Decriminalising drug use

I see that Sir Ian Gilmore, the retiring president of the Royal College of Physicians, has endorsed the call made by Nicholas Green QC, the chairman of the Bar Council, to consider the decriminalisation of drug use.  He believes that this could drastically cut crime and addicts’ health problems.

Drug taking is a mug’s game – harming not only the taker but, under the present system, many others as well – but making the practice a criminal offence appears to cause as many if not more problems than it solves.  The best force to reducing drug use is likely to be educative and relying on peer pressure, as has happened with cigarette use. 

Sir Ian Gilmore’s call reinforces the case for a Royal Commission, or something similar, on our drugs law, though ultimately only action at international level will make much difference.

Exotic titles

In an editorial this morning, The Guardian has noted that some peers revert to the old practice of selecting territorial titles, Ian Paisley for example having entered the House as Lord Bannside and John Gummer having entered as Lord Deben.  (Interestingly, John Gummer’s brother, Peter Gummer, sits as Lord Chadlington.  We thus have two Gummers but no Lord Gummer.)   The leader writer clearly has a sense of nostalgia.  As the editorial goes on to record:

“Once those who went to the Lords habitually adopted euphonious names. Talbot de Malahide. Dufferin and Clandeboye. Valletort. Saye and Sele (though the family name in this case was the even more exotic Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes). Viscount Massereene and Ferrard, aka Baron Oriel. Some of these names persist: others have died with their dynasties. But at least since the introduction of life peers, the general practice has been to keep the name you arrived with, while tacking a place name on to the end….  While the unreformed Lords and unreformed honours persist, could there not be a trace more originality?”

The problem with being original and choosing a purely territorial title is that people are likely to forget who you were before you entered the House.  ‘Look there’s Lord Bannside’.  ‘My goodness, doesn’t he look like Ian Paisley!’

Expenses

As someone claimed that we hadn’t addressed the issue of expenses in the Lords I thought I should put the record straight. If you type in the search box ‘expenses’ you will find quite a few entries from me and others.

Recently we introduced a new system which will take effect from October. It is IMV a marked improvement on the previous one but we still need more changes. I pointed out in my speech on this in July that we ought to review the assistance given to Peers with disabilities as a priority but other changes are needed over time. I still favour bringing in IPSA (the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority) to work on this but IPSA is remarkably unpopularat the moment and there is some justification for that. If we are not to have an independent model then my favoured option is to have continuous review with recommendations to the House  formally (and therfore publically) agreed on the floor of the House.

Meanwhile we have wrapped up the various allowances into a single one which is rather less than the total of the previous ones. It means we get £300 every time we attend BUT before you say “Yikes!” do remember that has to cover everything. So I have to pay my secretary/researcher out of that and all other expenses. I also don’t get any money if I am working but not physically in the House. There is of course no formal pay, no holiday or sick pay and no pension so don’t give up your day job if you are coming into the House of Lords!  AND we are still by far the cheapest second chamber in the world.

The weekly quiz – identify the faces

I thought I would set a somewhat different quiz question this week, perhaps providing an opportunity to win for readers who regularly watch debates in the Lords on the Parliament channel.  

As readers of The Norton View will be aware, I have just been archiving a large number of photographs.  I reproduce here one taken at a graduation ceremony at the University of Hull earlier this year.

This week’s question is a straightforward one.  I am on the right.  Who are the other two people in the photograph?

Peers’ expenses

Over the past two years, the problems of parliamentary expenses have tended to be dominated by stories affecting the House of Commons.  The Daily Telegraph was at the forefront of revealing claims made by MPs.  However, The Sunday Times identified problems with peers’ expenses and this acted as a wake-up call to the House.  Since then, the House has been addressing issues of expenses and conduct.  Various bodies were established in order to make recommendations and in recent months we have seen the fruits of their activities. 

Following a report from a committee chaired by former Archbishop Lord Eames, we now have a new Code of Conduct.  When peers are sworn in, they not only take the oath but also now subscribe to the code.  (That is why you see a peer, on introduction, signing two documents).  The House has also appointed a Commissioner for Standards (former Chief Constable Paul Kernaghan) to investigate complaints against peers.  He reports his findings to a Sub-Committee on Conduct, presently headed by the former head of MI6 Baroness Manningham-Buller and including former Lord Chancellor Lord Irving of Lairg.  Its findings are published.

Various changes were proposed in the 2009-10 session by the House Committee to the financial provision for peers.  In the new Parliament, following recommendations from an ad hoc grouped chaired by Lord Wakeham, and a report from the House Committee, the Leader of the House, Lord Strathclyde, proposed a new and simple system of expenses.  This was agreed without a vote on 20 July.  An amendment to provide that peers should continue to be entitled to first-class travel was rejected.

We no longer have different headings under which we can claim expenses.  There is no overnight accommodation allowance – the main focus of controversy – for peers who live outside London.  Instead, there is a single day rate to cover all expenses, including accommodation, secretarial support, research assistance, and daily subsistence.  One can claim either the full rate of £300 or a reduced rate of £150, the latter designed for those who are not able to devote the full day to parliamentary work.  One can also claim travel expenses for travelling to London – where this is done by public transport, one uses a travel card, so the payment is made direct by the House and can be monitored. 

The introduction of the new scheme – which takes effect following the recess – was welcomed by the media, notably The Times.  Its simplicity has been contrasted with the system operating now in the Commons.  The regime in the Lords is straightforward to operate.  It requires no substantial bureaucracy.  The cost of the Fees Office in the Commons used to be approximately £2 million a year.  The cost of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) is claimed to be over £6 million a year (though IPSA disputes the figure).   The new scheme in the Lords is expected at worst to be cost-neutral and at best to cost less than the existing system.

The new scheme willl be monitored to see if it is working effectively, but it marks a significant break with past practice and is designed to minimise any opportunity for mis-use of public funds.   I very much welcome it.  The more the system has the merits of simplicity and transparency the better.