Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
LORD JAY
OF EWELME
22 JULY 2008
Q80 Chairman: If this is so, if it
is essentially a House of scrutiny, which is what you are describing,
then surely what you are looking for in it is scrutiny skills.
You have to match the skills to the tasks that you think the House
is performing, so you may say, to pursue Charles's argument, "Why
on earth are you worried about representativeness?" Surely,
that is the job of the elected House of Commons, to be representative
of the people. If the task of the House of Lords is to scrutinise
in detail legislation that comes in front of it, you want people
with expertise, you want people with scrutiny skills. You do not
want some sort of vacuous promise, do you?
Lord Jay of Ewelme: Well, if you
take, for example, the passage through the House of Lords of the
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, what made that a very
very remarkable set of debates, was that you had people like Baroness
Warnock, one of the great ethical philosophers—
Q81 Chairman: She has skills, she
is a philosopher. She has exactly got the sort of philosophical
skills that you might need for that act of scrutiny.
Lord Jay of Ewelme: Exactly, and
you had Lord—
Q82 Chairman: It was not promised
that she had, but she had philosophical achievement.
Lord Jay of Ewelme: Of course.
Of course, that is always going to be, it seems to me, the basic
criterion.
Q83 Chairman: Well, I just think
there are issues here that do involve matching a clear view of
what you think the role of the House of Lords is, with the skills
that are required to perform that role. If you go chasing off
in a sort of politically correct way in terms of all kinds of
things, I wonder if you are actually not pursuing the things that
the House of Lords is required to do. It could be that a second
chamber is required to do other things, but, in our system, it
is required to do scrutiny.
Lord Jay of Ewelme: It is required
to do scrutiny, but it is certainly my experience of the last
two years or so that it is well able to do that because of the
diversity in every sense really of the people in it and, I would
say, in particular, the people on the cross benches whom the House
of Lords Appointments Commission is appointing. As I say, the
quality of debates on that debate and the quality of the debates
on the Climate Change Bill where you have people who are real
experts on the subject, on the science, makes a real difference.
Q84 Mr Prentice: Sir Humphrey Appleby
used to characterise people as being sound or not, and I just
wonder if you would ever take a risk with an appointment, given
what you have said to Charles and to Tony, with this agenda of
promise that you have been talking about. Would you take a risk
in appointing someone or would you go for someone that is sound?
Lord Jay of Ewelme: You need to
appoint people who do meet the criteria that have been set down,
who are going to make a real contribution, who have made a really
significant contribution, but I just think there is a little issue
as to whether there might occasionally be people who, you think,
will make a really important contribution, even though they have
not yet quite made the really significant contribution. To that
extent, you might take a bit of a risk, and I am very conscious
that Mr Walker might well not agree to that and that is clearly
an issue which we need to discuss further.
Q85 Mr Prentice: Yes, Charles talked
about the burden on your shoulders of appointing someone who might
be there for 40 years effectively, until they drop. Do you think
it is right in a modern Legislature that people should serve until
they die?
Lord Jay of Ewelme: Well, the
process of reform is going, I guess, to change that. That is the
system we have now. What the House of Lords Appointments Commission
will be doing is appointing people for the next five or 10 years
or so.
Q86 Mr Prentice: Yes, I am just interested
in your view because we do not know the shape of any legislation
or whether there will be any legislation because it is all conditional,
the three main political parties have got to make a commitment
in their general election manifestos and then who knows what is
going to happen in the next Parliament, so a lot of this is really
up in the air, but we do know from the latest statement from the
Government that they believe that there should continue to be
no maximum age limit. Now, that is the Government's position,
but in our sister democracy in Canada of first past the post,
a wholly appointed second Chamber, they have age limits and their
Canadian senators stand down when they reach 75, I think it is.
I just want your view really on whether you think that is a good
thing.
Lord Jay of Ewelme: I think there
are different models.
Mr Prentice: It is okay, I am not talking
about you! He gets very upset when I talk about age limits!
Q87 Paul Flynn: Seventy-five is the
prime of life!
Lord Jay of Ewelme: I think there
are different models of different legislatures.
Q88 Mr Prentice: The final question
from me is that I see in the candidate profile that you have satisfied
that you show absolute personal and professional integrity, and
I do not doubt that and none of us doubts that. We were all sent
a copy of Craig Murray's book Murder in Samarkand, I think
it would have been, a couple of years ago. Should we regard that
as a work of fiction or fact or something in between?
Lord Jay of Ewelme: I think probably
a work of faction.
Mr Prentice: The Chairman will not allow
me to go any further than that.
Chairman: No, I was just reflecting on
the fact that you were not Head of the Diplomatic Service for
nothing, as you have been giving us some very diplomatic answers.
Q89 Kelvin Hopkins: Following Gordon's
question about time limits, what those of us who are concerned
about the House of Lords are most concerned about is the power
of patronage, particularly of the Prime Minister. With time limits,
the patronage would become surely even worse, because the person
who was appointed, if they wanted to be re-appointed especially,
would then know they have to behave themselves according to the
Prime Minister's wishes, and it would make the power of patronage
even worse. At least when they are appointed now, for life without
limit, they are free to express their views, even if they are
regarded as friends of the Prime Minister, a safe pair of hands
and sound, new Labour or whatever. They are at least free to express
their views. That is one question and the second associated question
with patronage is that the one group of people in the House of
Lords who did not suffer from patronage were actually the hereditaries
and I know that some people on the Left in the Commons have actually
said, "Well, they are genuinely independent-minded"
because, by a process of automaticity, they have become members
of the House of Lords, they are usually wealthy and completely
independent and they are genuinely independent people, whereas
the others are creatures of the Prime Minister.
