Contribution
My Lords, many speakers in this debate, including the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, made the arguments against an arbitrary age limit, so I will not repeat them other than to say that I agree with them. As I look, in particular, at some of the long-serving Peers who sit on the Privy Council Benches, it seems to me that Parliament will be weaker and much less effective if we lose their experience and institutional memory.
I will spend some time talking about the attendance requirement. Your view on that depends on what kind of House you believe we should be and what kind of membership we should have. I pay tribute to those Peers who are regular attenders here—almost every day—whose main activity is the legislation passing through this House. The House needs those Members, we depend on them to get the business done, and they are true public servants. But I also believe that the House benefits tremendously from those more part-time Peers, whose main career is outside politics and who bring the expertise and that wider, parallel experience into Parliament. The value of contribution to this House is measured not just by the frequency of attendance and speaking but by the quality of the contributions.
Although the primary function of the House is detailed scrutiny of legislation, I think the House also has an important constitutional role as an ultimate backstop against the Government on major issues. Having a wider group of Peers who are not necessarily here every day but will come in, vote, listen and attend on those major issues is another strength of the House. On that basis, although the threshold of 20% that has been suggested might seem reasonable, when you think about it, meaningful attendance of a day a week will be too limiting for those who maintain an active career outside Parliament. I would not want to hold myself up as any kind of role model, and I have now retired from active commercial activity, but I suspect that my experience of the changing scope for participation through my career is representative of many others’.
I joined this House almost 30 years ago and, like many others, had a background of a mixed career in business and in policy development across Whitehall. When I arrived, I was in full-time employment in a corporate role. I made arrangements to attend when I felt I could contribute, but I had the advantage of working and living in London. Had I worked and lived elsewhere in the United Kingdom, I would have found it very difficult, even on a passing 15-minute tick-the-box exercise, to be in the House one day in five every week. I then moved on and I had a period as a non-executive director with a portfolio career. That gave me much more capacity to be involved over a period of years. But then I moved on to another role where I was chairman of a major UK bank for over seven years, and during that period that activity naturally took primacy.
That kind of experience over a period of years is typical of many Members of this House who have maintained an active role in a profession or career outside, whether in law, medicine, teaching or any other activity, which does not necessarily enable them to spend one day every week on average participating in the House, but nevertheless, when they do come, they have experience and expertise to bring. The House benefits from that experience and wider engagement. I understand that there is a demand for some kind of participation requirement, but I urge the House and the Minister to consider whether a lower threshold would be more acceptable in terms of keeping those Members of the House who can contribute in that way—for example, 10%, or once a fortnight, would be much more reasonable but still imply people were actively involved. I urge the House and the Minister to think again about that threshold required to ensure that we do not exclude people who can make a major contribution.