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Sir Patrick Cormack: If, inadvertently, I made any allegation of innumeracy against the hon. Lady, I unreservedly withdraw it. But the fact remains that 40 per cent. of those who regularly attend, who bear the burden and heat of the day, are hereditary peers. That is why, if the hon. Member for North Norfolk, who is becoming agitated--a state to which he is thoroughly accustomed--had used the analogy of a bus with half its passengers missing rather than a car, it would have been a much more telling analogy.
Dr. George Turner: The hon. Member for North Norfolk (Mr. Prior) sits on the Conservative Benches and I do not want to be associated with the Opposition. The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormeck) seems entirely to ignore the point that change will begat change. It is said that the graveyard is full of the bones of indispensable men. Those who are doing the work now in the House of Lords will have volunteers to replace them. They are not indispensable, as the hon. Gentleman would have us believe. If not enough are forthcoming and willing to work, and if we are to go for the extended period, which the hon. Gentleman envisages--which I do not--there is the option of new blood. Shall we not be able to debate many such matters when the Bill returns from the other place?
3 pm
Sir Patrick Cormack: I remind the hon. Gentleman that all we are saying is that the Senior Salaries Review Body should have the opportunity to keep these matters under review. He is a man with a literary turn of mind, so perhaps he recalls that lovely--
Sir Patrick Cormack: The hon. Gentleman appears to have a literary turn of mind. I was giving him a reputation for couth and culture, which I would have thought that he would be delighted to revel in. Perhaps he knows that lovely poem by John Betjeman about the death of the golf club secretary. The final lines are:
- "It's strange that those we miss the most
Are those we take for granted."
One does not have to be a mathematician of the genius of the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West to be able to accept that more work will fall on fewer shoulders. Therefore, those people will not be able to attend their offices, the law courts and the other places where they are
otherwise gainfully employed, in some cases, as often as they do at the moment. How often have we heard it said that the very removal of those peers--"Off with their heads"--will make the House of Lords better? If the Government want the new House of Lords to be better than the one it replaces, surely it is incumbent on them to take every logical and prudent step to ensure that those who bear that burden will be enabled to do so.
Mr. Winnick:
The Opposition amendments that we debated yesterday emphasised the need to make sure that the Government produce the second stage as quickly as possible, but the hon. Gentleman is asking for salaries, and the rest of it, for the interim, which is almost an incentive for that interim to remain permanent. He is contradicting what he said yesterday.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
On the contrary, Mr. Lord. How good it is to have someone of your name in the Chair when we are discussing these matters. If anyone is being inconsistent and contradictory, it is the hon. Gentleman. Yesterday, we said that we were deeply unhappy with the way in which the Government were handling this whole issue and that it would be sensible to put a terminal date on the existence of the so-called interim Chamber. I remind the House that, as I said yesterday, at no stage does the Bill refer to the interim Chamber.
The Government were supported by the hon. Members for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and for North-West Norfolk--I am grateful for the correction of the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk, and I of course apologise to him, and to my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Mr. Prior)--who voted against those amendments, which were eliminated. The Government strenuously resisted any attempt to put a terminal date in the Bill, so--
Sir Patrick Cormack:
I am grateful for the gracious affirmation of the hon. Gentleman in that regard; I heard every word that he uttered. All we are saying is that there must be proper provision to ensure that those who have to do the work are enabled to do it.
Among the life peers, on whom that work will fall, there may be some wealthy men and women, but an awful lot are not wealthy. Many extremely hard-working Labour peers will not be able to devote the extra time necessary. A number of them are friends of mine. I chair a large all-party Committee of both Houses of which a number of those peers and peeresses are members and I know very well that they would not be able to do that extra work without recompense and compensation for it. That is all we are saying.
Mr. Bill Rammell (Harlow):
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that making a proposition without specifying the cost, so that people are aware of it, is not good politics in this House? If the new clause is successful and the issue goes to the Senior Salaries Review Body, will the Conservative party submit evidence to that body and argue for a bridging of the gap in financial support between this House and the other place? Yesterday, the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) implied that
Sir Patrick Cormack:
Let me answer the hon. Gentleman's main question. We would give evidence to that body and the evidence would be based on a careful assessment of what was needed. We do not suggest in the new clause that Members of the other place should immediately be given parliamentary salaries equivalent to those received by Members of this House, who have constituents and other responsibilities. We are suggesting that a number of life peers, many of them Labour peers, would have to do more work although they have other jobs to do and would not--
Sir Patrick Cormack:
Yes, the salaries are uncosted, which is why they should be put to a review body. That is a simple point.
We are not saying that those people should receive X thousand pounds a year. All we are saying is that the review body should consider what they are doing, and what it is costing them, and decide whether it would be appropriate for them to receive more in secretarial and other allowances, although it would not necessarily be appropriate for them to do so.
Mr. Rammell:
I think that we are making progress. The Conservative party submission to the Senior Salaries Review Body would not argue for parity with this House in terms of financial support. What figure would the Conservative party put in its submission? The hon. Gentleman clearly wants the new clause to be accepted and wants the issue to go to the Senior Salaries Review Body. What detailed thought has the Conservative party given to the submission that it would make?
Sir Patrick Cormack:
The matter would be given to the review body. The hon. Gentleman should understand that we are not advocating any specific sum of money. The review body should be given the job and we hope that everybody--including Labour Members with friends in the other place--will give evidence.
Some of those peers spend a prodigious amount of time scrutinising legislation and in Select Committees. Some can afford to give that time and some cannot. There are those who have received peerages, from the Labour party and from my party, who have nominally been Members of the other House for a considerable time--in some cases, a number of years--and have yet to make a maiden speech. I can think of two former Conservative Cabinet Ministers, who were ennobled during the past five or six years, who have yet to make a maiden speech.
I am not suggesting that those people's honours are not fitting recognition of the work that they have done for this House and for the country, but they are not, by any stretch of the imagination, active peers. I can think of at least four Labour peers who fall into roughly the same category. I am not casting aspersions at them either, but I want to show that there is a finite body of men and women who have a valuable job to do. There is no point in saying that they can be augmented; of course they can. New peers
can be appointed, but the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Rammell), who is a reasonable man, will accept that we cannot create experience overnight.
If the Government's objective is to be fulfilled and the successor House of Lords is to be at least as effective as the present House, it is crucial that those who work there should be able to work there. That may mean, in some cases, their receiving better recompense. All we are saying--
Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle):
Should it be performance related?
Sir Patrick Cormack:
If the Senior Salaries Review Body recommended that it should be performance related, I would have no qualms about that. What Members of the House of Lords receive now is performance related, because they receive an attendance allowance.
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