Baroness Lawlor (Con)

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I thank the committee for its thoughtful work and report on the manifesto commitment that Peers retire at 80, the implications of such a retirement age and their participation in the functioning of this House. I echo some of the concerns that have been expressed about the remit to which the committee was made to work and the appearance of seeming to do a deal to manage the Government’s manifesto commitment, thus sidestepping the law. I am glad my noble friend Lord Wolfson reminded us that we must obey the law. If changes are to be made, I would prefer to have a full piece of legislation that can have an Explanatory Memorandum, consultation, scrutiny and debate. There are reasons of principle to be against the proposed changes. We no longer nationally have a retirement age at which people can be forced to give up a job, except in a few professions, as we have heard today. A formal retirement age constitutes discrimination on account of age, which we should reject as firmly as we reject discrimination on grounds of race or sex. If someone does not do a job well, that is a good reason for removing them. Their reaching a certain age is not. As we have heard today, age does not stop people doing a job well. Often older people do a job best. I think this is the case in the complex job we do in the House of Lords, where experience and sagacity are needed. Even if a retirement age for Peers is introduced by law, I would suggest combining it with a fixed-term minimum membership of 15 or 20 years. These were mentioned in the report as suggestions when it considered fixed-term membership in general. This would mean that those who come to the Lords later in life can play their proper role and allow the nation to benefit from their expertise. Like all jobs, membership of this House is a constant learning curve. It takes time for Peers to learn about each Bill, each Government, each Parliament and the workings of the House, and to perform effectively. Finally, as part of the UK Parliament, itself one of the three constitutional powers, our role is that of a complementary legislative power, in scrutinising legislation, revising it to make the laws better and holding government to account or asking the other House to think again. We should be wary of changes that undermine the ability of Peers to do their work, and our main question in thinking about retirement and participation should be: what arrangements best facilitate the work done by the House? For these reasons, I fear that the recommendations in the report raise too many concerns for us to support it.