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

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 23rd November 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, in rising to question the proposal that Clause 1 stand part of the Bill, I take the opportunity to put a question to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. The noble Lord is, of course, a very senior and distinguished member of the Labour Party and doubtless attended the party conference in Liverpool, I think it was, earlier this year where among the policies decided upon, as I understand it, was an early general election. If that happens this Bill would sink without trace, so presumably the noble Lord does not support the idea of an early general election. Will he clarify that for us?

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, this Private Member’s Bill being committed to a Grand Committee is in the nature of an experiment. It is clearly a hugely successful one. This must be a record attendance at a Grand Committee. The usual channels may consider this an important precedent that might be useful on other occasions.

I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, has mentioned elections because what makes this Bill particularly important is an impending parliamentary by-election which will take place on Wednesday when we will have a new Member of the House of Lords elected by 16 people. As the noble Lord knows, the electorate is 31 people, so the mathematicians will be able to work out that 16 votes will be enough to get someone elected. In most parliamentary by-elections some 20,000 votes are needed for a new Member of Parliament to arrive. I simply say to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, that Clause 1 needs to stand part. If it does not, 50% of the Bill will be gone. It is a two-clause Bill that has so far attracted I think 75 amendments. I urge the noble Lord to let the matter go so we move on to the detailed discussion of Clause 2.

[Lord Trefgarne]

Against that reply, I assume that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is not in favour of an early general election, and nor am I.

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[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

There is only one point I want to raise, other than to say that of course we want a general election. Actually there are two issues. One, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, has just mentioned, is the importance of refreshing this House not only with those who happen to be sons of people who, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said, were appointed by a monarch or a Prime Minister. It will be important to refresh the House so that it is not just men who are appointed. That will certainly be the case for the Conservative Party which, otherwise, will end up very male-dominated.

My other point, from the point of view of the Labour Party, is on an issue that has been raised and which I have responded to before about the binding commitment. The binding commitment was, of course, not binding in law; it was binding until it was possible to change the composition of the House. I remind the noble Lord that that commitment was made in 1997. After we lost office, his party were in government in coalition from 2010 to 2015 and did not manage to bring in a change to the House, they were then not in coalition and did not do it, and they are now effectively in coalition again and are not doing it. The lack of commitment to changing the House means that a commitment made much earlier no longer has the standing that it had at the time.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I am grateful to a number of noble Lords who have spoken in favour of the Bill, and I do not want to add to the points that they made. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, shared a useful piece of information about the views of important people in the Commons in relation to this legislation. It gives me great heart if I am able to think that, should this House pass the Bill, as I very much hope it will, it would be a huge example to almost any other institution of an institution reforming itself in a sensible way.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, for that, and to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, who mentioned the need for speed. These by-elections will take place with increasing frequency; that is the inevitable consequence of age. We are talking about people who were identified as the 90 in 1999. There have been 44 by-elections since then—or 44 new Members as a result of by-elections; some have been for two new Peers—but inevitably they will come with greater frequency. There are two in the pipeline. The need to get this Bill through is all the more urgent if we are not to be subject to, it seems to me, the reasonable accusation of looking completely ridiculous with some of these by-elections. The point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, about the effect that an increasing proportion of the membership of the House being hereditary Peers will have on different parties is powerful.

I do not disagree at all with the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, about the need for a cap on the size of the House. I think very strongly that we should reduce the number of people here. But of course, if nothing is done specifically about the hereditary Peers—this is the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown—it will be significantly harder to reduce the size of the House if there are 92 people to whom “two out, one in” does not apply. The stats in the second, most recent report of the Burns committee are quite clear. They are small numbers so one should not draw huge lessons from them, but they make it pretty plain that it is difficult to reduce the size of the House if hereditary Peers are being replaced one-for-one, whereas everyone else is being replaced on the basis of one in for every two out.

This is a big group of amendments and I urge the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, not to press them further, either here or on Report, as they would have the cumulative effect of delaying the Bill’s implementation. I will be kind to him today and say that he is not trying to wreck the Bill with these amendments—though it was hard for me to say that—but they would certainly significantly delay it. One or two of them are, frankly, close to being silly, such as the idea of reviews of the work of both Houses. But let us leave it at that, and I appeal to him not to press them further either here or on Report.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, this has been a useful discussion. I would only say to my noble friend Lord Balfe that I think the McDonnell wing that he mentioned will put into the manifesto exactly what he says, whether this Bill goes through Parliament or not. It was in fact in the 1997 manifesto that all hereditary Peers should go. It is something that I agree with, because I think that all hereditary Peers, and all life Peers, ought to go. That is what I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard: whatever the composition of a House that is not 100% elected, it is easily criticised. That is why I believe that 100% election is much the best way forward for a second Chamber in this country.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, did not answer me at all on Amendment 39. I wonder whether he might give that some thought between now and the next stage, because it would not delay the Bill at all; it would merely clarify exactly what the Bill does, which is to abolish hereditary Peers. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, this group of amendments in various ways responds to the Burns report, which most of us welcome. They lay down all sorts of preconditions that this Bill cannot come into operation until sundry provisions of the Burns report have been implemented. We have been over the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, about the “binding commitment” in 1999 so many times. The inference of what he said is that my fingerprints were over that commitment. I can tell him exactly why the concession was made in 1999 that resulted in the difficulties we have had ever since with these by-elections. The Labour Government, with a colossal majority in the Commons, had the simplest possible statement of intent in respect of the House of Lords, which was to end the whole of the hereditary peerage—no ifs, no buts. However, as there was a huge majority of hereditary Peers—and Conservative Peers, although for this argument, that is beside the point—in this House it was plain that the legislation was not going to be admitted by them.

