House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Baroness Berridge Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, begin by applauding the hard work of hereditary Peers in this House, such as my noble friend Lord Howe, which is exemplary. This is the first time I have spoken on this issue, but the current system undermines the credibility of all the hard work which your Lordships undertake on behalf of the British public.

In January this year, Her Majesty’s Government outlined their argument in response to a Question from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that suspending these by-elections would result in a change to a wholly appointed House, but I struggle to understand how that argument can be raised against this reform. Can Her Majesty’s Government really be saying that the public wish the hereditary principle to be part of the selection criteria for their representatives in the second Chamber and would want it retained—otherwise the evil of a wholly appointed House would befall us?

Your Lordships’ House and Her Majesty’s Government are here to serve the public, and I have seen nothing to suggest that Her Majesty’s Government have consulted the public or have their views or interests as the basis for at best their technical opposition to this Bill. In fact, I think that the reverse is true: there is a very strong anti-establishment and anti-elite sense in sections of the UK public, and having part of the legislature selected by birth or entitlement in its literal sense is an anathema in the 21st century. Can my noble friend prove that the public think otherwise? If the Government are not prepared to consult, they should drop their opposition to the Bill.

However, more important to me than the objection to the selection criteria for a role in a 21st-century legislature is the gender and racial discrimination that the current system of selection embodies. I join wholeheartedly with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, in relation to gender discrimination. Although peerages are exempt from the equalities legislation, for the Mother of Parliaments to have a gender discriminatory element in its selection is unjustifiable. As a Member recently selected for the CPA UK executive, I believe that it is contradictory to the millions of pounds of UK taxpayers’ money spent through the CPA, the IPU, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, DfID and the FCO on parliamentary capacity building, when I have to hide sections of the selection criteria from visiting delegations as I am so embarrassed and would not want them to follow this example.

For the record, I do not vote in these elections when no woman is on the ballot paper; should a woman be on the ballot paper, I will consider all candidates on merit.

Further, and perhaps more controversially, no information is held by the Journal Office on the racial profile of this closed group of potential Members of your Lordships’ House. I rely merely on the news report from 2013 of the future first black Marchioness of Bath to say that the group is currently entirely white.

I recognise that this discrimination is de facto—in fact—not de jure. There is no evidence that there is any racial discriminatory element in any letters patent. However, de facto it will take at least 50 years to change both the electors and the candidates for election to your Lordships’ House. Imagine the party groups, the Appointments Commission, or the Bishops recruiting on such a basis. If Her Majesty’s Government are seriously saying to this House that moving to a fully appointed House is such a radical reform which they cannot support or give time to, and that this is more important than selecting from a whites-only group, then I am speechless.

I conclude with a disclaimer. I disagree with the noble Lord Grocott. The retention of this system is not just about a handful of Members of your Lordships’ House who may attempt to filibuster—though I would like to be put to the test on outlasting them—but about the responsibility of Her Majesty’s Government who, in our constitutional system, control the legislative agenda. Peers overwhelmingly do not want it, MPs would not support it, and so the gender and racially biased system remains at the behest of Her Majesty’s Government. Why a Government led by a Prime Minister who cares passionately about racial and gender injustice lacks the political will to sort this out is hard to explain.

Sadly, it took 50 years from when women could become MPs for them to enter this House as life Peers, in 1958, and it was not until 1963 that female hereditary Peers could be admitted. The Government found legislative time for a voluntary retirement age, for expulsion of criminal Peers, and for women Bishops—I am happy to see one in her place—to jump the queue. Next year, we celebrate a century of women in Parliament as MPs; surely Her Majesty’s Government will have acted by then.