My Lords, I rise to support the Bill, moved so ably and wittily by my noble friend Lord Grocott. I want to start by asking a question that many people outside this House are asking: what is the House of Lords for? What is our purpose? Some Members opposite, no doubt including the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, think that it is for
wise men—particularly men, reluctantly accepting women now—to advise the Commons, to offer our wisdom, but ultimately accept our impotence. I do not believe that is how the second Chamber of a bicameral system should operate. It is entirely ridiculous. We have no authority whatsoever. We have no legitimacy whatsoever. Ultimately, this place has to be reformed. I am glad that my party—the Labour Party—is in favour of an indirectly elected senate of the nations and regions. On other occasions I will argue the case in favour of that.
Meanwhile, as we acknowledge in the Labour group in the Lords, and indeed other people have acknowledged, there is a need for reforming our existing structure. We have set up a committee to look at the size of the House. I am not sure that it is the wisest thing to have as chair someone who, though a very distinguished former civil servant, is not one of the best attenders of the House, to see how we actually operate. But there we are; we have that.
Meanwhile, one of the things that I hope will be looked at is ending the participation of all the hereditary Peers, as well as ending the by-elections. Those who should legitimately sit here or who now have a place to offer some wisdom or advice in the House could become life Peers, on the clear understanding that they are, like most of us who have been appointed, working Peers. We should see the second Chamber as based on the concept of working Peers.
Working Peers, however, need some assistance. I was sitting in my office the other day in Millbank House, and the telephone rang. Naturally, I answered it, and someone from a large company asked, “Could I speak to Lord Foulkes’s diary secretary?”. I said, “Yes, you are speaking to Lord Foulkes’s diary secretary”, and I fixed myself an appointment. We do not have diary secretaries; most of us do not even have secretaries.
I had some correspondence with the Clerk of the Parliaments recently, just the other day, suggesting that he might second one of the members of his extensive staff to help me. He thought I was joking, but I am not. People outside this House genuinely believe that, like MPs, we have three or four people working for us: doing our research; making our appointments; dealing with correspondence—I said this in my letter—and emails and phone calls; dealing with invitations; arranging our travel; and dealing with our committee papers, for those of us who are active on committees.
Then there is dealing with the ever-increasing demands of Black Rod—who is not my favourite person in this House—for security. We have to inform security about every visit, which I can understand as far as security is concerned, but it does impose additional burdens on us. How do we deal with it? We have absolutely no one to help us. It is ridiculous in the 21st century.