, one hopes and assumes. I appreciate that, the more I talk about the difficulties of a minimum participation level, the more your Lordships will conclude that it is too difficult and we should leave well alone. But that is not our normal modus operandi in this House. The Lords tackles issues which Governments and departments shy away from. Just look at our Select Committee reports. I cannot believe that a committee of all sides of this House will be unable to draw up the metrics which the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, proposes. If it says after serious deliberation that it cannot be done, that is the end of the matter. If the great and the good of this House cannot find a solution to set a minimum participation level, no one can. Of course, we need to incorporate the exceptions proposed by my noble friend Lord Hailsham. I also look forward to my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay naming names, if he has anyone in mind. I conclude as I began. We have a very small number of Peers failing to participate at all, or participating very infrequently, and that is bringing the House into disrepute. Fixing it is not beyond the capabilities of noble Lords. I beg to move. Amendment 27 (to Amendment 26)