20 MAY 2004

RT HON JOHN MAJOR CH

  Q880 Mr Prentice: We do not have enough time to go into the ins and outs of the Stevenson Committee, but I think I am right in saying—and my colleagues will correct me if I am wrong—that self-nomination is now allowed and the Stevenson Committee does consider those self-nominations. In your evidence to us, you suggest that the Stevenson Committee could turn itself into a kind of headhunting agency. You tell us, "They"—that is, the Stevenson Committee—"could look at gaps in the expertise available to the Lords and seek to fill them." How on earth would that happen? The Stevenson Committee already had two roadshows, which were widely ridiculed—they have dropped the idea now, I think. How, in practical terms, could they identify people who should serve in the Lords and encourage them to come forward?

  Mr Major: I think, if you asked Lord Stevenson, you would see, when he gets his large number of nominations, I would be very surprised if he did not say, "When we looked at the worthiness of these nominations we also looked at the same time, in choosing between a large number of candidates, where there might be gaps in the House of Lords that they could fill." So I do not think what I am suggesting is very much adrift from what I suspect in practice is how the Stevenson Committee operate. I am not a member of the Stevenson Committee but I think you have had some of them before you giving evidence and you could certainly make inquiries about that. I do not regard them as a headhunting operation. I am seeking to try to achieve something which I rather thought from your earlier questions would have been something in which you were interested as well, which is a more independent element. It is because of the importance of that independence that I stressed the fact that I think they should be on a statutory basis. And there is a case also for Parliament determining who the membership of the Stevenson Committee is, and there is certainly a case for them not remaining members for too long. I think that is a point. I think they should serve for a period of years. Do not clear out the whole committee at once, do it on a staged basis, but it does not want to be a self-perpetuating committee forever.

  Q881 Mr Prentice: One final question on this before I hand over to my colleagues. What about those peers who have been put into the Lords by the Stevenson Committee and then do nothing? They do not turn up, they do not participate, they do not ask any questions, they do not make any speeches, and yet they have the handle, let's say, "Lord Brown". Should people in those circumstances be required to relinquish their peerage? Because they do not make any contribution at all.

  Mr Major: With great respect, that is not just peers put in there by the Stevenson Committee. I think you can go back and look at peers put in by Tony Blair, by me, by Margaret Thatcher, and no doubt by our predecessors, who are irregular attenders. So I think there is a proposition there. If someone is appointed to the legislative chamber, of course, you could remove them—I think that would be a bit draconian—but you could certainly take away their right to vote if they are irregular attenders over a very long period. It may be that they can still turn up to talk with great expertise upon a subject, and that may be of value; it may be that they can serve on a specialist committee, and that would be of value. But there is an importance in the legislative committee in maintaining a proper, fair political balance. That is certainly true. So if you have people who are perennial non-attenders, then, rather than expelling them from the House—which I think would be very draconian and messy and difficult—I think it would be more logical for consideration to be given to whether they should continue to retain the right to vote. I think that would be a better way of handling it.

  Q882 Chairman: Is not the more logical way of approaching this to separate completely the honours system from service in the second chamber. Many of these people do not want to be foot soldiers in a second chamber, they want to be Lords, do they not?

  Mr Major: I do not disagree with that. That is why I made the point earlier that the membership of the House of Lords is technically an appointment to a legislative chamber rather than part of the honours system. If you were strictly constitutionally proper, it would be beyond the remit of this Committee when you are examining the honours system because it is not technically the honours system. So I have some sympathy with the point you make.

  Q883 Mr Hopkins: To reinforce what I said earlier, the examples where the system has been brought into disrepute, I think, invariably are appointments where prime ministers have been personally very closely involved. If prime ministers and politicians were taken out of the system, those sorts of examples might not arise in future. It might actually have more public support and credibility and acceptance than it does now.

  Mr Major: Well, I think you are echoing what I have just been saying.

  Q884 Mrs Campbell: I would like to take you back to a couple of points that you made previously. In your very helpful submission to the Committee you talk about the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and you say, almost regretfully—and I would like to confirm this is the case—"The loss of (almost) all the hereditary peers removes the most independent element from the Lords. The hereditaries owed their membership to birth and not to preferment: they had no obligations, were Members for life, and could be wholly independent". Is that an indication that you regret the removal of most of the hereditary peers from the House of Lords?

  Mr Major: I think there was an inevitability about it. I regret it because they were not replaced by people who were similarly independent. The whole thrust of the conversation in the last 15 minutes or so has been concerns about one or other aspects of the way preferment is confirmed, here there was thorough independence. Now, I suppose many people think, "Well, there were all these wretched old ancient peers supporting the Tory party day in day out"—I can recall quite a lot of occasions during my period as Prime Minister when very senior peers were anything but supportive and led huge rebellions against the last government. But you are right, it is very difficult constitutionally to defend the hereditary principle; that has always been the case. It may be efficient and it may solve some of the problems we have been talking about on preferment but it is very difficult constitutionally to defend. The point I am making there is that, since they have gone and there is no point in arguing about that now—or all but gone—the requirement is to make sure the House of Lords has people who are similarly independent and, going back to the point that was made very early in our discussion, not people just put there by the Prime Minister to walk through the lobbies with no other contribution to make, and that independent element is very difficult to get.

