Viscount Chandos (Lab)

It is a privilege to have served on the committee that produced the report that we are debating today. I thank my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton for her exemplary introduction and even more for her remarkable skill in drawing out a unanimous conclusion from the committee and the evidence that we heard, which was mainly from Members of this House. I am sure that this skill is innate, but I was regularly reminded of how this may have been honed by her training in the House of Commons Whips’ Office, as was so brilliantly portrayed in James Graham’s great play “This House”. Of those noble Lords who are speaking today, I have been a Member of your Lordships’ House for the longest —longer even than the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde—having served nearly 45 years with a six-month sabbatical between the 1999 Act and my appointment as a life Peer. I say this not to claim great wisdom or expertise, more the opposite, but to make two points. First, I have witnessed the evolution of the House during that time. Irregular participation, bringing in some cases exceptional expertise, was once seen as the norm. Recently, there has been a more professional, political, fuller-time culture. On balance, that has been a positive development. I have also during my time had periods of relative inactivity myself, whether because of intense outside commitments or because of, for instance, my slow transition from the Social Democratic Party to the Labour Benches. I understand the concerns that minimum participation should not be set too high. I believe that the committee’s recommendation of 20% of sitting days averaged over two Sessions strikes a well-judged balance. My noble friend the Leader of the House gave a very clear remit to the committee to identify, if possible, ways whereby its recommendations could be implemented without new primary legislation. The committee had particular regard for this, particularly in proposing sensitive and generous transitional arrangements for the retirement age proposed in the manifesto, which I very much hope will be seen by all Members of the House as fair and supportable. I deeply regret that the noble Lord, Lord True, in his opening remarks seemed to discourage that, even while describing the report as excellent. The committee’s remit did not explicitly refer to the objective of reducing the size of the House—or, to be pedantic, the number of its Members—but the Government’s manifesto commitment to a retirement age of 80 was clearly in the context of reducing numbers following the undermining of the excellent recommendations of the Burns committee by, first, the Johnson Government, of which the noble Lord, Lord True, was a member. That context is important, as it is central to the point that the proposal makes no judgment about the capacity of people over the age of 80 generally—or specifically Members of this House of that age. I am afraid that on this I disagree with my noble friend Lord Blunkett, whom I otherwise revere. My noble friend Lady Taylor described the debate in the committee about fixed terms as an alternative or complement to a retirement age. I would have been delighted if we could have achieved the necessary consensus to make terms the sole or significant test of continuing membership. I very much hope that today’s debate, despite the malign tone-setting of the noble Lord, Lord True, gives my noble friend the Leader of the House the confidence to follow the self-regulatory path that she asked the committee to consider. If, however, the support is not there for this, I would fully support primary legislation to implement a retirement age or perhaps term limits, to achieve the regular, consistent rotation and refreshing of the House’s composition.