Worse than that, it became increasingly apparent that the rest of the Labour Government’s legislative promises to the electorate would not be able to be enacted because of the colossal amount of obstruction coming from the hereditary Peers at the time. That is the last time I am going to make that speech. It has the merit of being true. My good friend—and friend of many others here—Denis Carter, who was my predecessor as Chief Whip in the House of Lords, advised No. 10 and the Cabinet that there were real dangers to the Labour Government’s whole legislative programme. The settlement of 92 was obtained under duress—that is the only way in which it can sensibly be described. What is absolutely certain is that it was intended to be a short-term arrangement, yet here we are, 19 years later, debating at length—I shall make sure that my speeches are not at length—an end to what was intended to be temporary and is now 19 years old. Can we please not have that discussion ever again? I hope that the proposers of these amendments will agree not to press them further.

[Lord Trefgarne]

Perhaps it may be in order for me to say one brief sentence. The Government of whom the noble Lord was a distinguished member could have honoured the undertaking by bringing forward their own legislation to reform the House of Lords, which they chose not to do. They had eight or nine years subsequently in which to do that, but did not do a thing about it.

[Lord Grocott]

I fear that I am in danger of being bored; I do not know about anyone else. A Bill was introduced; it died in wash-up when the Labour Government were voted out of office in 2010. Subsequently, other efforts were made. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, cannot say with a straight face that they have been forever passionate supporters of a fully elected House. The two of them have been here for 100 years put together—full marks for that. If they were totally committed to a fully elected House and if they have been unable to do anything about it in those 100 years other than to keep repeating those barely credible words which are simply a device to delay and prevent enactment of this Bill, all I can say is that they have not been very effective parliamentarians. Please can we hear the end of that and move on.

Amendment 41 withdrawn.

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[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I really am grateful for the contributions we have had. I thought pretty much everything that could be said about this Bill had been said at the various stages so far. This is the third day in Committee, which must be unprecedented for a Private Member’s Bill, or close to it anyway. Still, new thoughts arise, not least—I suppose this is not a new thought but it is a very significant one—from my noble friend Lord Foulkes, whose point was embellished with skill and elegance by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, whose clerkly word to describe the allowance of this amendment being tabled to the Bill was “generous”. I shall remember that all-encompassing word, which avoids saying brutally what needs to be said. I was surprised as well that this amendment was in the scope of the Bill. Should the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, decide to bring this back on Report, I hope that they consult the clerkly community, as I am sure they do, and that the clerks will reflect on what has been said today during this debate—particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard—and decide that this should not be here. Many of us are perfectly happy about having a statutory Appointments Commission. I am happy about all things in life but I do not want them all tacked on to this Bill. That is all I am saying.

I appreciate the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. We have had very few votes, but support for this Bill in this House is overwhelming in all parties and in none, as well as among both life Peers and hereditary Peers. I have no doubt about that. I notice that one of the amendments asks that the Bill should not become operational until a majority of the hereditaries agree to it. This is only anecdotal, but a number of hereditary Peers have come to me to say, “Why on earth do they not let this Bill pass?” That is my appeal to them now.

We will come back to the Bill on Report. We have had a clear indication from the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, that there is a good chance that the Commons would support it. We would do ourselves no end of good by passing it and we would do ourselves significant damage if we allowed these silly by-elections to continue. Let us try to complete the Committee stage now.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, it made me smile when I heard several noble Lords criticise this proposal because I have had heard equally from noble Lords who want to attach their ideas to other legislation going through the House, their argument being, “We don’t get many chances to discuss bits of legislation so let’s tack it on to this Bill”. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, when he was the Chief Whip, will remember many occasions when amendments were tabled to tack on people’s specific wishes that some would consider not quite in the spirit of the Long Title. However, it was a chance to air a point.

Noble Lords have not criticised the need for a statutory Appointments Commission, although they have said that it would be wrong to have it with this legislation— I remember saying that as a Minister in response to quite a number of amendments.

I have been singled out for trying to delay the Bill. Yes, I have tabled amendments, but until today I think that we have had some six hours of discussion and I reckon that I have spoken for less than a quarter of an hour. I do not think that it is me who is holding up the Bill or discussion on it. I may have put down amendments, but everyone else seems to want to chime in.

I regret that the opportunity has not been taken to put this proposal into the Bill because I do not think that it would cause much of a problem. If everyone wants it, this is a perfect vehicle for taking it forward for the benefit of the future of this House. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Trefgarne]

I will not delay your Lordships for more than a moment. The proposal of my noble friend Lord Caithness to regularise selections as proposed in his amendment is a very good one and I support it.

[Lord Grocott]

As we come to our conclusion, I shall say simply this. I am very grateful to so many people for proving the success of Private Members’ Bills being held in Grand Committee. It should facilitate the opportunity for more Members to make use of the House’s time on a Friday while Second Readings are being taken in the main Chamber. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in our debate. I can barely believe that we have completed the Committee stage, but it looks as though we have.

Clause 2 agreed.