  Q885 Mrs Campbell: So you are arguing that the independence could come from maybe a long period of appointment?

  Mr Major: No. I am arguing very much in favour of it not being a wholly political chamber, wholly nominated by the political parties, and that there is great added value to the House of Lords from the cross benchers who do not necessarily wear a particular political label but sit on the cross benches. If you look at the cross benches there are people with huge experience from a whole range of areas—universities, the Armed Forces, trade unions, business, the City—wherever it may be, and from, of course, the public service, who sit on the cross benches and, of course, the bishops' bench and the legal bench, and I think it is that independent, non political element merged alongside the political appointments made by the respective political parties that gives the House of Lords its unique flavour and I think, in many ways, its unique abilities, because it is very difficult to find a subject in the House of Lords upon which there is not someone, often a number of people, who have very long and practical experience and, since it is a revising chamber and not an initiating political chamber I think that is very valuable, and that is what I am striving towards, making sure we do not throw out in any reforms we make.

  Q886 Mrs Campbell: I am interested in pursuing your ideas about the hereditary principle because it seems to have been contradicted by the award of the baronetcy to Denis Thatcher. How can you tie together those two events?

  Mr Major: Life is full of contradictions, Anne! I dare say if we observed your long and distinguished political career I bet I could find a contradiction! I may be wrong but I am inclined to think that—go on, admit it!

  Q887 Mrs Campbell: All right!

  Mr Major: Good. Excellent. Now we can move on!

  Q888 Mrs Campbell: But you have also stated that you are very keen to promote equality of opportunity. Indeed, one of the things that coloured your premiership were the statements that you made about a classless society, and I find it very odd that you can promote apparently the hereditary principle in the House of Lords because of the independence, the hereditary principle as far as Denis Thatcher is concerned in giving him a baronetcy, and yet you can still talk about equal opportunity. Is that another one of those contradictions?

  Mr Major: Certainly not. As I recall, if you are talking about opportunity and if you want to take the Denis Thatcher example, he was a commoner, he got the opportunity, he became an hereditary baronet—you could argue that is opportunity, just as somebody moving from Brixton to Downing Street is, or from member for Cambridge to Downing Street, no doubt, in due course. So I think you build too great a house on too small an issue, with great respect.

  Q889 Mrs Campbell: I can see that in respect of Denis Thatcher, but not of Mark Thatcher. Would you like to comment on that?

  Mr Major: No, I would not like to comment on that. We have had a tradition in this country for a very long time and I was not sure I was coming here to discuss the merits of Mark Thatcher—

  Q890 Chairman: Sometimes good examples illustrate great principles!

  Mr Major: —nor am I in a position to do so, but what I am in a position to do is talk about the Honours List, which is what I have been doing, and we have dealt with this subject and you can carry on with it if you wish, but I am not sure we will progress very much further.

  Q891 Mrs Campbell: I would just like to take up another apparent contradiction in what you said, because you told me that you think journalists should not get honours until they retire, yet you are not in favour of abolishing the rule that prevents people from getting honours after they retire, so is that another way of saying that you do not think journalists should get honours, full stop?

  Mr Major: No, it is not. I have no objection to journalists getting honours—

  Q892 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Shame!

  Mr Major: —I note you say "shame", Ian. I am sure all the sketchwriters will note it very carefully too! I thought I had set out clearly why I thought in the particular circumstances of journalism with their interaction with politics it was undesirable to provide them with political honours while they were still working in that political sphere, but I do not stop people outside political journalism or proprietorship or editorship getting honours within their working life, and there are special circumstances which lead me to my own particular view on journalists.

  Q893 Mrs Campbell: So you would have one rule for journalists and another rule for non?

  Mr Major: Well, journalists are in a different position.

  Q894 Sir Sydney Chapman: Before I ask any questions I suppose I should declare an interest—

  Mr Major: I just hope you are not feeling too uncomfortable!

  Q895 Sir Sydney Chapman: When you instituted possible reforms of the honours system back in 1992 and a report was produced, one of the four recommendations was "voluntary work would receive more recognition". I think that has been the case but would you like to comment? Have things turned out as you hoped they would in relation to honouring people for voluntary work?

