Contribution
My Lords, I begin by joining the queue of noble Lords who have paid tribute to my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton and the committee for the work that they did—they produced a good report. I know they did not publish any of the evidence, but I hope that historians of the future will have access to that evidence as part of the business of explaining how the House has evolved over the years. I do not, in fact, envy my noble friend the Leader of the House for the job of trying to sum up today’s debate, given the range of speakers we have had so far and what is still to come.
Is there any Member here who does not have an interest in the outcome of this debate? The answer is: I doubt it. I am sure many Members looked at the report and, the moment they saw it, turned to the point at which they would know their own end date. I am no exception, but I hope the House will understand if I say that I have been here before and, for the most of the last two and a half years, I was only too conscious of the fact of the effects of the final day of the previous Session.
The whole House knows the significance of the issues identified in the report, and they arise as a result of a manifesto commitment by my party at the last election, but I admit to being slightly conflicted by two arguments. One is that it should be for the Government themselves to bring forward proposals on a mandatory retirement age, if that is what is planned; the other is that it is perhaps better for this House to take what action it can, because the government Bill considered by the Commons might well find itself broadened well beyond the subject matter of this report. On balance, I can see the case for us to take action ourselves where our objectives can be achieved by non-legislative means.
There is a broader context to this debate. It is both about the case for reducing the size of the House and about our relationship with the House of Commons. The other night, we listened to my noble friend Lord Rooker make some very persuasive points about the extent to which it increasingly falls to us to scrutinise government legislation that the same Government themselves effectively prevent the House of Commons considering properly by the use of the timetable Motion and the guillotine. Meanwhile, efforts in this House to reduce our size—I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and others—have not yet succeeded and cannot, partly because we have no ability effectively to reduce the power of prime ministerial patronage, hence the proposals before us today.
I admit to being ambivalent about the retirement age, though I appreciate the committee’s suggested phasing in of it over a number of years. Why? It is not just because it jars with the principles of discrimination against people who are older, and we live in a country where the population itself is getting older. Funnily enough, I bumped into a group of schoolchildren today when I was in the House early this morning and I asked them, “Do you think it is unfair that you should throw people out of Parliament at the age of 80?” Amazingly, the vast majority of that school group put up their hands and said that, yes, they thought it was unfair. It was quite interesting. I am slightly nervous about a fixed retirement age. It would never be applied to the House of Commons for this reason: you could never restrict the rights of the electorate to elect whomever they wish to serve in that place.
I know that there are many Members of this House who are over 80 and who make an extraordinary contribution, and continue to do so, to the work of the House. A mention was made of Lord Mackay of Clashfern. I was sitting on the Benches opposite when he made his final remarks on leaving the House. He was cogent. He made some very good points. He said he had reached the view that he had reassessed certain legislation, even though he had introduced that legislation decades earlier. He was 95. My point really is that capacity is perhaps a better guide than mere age to what matters.
By contrast, there are Members decades younger than that noble Lord who do not often come, speak or vote—in short, they do not often participate. In my opinion, this can bring the House into disrepute. That is why I find myself in much greater sympathy with the report’s recommendations on participation. I entirely understand the reference to the risks of performative activity, but the right balance has to be found to enable the House to fulfil its core functions: scrutinising legislation, holding the Government of the day to account, engaging in committee work and raising issues for debate. I think the report’s recommendations are a stage further forward.
I end by saying this: I am one of those Members who regards this place as a workshop and not a museum. I consider myself a working Peer, and it was on that basis that I stood for election to this House. I will listen to the rest of the debate with great interest. In my experience of this place, which goes well beyond my time here—it will be five years this month since I first arrived—incremental change is usually what works best.