Contribution
My Lords, I fully support this report and congratulate my noble friend Lady Taylor on having produced it and on having got unanimous support, even though some voices are now dissenting from it.
I am also relieved that I will no longer have to go on the media and always face the question of why I am the token oldie. I can now say that I will not be for much longer and the House will have decided. It makes sense to have a retirement age. I suppose that I am the oldest person who has spoken so far—I may in fact be the oldest person who is going to speak altogether, so I take that as a claim on why I should no longer want to be the token oldie in the future.
I am glad to have a fixed date of 8 July 2029. Those of us who were in the Commons and lost our seats will say that that date will come very suddenly. We do not know what will happen until the early hours of polling day, and then out we are. It is good to have certainty and it means we can prepare ourselves mentally for not being here.
One benefit, which has been referred to, is that we shall be allowed to vote in general elections. Perhaps my noble friend will confirm that. I once got a Private Member’s Bill through this House to give effect to our being able to vote in general elections. When it got to the Commons, it was objected to by an anonymous voice —I think it was a Lib Dem—which I thought was pretty outrageous. I hope that the timing of my leaving here will be such that I can vote in the next election.
I was looking at the leaflet about the arrangements for retired Members, which are very generous. They will be able to sit below the Throne, use the dining rooms, and so on. In fact, the arrangements are so generous that I wonder whether there will be too many people swamping them.
I have always felt it an honour and a privilege to be in this House, something which we should acknowledge. I am not happy that there are several hundred people here—the ones who are not active—who use the title and the perks of being in this House without making any contribution. That is wrong in principle, which is why I do not like the idea that, because there are 550 active Members, the others do not cause any problem. I think they do cause problems: they abuse the privilege of being here, and I do not think they should be here.
The committee was not asked—and I understand why —to consider issues stemming from the recommendations. I am grateful to Professor Meg Russell of University College London for her very helpful briefing. There is a widespread belief that the House is too large, but there seems to be not a sufficiently great advantage in getting rid of those who are 80-plus if they are quickly replaced by a stream of people keeping the numbers high. There has to be some more radical approach to this in the way in which Prime Ministers make their appointments. We need to look again at the basis of appointments to the House, which should be considered in parallel with the arrangements for those who are 80-plus.
The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, talked about individual party groups making their own decision and voting. I once also floated that idea and was told it was not a good idea as it resembled a circular firing squad and would cause too much dissent in each group. I do not know about that, but it was an interesting idea.
I still look at the way in which people are appointed and am afraid that any system of appointment will be seen by outsiders to be flawed, even if it is totally above board. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Mann, and others that an elected second Chamber must be an option, provided we retain the primacy of the Commons. Then we can do our job of scrutinising the work of the Commons, and possibly even make some interesting suggestions. I think an elected second Chamber is inevitable, sooner or later. I do not believe in a unicameral system, but we could provide better and more soundly based scrutiny and better safeguards for individual citizens. Therefore, I would like us to move towards that democratic election, but in the meantime we should adopt these proposals.