  Mr Major: Yes, pretty much it has. That was one of the main reasons for undertaking the review. I referred earlier to the fact that I thought there was some class distinction in the award of the BEM, and I do not think any one dissents from that, but also I thought there were too many awards to the public service and certainly too few to the voluntary service, and I thought partly this was because so much of the voluntary work is done anonymously, or relatively anonymously; it does not fall within the natural eye span of so many people; so it was necessary to widen the nomination system in order to get more people who do unsung voluntary work for other people into the Honours List. I have always thought that awards should recognise outstanding achievement, self-sacrifice, and work done for other people. That is more important than awards for people who are well paid for what they do but have a bit of added value; that is where it should rest. So I very much wished to see a dramatic increase in the awards for people who do voluntary work, and not only an increase in awards but I thought in many cases the awards for people in the voluntary sector were below par for what they might usefully have been. So I wished to see that changed. Now, it has improved a lot. It may have a bit further to go, and there are some problems. Producing exactly the right tariff, exactly the right level of award, is often difficult but I think a lot of improvement has come about in the last few years, and very possibly there is scope for more.

  Q896 Sir Sydney Chapman: Do you think that MPs, for example, have a special obligation perhaps to put forward people for recommendation for some public recognition? It seems to me that we get to know quite a number of our constituents in the very work that we do and, whilst I fully take your point that there should not be personal lobbying of the Prime Minister of the day, I just wondered if you felt that there were particular categories of people who should be encouraged to make recommendations?

  Mr Major: I think there is one area where MPs could make a great contribution. With the voluntary sector and things now there is a proper well established system and that happens, but there are people who fall through the system. If somebody does a huge amount of work for a particular charity, it is probable they will be known and probable someone allied to that charity will nominate them. Now let me put to you a different case of someone who does a certain amount of work for one charity, a certain for another charity, a certain amount for youngsters in sport—a whole range of different things. None of those individually are high enough profile for the individual group they are helping to nominate them. Now, an MP would be as likely to know these people as anybody else and I think that is a particular area where people fall through the system at the moment. It is a bit of a silo system. If you do a lot in a particular area you become known, but if you do it across a whole range you do not become known and there is an area I think where members of Parliament, or leaders of councils, for example, are often in a particularly good position to see people doing a great deal of work who deserve recognition and who often, at the moment, fall through the middle of the system.

  Q897 Sir Sydney Chapman: From my own personal experience I very much agree with you on that because I have certainly had cases where because somebody has not necessarily for thirty years worked for the NSPCC or whatever but has helped the Guide Dogs for the Blind, NSPCC, RSPCA, Friends of Barnet Hospital or whatever, they always seem to fall through the net, so I very much welcome that. Taking the question of putting Stevenson on a statutory basis, it seems to me that it would be a good thing to have an independent honours committee and that all nominations should be made to that committee and the Prime Minister of the day, for example, can remove himself, arm's length at least, from the whole process, of course accepting that the Prime Minister of the day should be able to nominate certain people for certain things. So could I have it on the record that you do think that an independent honours committee would be a good thing?

  Mr Major: A Prime Minister's role even in the Prime Minister's list is minimal. The amount of time it took me to have one, maybe two, very formal meetings to endorse what was done was minimal and would have been no particular loss to me. But I draw the distinction between the Honours List proper and, again, the House of Lords. Because the House of Lords is a legislative chamber it does need working peers and self evidently the leaders of the political parties, whether they be Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition or leader of a minor party, are bound to be involved in that. But as far as the Honours List itself is concerned, the Prime Minister's role is much more marginal than anybody realises and it certainly would not bother me particularly if it was dealt with independently. I would not be at all concerned about that.

  Q898 Sir Sydney Chapman: Finally, do you think there are too many different types of honours and there is a case for rationalisation? I notice in your memorandum you have come round to the view that the Order of the British Empire should be changed by name—I think that is right?

  Mr Major: Yes, it is.

  Q899 Sir Sydney Chapman: —which presumably you did not accept 10 years ago?

  Mr Major: Emphatically I did not. Ten years ago I produced a Parliamentary Answer defending the maintenance of the Order of the British Empire. I did it at the time; I was persuaded at the time that that was right, and I thought it was right at the time, but I certainly was not fiercely possessive of the name. It is not easy to find an alternative name. The name I have suggested here is one of minimum change to produce an Order of British Excellence, so you would still have an MBE, Member of the Order of British Excellence, an OBE, a CBE—you would still maintain the familiar nomenclatures and people would still know that, but it would be open to people who perhaps deserve an honour who say that there is not an empire and they do not believe there should have been an empire so they are writing to the Prime Minister and declining an honour that they probably merit. So I think you could change that. It is not entirely a painfree option; there is a bit of a read-across to other members of the Commonwealth, though I am no longer familiar enough with how the system works to know precisely where that is, and there would be a bit of a problem with Great Britain and Northern Ireland, so if you have the Order of British Excellence there is a Northern Ireland wrinkle to be determined, but I do not think that is beyond the wit of Parliament to determine. So I would think there has been so much criticism of the word "Empire" in the Order of the British Empire for so long that I think it is practical to move on and probably wise, but I prefer minimum perceptive change so I prefer to stick to the OBEs and MBEs and so forth.