Lord Jay of Ewelme: Well, on the
second point, I think it is one of the wonders of our Constitution
at the moment that the only people in the House of Lords who are
remotely elected are hereditary peers.
Q90 Kelvin Hopkins: Under the previous
system.
Lord Jay of Ewelme: Yes. On the
first point, as I understand the Government's reform proposals,
the appointments would be for one term, so the question of behaving
in such a way as to get reappointed would not arise. But I do
think that the maintenance of a sense of independence is a very
important part of the House of Lords.
Q91 Paul Flynn: I feel I have to
come back, having a rather different experience of life from Charles,
having worked as a bus conductor for a number of years and married
a woman who was a waitress. I can think of many colleagues of
both my wife and myself, when I was a bus conductor, who would
be splendid members of the House of Lords. One of the inhibitions
is that people do not see anyone with that kind of background
in the House of Lords already, so they would be very inhibited
to nominate themselves. Do you not think your Commission should
be giving a lead on this, and appointing people from backgrounds
that would startle Charles?
Lord Jay of Ewelme: I think it
should be encouraging people to apply from a broad range of backgrounds
and skills, which is why we were talking earlier on about the
need to try to enlarge the pool, but bearing in mind all the time
that we are talking about quite a small number of appointments,
but yes, I do.
Q92 Mr Prentice: This is positively
my last question, or at least I think it is my last question.
When people are rejected, turned down, should they be told why?
Lord Jay of Ewelme: I think that
is a really difficult issue actually. Clearly, one would want
the Appointments Commission to operate best practice about how
you appoint, the time limit, when you are going to hear about
the next stage, when you hear about the final stage and what you
are told afterwards, so, in theory, yes. Is that practical in
this instance? I do not know because, in a sense, what you are
saying to somebody is, "You've got fantastic qualifications
and expertise, but, by comparison with somebody else coming up
right now, it doesn't look quite right". That is a slightly
trickier message to send back to somebody, particularly if you
are maybe going, as it were, to stay on the books for a bit. So
I think the whole question of feedback afterwards is something
which the new Commission would want to look at and I think it
is a really important issue.
Q93 Chairman: In some respects, the
House of Lords is already more representative than the House of
Commons.
Lord Jay of Ewelme: Yes.
Q94 Chairman: I suspect that some
of the questions you have had bowled at you really should be asked
of ourselves; we are not overflowing with hairdressers and bus
conductors here either. Can I ask just one more practical thing
of you. You have mentioned several times the notion of people
playing, what you call, an "active part" in the Lords,
and the job of the Commission is to put people on it. What do
you think "active part" means?
Lord Jay of Ewelme: I think it
means taking part in debates, taking part on a reasonably regular
basis in questions, it means being willing to sit on committees,
it means taking a role in all-party groups, it means being present
at the party groups, the cross-benchers' weekly meeting and other
party group weekly meetings and making a contribution. It means
seeing the House of Lords as an important, though not the only,
aspect of your working life.
Q95 Chairman: And how much in time
terms would that involve, do you think, on a weekly basis?
Lord Jay of Ewelme: It is hard
to say. I think it would be a couple of days a week, two or three
or days a week, but I think that is rather hard to say. Some people
will play a very, very important role by pursuing a particular
interest when a bill is going through or a particular committee,
which means they might not be terribly visible, but are playing
a really important role. This will vary.
Q96 Chairman: I am interested that
you are saying that you think that someone has to devote two or
three days a week to this enterprise to be serious.
Lord Jay of Ewelme: No, I would
not. As I say, I do not think you can quantify it quite like that.
Q97 Chairman: Well, you did say,
when I asked you—
Lord Jay of Ewelme: To be honest,
I said that because that is what I do. It is about, I would think,
two days a week or thereabouts and I think I maintain that.
Q98 Chairman: It is a pretty fundamental
question because people are applying for this thing and they want
to know what the deal is, "What am I signing up for?"
You interview them and you say, "Are you going to be an active
member?" and they will say, "Well, what does being an
active member mean?"
Lord Jay of Ewelme: I and, I am
sure, the other members of the Commission, who are members of
the House of Lords, would want to give their own views on this,
but, as I say, it is taking an active part in the activities of
the House of Lords. That will be spread out over time, but it
means being seen to be there and people do not sort of say, "Well,
where is he?" or "Where is she?" It is playing,
I would think, a couple of days a week.
Mr Walker: Perhaps you could send them
a tape of this session, because that would give them a good idea
of what was required.
Q99 Chairman: It turns out of course
that you have no follow-up because, if someone does not show up
at all, there is nothing at all you can do about it and, if someone
simply applied because they wanted to be called a lord and the
answer to the question, "Will you play an active part?"
was "Yes, of course I'll play an active part" and then
did not, there is nothing you can do about it.
Lord Jay of Ewelme: That is why
again, I think you need to go upstream a little bit and look at
the criteria and say whether there should be a commitment to do
more, whether there should be some sort of mentoring to encourage
people, and make it a little bit more of a commitment. If somebody
says that they are going to and then simply does not, as you say,
there is no obvious sanction.
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