Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)

My Lords, it is probably quite appropriate that we are going to discuss this immediately after we have heard several comments about us being a self-governing House, because it enters into this as well. I start by thanking those members of the committee who gave up so much time to put in a great deal of effort to try to get a consensus on this matter. I also thank the staff we had, who worked very diligently—Judith Brooke, Rachel Borrell and Ellie Hassan—because there was an awful lot of work involved in the production of the report. I must also thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for organising an early debate, because it is important that we get the feeling of the House as a whole. I remind the House of the starting point for the discussion that we are about to have. In the last Labour Party manifesto, the government manifesto, there was a commitment to introduce retirement and participation requirements for the House of Lords, and for all Peers to retire at the age of 80 at the time of the next election, whenever that election came along. That was a significant commitment that was paired with other aspects of reform to this House, some of which have taken place. When we were established, many people immediately got in touch with the committee about some of the wider issues of House of Lords reform, but I emphasise that the committee’s remit was tight and specific, and rightly so. We were charged with considering and making recommendations on a retirement age and a participation requirement, and the impact that any such requirements might have on the size, membership and functioning of the House. We were also given the opportunity to consider transition arrangements and what arrangements might be made for implementation. Once established, we decided very early on that we wanted to involve as many people as possible in the decision-making process, so we embarked on a very important consultation exercise. We issued an invitation for written evidence to be submitted, we held drop-in sessions and many individual Members collared others of us at different times in different corridors. We welcomed all that and I reckon that probably 25% to 30% of active Members took part in that consultation process. Of course, we had a significant range of views and I shall come on to some of those later. All the submissions were carefully considered by every single member of that committee. It was quite a heavy workload for everyone. In the end, we managed to produce a unanimous report. I emphasise that to the House, because it is important to realise that people with very different starting points came to a consensus in the end. What do our recommendations involve? First, I will talk about retirement, because that was the one issue that concerned many Members when they were thinking about our committee. I will say a few words by way of context. The average age of Members of this House is 71. The average age on appointment is 59. The average age of retirement in the last few years has been 82. It is worth keeping that is mind when we think about the conclusions we came to. We modelled many options, with the help of our assistants. We looked at a whole range of options that had been presented to us by many colleagues in their submissions. The first question we had to ask was: what should we look at as an end date? It was very difficult, because we did not know when the next election would be, so we took the last possible sitting date of this House in this Parliament. This is why our modelling was based on July 2029. Some noble Lords may be surprised at that, but there is a logic there. There was no logic in taking any other date. We must also remember that the figure we produced was for the maximum number of Peers affected at any one time. We are not saying that everybody has to stay until a certain time; we are saying that a Member can retire at whatever point they feel is appropriate, but there is a maximum cut-off. If the Government’s proposal that all Peers older than 80 were to retire at the next election came into effect, and if that election were on the last possible date of July 2029, a maximum of 257 Peers would be required to leave by that date or at that time. As a committee, we agreed that such a number and such a cut-off point would be too severe and would have implications for the working of the House. Unintended consequences must always be considered. We took the age of 80, which is what the Government have been proposing. We had suggestions from other Members. Some were against a retirement age altogether. Some suggested 75; others suggested 85. We looked at all the evidence and decided that it was probably appropriate to look at the age the Government were proposing, which is why our modelling was based on the age of 80. We considered all those options, and we recommended that, by July 2029, all Peers over the age of 85 who had not already retired should do so, and that subsequently the maximum retirement age should reduce annually by one year. As I say, that is the maximum age of retirement. In Appendix 4 of this report, we set out exactly how the transition would work in detail, and there is an app available so that anybody who wants to know how they themselves are affected can be told. For the sake of transparency, in our report we included how this would affect each of the members of the committee, just to prove that there was no bias and that we were not looking after ourselves. For anybody who is interested, my date will be 2 July 2031. We thought this was fair and workable, and that it gave individuals a proper timescale for thinking about their futures. That is where we have landed so far as retirement is concerned. We did consider the alternative of term limits. We received submissions that were in favour of fixed terms, and I have a degree of sympathy with that. People talked about terms ranging from 15 to 20 years; I think we probably all accepted positions on 10-year terms, but there was a range of opinion. Fixed terms would provide for the refreshment of the House; people would know where they were and there would be predictability. In the end, after discussing this in some detail, we decided that the disadvantages and the problems would be too much. There would be a difficulty in transition and significant cliff edges. There was the question of reappointment and the fact that, if people had that possibility, it might alter how they behaved in the House, depending on who was making the reappointment. We also looked at the question of younger Members, who might find it difficult to re-enter their profession after 10 or 15 years here. We thought there were too many disadvantages, so we rejected that idea. I want to be clear that we do not equate participation with attendance; they are often different things for different people. We had various suggestions as to how we might measure participation. Some of these were very complex and complicated. Many mentioned the problem that it could lead to performative activity: that is, people speaking just for the sake of getting a tick in the box. In no way would that enhance the quality of our debates, so we are not suggesting a participation threshold. However, the committee believe that there is a problem with the attendance provision. The 2014 Act states that if you attend once during the Session then you continue to be a Member of this House. That is not good for the reputation of the House and people who are Members should take this House seriously. Although we acknowledge and appreciated the expertise from appropriate outside interests, we thought that membership of this House should be taken seriously. The committee therefore recommended an attendance threshold of 20%, but over two Sessions, to allow people to adjust according to their own circumstances and with the provision of the kind of short-term leave of absence that my noble friend talked about earlier. I think that would be helpful for everyone. I will mention a couple of other things that we touched on, although we did not go into great detail. We made a recommendation on leave of absence, because such Members are not bound by the provision relating to the register of interests in the Code of Conduct, despite the fact that they have clear access to Members of the House and to Ministers. It was not directly for us to deal with, but we wanted to highlight it because a very impressive case had been made to us that there was a problem here. We therefore wanted to highlight it so that the appropriate committee can look at this again. I turn briefly to another point in our report. We suggested that Peers who retire and leave the House should become “Peers emeritus”, and that there should be an association for former Peers to keep in touch, be aware of what is going on, and have access to the Libraries under the new arrangements. I am struck that several people have already come to me, asked how we can arrange this and said that they are willing to take it on. I am very happy for them to take it on, but there is merit in following that through. I am heartened by the response that I have had when talking to people—both groups and individuals. Some people have said that they now at least know how this will affect them; others have said this has made them think about what they should be doing, and how they should listen to their families and talk about their future. That has been very useful. We mention implementation in our report. We were told that a retirement age could be implemented by legislation very easily and quickly through a one-line amendment to the 2014 Act. As a committee, we decided that it would be preferable for the House to take control of this and introduce such a provision through a resolution of the House. That is an appropriate recommendation. I believe that change is coming and that it is better done by us than to us. I recommend the report.