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Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, this has been an interesting and valuable debate in the best traditions and customs of your Lordships' House. I believe that to preserve these traditions and customs it would be better not to change our arrangements. We are happy with the Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack, as our predecessors have been. After all, our predecessors elected for that to happen when they passed the Standing Order that lays down that it is so. Admittedly, that was a while ago—1660—but until we amend Standing Order 18, the Lord Chancellor is required to sit and the Motion today does not amend the standing order.
I think we are all delighted that the present noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has expressed himself happy to continue. But we are also all aware that since the passage of the Constitutional Reform Act it is even more possible that a future Lord Chancellor will be a Member of another place. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Desai, that I believe it would be inappropriate for a Lord Chancellor who is a Member of another place to sit on the Woolsack, even thought I acknowledge the point made by noble friend Lord Onslow that it would not, strictly speaking, be impossible. He would not be ineligible.
But I hope that if the Lord Chancellor comes from another place, that will not mean that there is only one Peer in the Cabinet. On that, I am not quite so gloomy as my noble friend Lord Elton. I do not regard it as necessarily inevitable and I hope that the noble
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Baroness the Leader of the House will be able to reassure us on this point when she replies in a few moments. If the Leader of the House were the only member of the Cabinet from your Lordships' House, it would place an even heavier burden on the holder of that office.
In the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and recognising the sudden and unpredictable nature of government reshuffles, it is right to consider what we should do if a future Lord Chancellor were not available to sit on the Woolsack. Some people want a person of less seniority, but more power. That is not usually the way things work, but that seems to be what is asked for here. Much has been said about the desirability of self-regulation. Stated as a general phrase, we are all in agreement with that and I am delighted that today's Motion supports it strongly. But this debate has shown that we need to think carefully about exactly what the attributes of self-regulation are, because it is a delicate flower.
Like some other noble Lords who spoke earlier today, I warn against the phrase "the guardian of the Companion to the Standing Orders". That phrase was used in the Select Committee report, but like several other noble Lords who have spoken, I believe that it is incompatible with true self-regulation. Self-regulation essentially means that we are all guardians of the Companion, not one Peer especially. In our conduct, each of us should seek to follow the Companion and each of us should also try to ensure that other noble Lords do so.
I acknowledge at once, particularly to the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, that whips, and especially chief whips, have an important duty here. I try to discharge it, and the Front Benches do generally. But I think that it is the duty of us all.
Of course from time to time a Peer may stray from the Companion's directions in one way or another, either from inadvertence or by getting carried away with the enthusiasm of the cause that he or she is espousing at the time. But it is essential for good order that they are courteously encouraged back to correct usage by another Peer—usually either a Member of the Front Bench or a senior Peer. When I first arrived here a few years ago the late and much lamented Lord Malcolm Shepherd was particularly good at steering recalcitrant Members back into order.
As I say, we are all the guardians of the Companion. That is how it should be if self-regulation is to be the rule. If the Peer on the Woolsack, whatever he or she is called, becomes the sole or even the principal guardian of the Companion, the duty to intervene will fall on him or her. If another Peer thinks that a transgression is taking place at some point, he will suggest to the guardian that this is so. In other words, he will raise a point of order.
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, put the matter well when he said that there is no point of order in the House of Lords because there is no one to give a ruling. If you make the Peer on the Woolsack the guardian of the Companion, he is the person who will have to give the ruling and that is the introduction of the point of order.
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There has been a lot of discussion in the debate about what we seek to avoid in connection with references to another place, in which I sat for a good many years. Visitors frequently remark on the pleasant contrast between the two ends of the corridor. The worst feature of the behaviour in another place is often said to be—as has also been said this afternoon—points of order, particularly of course bogus points of order. I do not think that there is any group in your Lordships' House keener to avoid that feature spreading here than those of us on every side who were previously Members of another place.
It is important to realise that the reason points of order are made to Mr Speaker, and the reason he or she has to listen to them, is exactly because Mr Speaker is the guardian of the Standing Orders in another place. If we make the Peer on the Woolsack the guardian, we create points of order. That is to step on to the downward slope towards a presiding officer, like Mr Speaker; indeed, I think it is to grease the slide.
In holding out, as the Motion does, for the primacy of self-regulation, we may seem to be swimming against the tide of modernisation. In every sphere of life it seems that we have to have regulators to control activity. Regulation is one of the growth industries. Wherever there is a regulator, those regulating push against the regulations and sail as close to them as they possibly dare. For that reason, regulations, as we know every day, are constantly being refined, extended and so on.
If holding out against the onward march of regulators looks old-fashioned, well, so be it; we should do so with enthusiasm as an example to others of self-regulation and that vital attribute, self-discipline. As a matter of fact, I do not think that we should be swimming against the tide, we would be in fashion because there is, these days, much emphasis on respect. What we are arguing for is exactly that respect for our fellow Peers which should come from each of us and not be imposed on us by a regulator.
So, in not having an equivalent of Mr Speaker we would be in the van of current thought: schools need to instil self-discipline; professions need to encourage it. We should not go the other way and give up the power of all of us Peers to guard our own Companion and to guard our own customs.
I also tentatively suggest to the Select Committee that we should emphasise in other ways that whoever sits on the Woolsack is our peer—our equal—not our regulator. Take, for example, the name. Like the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, I fear that if the new appointee is called the Lord Speaker, he or she will tend more and more, as time goes on, to be treated like Mr Speaker. I prefer the individual to be called the Lord Chairman, but there are other possible suggestions.
On dress, the Select Committee suggested that there should be a gown. But that is to follow the legal dress code. The Lord Chancellor wears the robes that he does because of his judicial functions; they are the same wig and robes as those of the heads of the divisions of the civil courts. For many years, Mr Speaker has worn the same
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robes. Such a gown would imply that the Peer on the Woolsack was, like him, a dispenser of the law—or, rather, of the Companion. I suggest that the Lord Chairman, when accompanying the Mace in procession or representing us on great occasions in Westminster Hall or overseas, should wear the parliamentary robe that we all wear for the State Opening. He or she could put the robe aside later in the day, when relieved from the Woolsack after Questions. That would emphasise that all Peers are equal, as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said and as we are all told, but also give the appropriate dignity—a dignity borrowed from all of us because it would be the same robe that we all wear.
The Select Committee also drew attention to the difficulty of the Clerks advising the Lord Chairman when trying to deal with a situation. It suggested electronic communication—that is possible, presumably—and that that was preferable to rearranging the Chamber. We certainly do not want to do that. Even if only the duty to select Peers at Starred Questions was transferred—a matter of which we are all conscious today—that might mean raising the Woolsack a step or two to improve the view. Otherwise, the Cross Benches over here will miss out. In fact, I believe that the Lord Chairman should remain on the same level as us and should not have such powers transferred.
My noble friend Lord St John of Fawsley said that the person, whatever he or she is called, should be resident. If the Lord Chairman were the guardian of the Companion, it would be necessary to be resident on the premises. Mr Speaker does so simply because he may be required at any time to come into the Chamber to take over the chair from a deputy and rule on some matter of their Standing Orders. That is another warning to us.
For all those reasons, but above all for the preservation of self-regulation, which we all want and which the Motion requires, the Lord Chairman should not take from us the sole right to be the guardian of the Companion. If I may put it in a few phrases: long live self-discipline; down with points of order; and power to the Peers, not the Woolsack.
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