Lord Remnant (Con)

My Lords, in view of the hour, I shall attempt to be brief, but I would like to speak in support of the thrust of the amendments proposed in this group. I do so in the context of the Government’s wider manifesto commitments. I do not want to trespass upon or pre-empt discussion of the next group of amendments, which cover retirement on account of age. But if the Government’s objectives are to reduce the size of this House and continually to refresh the skills and experience of Members, retirement based on term rather than age is a viable and, I argue, preferable alternative. Given that the manifesto commitment to a retirement age is missing from this Bill and that, within a year of this commitment being formally made, new Peers above the proposed mandatory retirement age have already been appointed, one might objectively conclude that the Government may be reconsidering the method by which retirement can best be achieved. Why do I favour the principle of term limits? Discrimination on the basis of age is illegal in many walks of life, including in the workplace. In the corporate world with which I am most familiar, law and best practice have moved away from age and towards terms. As far back as 2007, the Companies Act requirement setting the age limit for directors of public companies at 70 was repealed. This has effectively been replaced by the Corporate Governance Code, which stipulates that non-executive directors should be appointed for terms subject to re-election. This principle is generally considered to have served stakeholders well, and it is extremely rare that any company would seek to contravene it. So what should that term be? These amendments span a range of 10 to 30 years, with the upper limit being achieved only by a series of five-year reappointments. Again, I take as my starting point the Corporate Governance Code. It provides that any term for a non-executive director beyond six years should be subject to particularly rigorous review and should take into account the need for progressive refreshing of the board. In practice, all other things being equal, directors would be asked to serve at least six years and most up to nine years. That naturally leads me towards the lower end of the ranges proposed. I believe that there is merit in Members serving for at least two full parliamentary terms, 10 years, and that the flexibility of allowing a five-year extension is sensible. Beyond that, it may be that the balance of, on the one hand, continually refreshing the skills and experience of Members of the House and, on the other, retaining the wisdom and contribution of existing Members starts to become too skewed away from the former. Most unhelpfully, my views do not conform precisely with any one of the amendments, but they are best aligned in principle and in detail with Amendment 13 in the name of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, as amended by my noble friend Lord Hailsham in Amendment 15. However, I strongly believe that, given the significance of such a change, it must be right for transitional arrangements to be put in place for existing Peers. Amendment 66 in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, distinguishes in this regard between existing peerages and peerages yet to be created, a proposal that has much merit.