Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)

My Lords, this has been a short but interesting and thoughtful debate on the amendments trying to probe these issues. The comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, on how the House can deal with this matter were very helpful. Currently, as the noble and learned Lord said, under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, a Member of this House automatically ceases to be a Member if they are convicted of a serious offence—that is, if they are given a non-suspended prison sentence of more than a year. We have already heard about the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015; the Standing Orders of this House and the Code of Conduct deal with that very clearly. If a Member receives a prison sentence—of any length and regardless of what the sentence is—that is deemed to be a breach of the code. There has been a general view across the House about having some strengthening of their roles but, as the noble and learned Lord has said, a number of factors have to be considered in the round. For example, would it be right automatically to expel a Member if the Crown Court considers that the offence is not sufficiently serious to warrant a custodial sentence? Are there particular offences that the House may consider should be treated more seriously, or as being incompatible with membership of your Lordships’ House and warrant automatic expulsion? Noble Lords also raised the question of somebody being prosecuted overseas. As well as what we might determine malicious or political prosecutions, somebody could be prosecuted overseas for something that is not an offence in this country. Further debate is needed on how we can strengthen the rules. Another factor that I will take into account is the rules across both Houses. It was interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, set the threshold in his amendment lower than the recall conditions for Members of Parliament, but the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, set it higher. Some consistency across Parliament would be helpful. The noble Lord also raised a very interesting point about the removal of peerage. I am sure I am not the only noble Lord to have heard this point—the noble Lord, Lord True, may have had similar correspondence: if somebody has been stripped of another honour, why do they remain a Peer? In fact, that has nothing to do with the membership of the House of Lords. Someone can retain a peerage. That is not a matter for this House, but I think that those comments should be taken on board as well. That indicates that we would be willing and happy to maintain an ongoing dialogue on this particular matter—