Wednesday 2nd July 2025
(1 day, 12 hours ago)
Lords ChamberHouse of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill 2024-26 View all House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 49-R-I Marshalled list for Report - (30 Jun 2025)
18:12 - Division on Amendment 2 - Ayes: 280 / Noes: 243 - Amendment 2 agreed.
19:26 - Division on Amendment 4 - Ayes: 84 / Noes: 263 - Amendment 4 disagreed.
Lord Roberts of Belgravia
“(A1) In section 1 of the House of Lords Act 1999 (exclusion of hereditary peers), at end insert “, except for the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to retain the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain as members of the House of Lords with the right to sit and vote.
Lord Roberts of Belgravia (Con)
My Lords, the adjective “historic” is bandied about far too often in politics, covering all sorts of things that are unlikely to detain historians of the future. Football matches, TV shows and any number of announcements in the other place are routinely described as historic when they simply are not. The other day I saw a hamburger described as historic.
Today, however, our debate about the abolition of the hereditary element of our House after its 800 years of service is indeed historic and will be studied by historians in years to come. We should so conduct ourselves, therefore, that, as Andrew Marvell wrote of Charles I at his execution, future historians will say that we
“nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene”.
Yet it strikes me that His Majesty’s Government are indeed about to do something very mean-spirited in including the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain in this legislation, because these two noble Lords undertake totally different roles on behalf of the Crown and state from any other of the hereditary Peers, roles that greatly benefit from their being Members of this House. Excising these two hereditary Peers from the Bill would be an easy and costless way both to show gratitude to them for their hard work in unpaid roles—the quintessence of noblesse oblige—but also, crucially, to allow them to stay in close touch with the Members of your Lordships’ House whom they serve so efficiently.
We all know the history. The office of Lord Great Chamberlain dates back to the Norman Conquest, when William the Conqueror appointed Robert Malet to superintend the improvements of Westminster Palace. He did it on time and under budget, as I am sure will also be the case in the restoration and renewal project. The office was made hereditary by Henry I in 1133, which is more than three-quarters of a century before the barons—statues of whom we see above us here—forced King John to sign Magna Carta.
For some reason, Lords Great Chamberlain had the right in law to demand the clothes worn by the monarch at his or her Coronation. However, James I had just arrived from chilly Edinburgh and did not want to part with them, so he paid £200 in lieu. Similarly, Queen Anne paid £300 to keep her “bottom drawer intact”.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
My Lords, I will be brief. I have very much enjoyed the last contribution. I am sure we all did. We are all encouraged to declare if we are hereditary Peers, so I do so. The irrelevance of this was brought home to me at breakfast today, when one of my life Peer colleagues said to me that they did not even realise I was a hereditary after all these years.
As the House has heard from me at each stage of the Bill, I am hesitant to speak again. Members will be comforted to know that I am not here next week, so this will be my last opportunity to contribute, assuming we pass the Bill this week.
I have great respect for and friendship with my Cross-Bench colleague the Lord Great Chamberlain, and have told him in advance what I propose to say: I am not clear why ceremonial duties should come with the ex officio right to legislate by sitting and voting in the House of Lords. Rather, I would point to his string of contributions and successful vote last evening as a better measure of his commitment and worth to the House. That is the same metric I would apply to any of our so-called hereditaries, regardless of their availability to perform royal or ceremonial duties. I only wish we were applying that metric to the life Peers.
To save time later, I add that I have the same, albeit milder, view of special pleading for other automatic ex officio appointments, such as the Lord Chancellor, as set out in Amendment 10 in group 9. They should be selected rather than have just the legal right to expect that they will come here.
Lord Howard of Rising (Con)
My Lords, what an honour to follow on from my noble friend Lord Roberts, to whose amendment I have added my name. There is little I could possibly add to the noble Lord’s excellent remarks, so I will not waste your Lordships’ time in repeating the same arguments in a rather less erudite fashion. However, I emphasise that the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain are two essential components of the framework within which this country is governed. It will be a bad day for our Government if the holders of these offices are no longer able to carry out their duties freely and without impediment.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, I will briefly address Amendment 1 and will ask a couple of specific questions related to the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain.
First, in closing, can the noble Baroness the Leader of the House please confirm what discussions she might have had to confirm that their ceremonial roles will remain wholly unchanged following the passage of the Bill? As the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, stated, we owe them a huge debt of gratitude for their remarkable service during the recent succession of King Charles III.
Secondly, has anyone either proposing or opposing this amendment actually consulted with the present holders of these two high offices of state? I spoke this morning with the Earl Marshal; he was happy for me to confirm to the House that he insists upon his continued service in the role of Earl Marshal but does not think that a seat in this House should be reserved for his hereditary self. Perhaps it could be made available to someone of a more diverse background, he suggested. For hereditaries, our time, unfortunately, is up. We should perhaps accept that and go gracefully, albeit a bit reluctantly.
Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I put my name to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, and I did so because although it seems like a small point, it is part of a bigger point.
I am afraid the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, is mistaken in thinking that the Lord Great Chamberlain is here because of his ceremonial duties; it is quite the other way around. The ceremonial duties have emerged over time from the fundamental duties of the Lord Great Chamberlain, who—this is a very practical point about this amendment—has a great many practical duties.
Those duties include: the organisation of great occasions within Westminster Hall; joint responsibility for the control of Westminster Hall and the crypt chapel; the organisation when important Heads of State visit, such as President Macron next week; the sole responsibility for the monarch’s Robing Room, staircase, anteroom and the Royal Gallery; the ballot for the State Opening, which requires a certain amount of tact in its management; and correspondence with individuals and organisations relating to the Palace of Westminster. Those are all practical things. We need to ask ourselves whether, if the Lord Great Chamberlain were to be removed from this place, they would be so well accomplished. If they would not be so well accomplished, what other possible advantage could there be in removing them?
It is true that the Earl Marshal’s role is much more purely ceremonial; I will come back to that in a moment.
It should be obvious that the performance of these tasks is best fulfilled by a full Member of your Lordships’ House. The Lord Great Chamberlain needs to know the people here: our hopes and fears, our conventions, rules and traditions, and, of course, our quirks. It is very nice and encouraging that the present Lord Great Chamberlain is often visible in this Chamber, observing the habits of the tribe of which he is a member. I do not see how it could be done better any other way. If he cannot sit here, it is inevitable that his personal knowledge of the place will decline and, of course, his successor will have no such personal knowledge.
I very much endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, said about the restoration and renewal project. It is a very complicated project, and it is important that the Lord Great Chamberlain is able to do his job in representing the interests of the monarch on these matters. In doing so, he needs to understand what we all think, so that he can say something which reflects reality. His fundamental role is to maintain the crucial and historic link between the monarchy and Parliament. I think we can trust him when he represents the monarch’s interests here, because he is one of us; we can feel, if you like, that we have a friend at court. So what good comes of fraying that link?
On the role of the Earl Marshal, most of the points made about our connection with the monarchy apply to him as well. But I just want to mention something else, because this is not the first time that the Earls Marshal has been removed from this House, and it is quite interesting what actually happened—it tells us something. As is well known, the Dukes of Norfolk are hereditarily almost always Roman Catholics, and as such, they continued to hold their place under tolerant monarchs in the past. But Parliament was not so tolerant, and from 1672 until 1824, the Dukes of Norfolk were excluded from this House but continued to be Earls Marshal. This created considerable inconvenience in which they had to create deputy Earls Marshal to do the necessary work here, and they got around it in the rather traditional way of the aristocracy, particularly in those days, by appointing their Protestant cousins to the post.
In 1824, a Bill was brought in to change that and allow the Catholic Norfolks to come back into this House. It was a rather important Bill in the history of this country, because it was the forerunner of the Catholic emancipation Act, which, thanks to the ancestor of the noble Duke who is sitting beside me—who rather surprisingly took a very modernising view and said he would resign if it did not get through—Catholic emancipation came in, and so did a whole series of emancipations in the 19th century, which changed the franchise, the qualifications for university and for all sorts of public roles, and so on. So it is rather important.
I was slightly sorry to hear the noble Earl, Lord Devon, quoting the current Earl Marshal saying that more diversity should be encouraged, because, actually, the Norfolks brought great diversity in the 19th century. They were the Catholic voice in this House at a time when it was virtually not allowed. Is it not rather strange that, in this 21st century, when we talk about the importance of diversity and inclusion, we are now trying to kick out the Roman Catholic Norfolks from this Parliament and narrow in some sense the work that we are doing?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, are we going to hear all day the cry of “Front Bench”? In this House, the tradition is that those on the Back Benches are permitted, as fellow Peers, to contribute to our debates. Also, if I may say so, I have never heard the proposition that someone who is a hereditary Peer should have to declare that. I very much hope, if that is the principle that is being pushed, that when we come to debate the principle of a democratic House, those who are life Peers will declare their interest—responding to the noble Lord, Lord Newby. This is not a profitable way to go. As was said by the Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms very wisely earlier, we should conduct our debates with amity, respect for each other and a degree of tolerance.
History matters; it matters greatly. It was no accident that, in 1999, the then Labour Government decided, outside the discussions that we were having about the elected Peers, to leave an ex officio place for these two great and ancient hereditary offices in our Chamber. It was a wise decision then, and I think it would have been wise to replicate it now. We have heard the long history of these great offices and, more importantly, their current relevance, set out ably by my noble friend Lord Roberts of Belgravia and underlined by the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham. I agree with my noble friend that we diminish the ceremonial part of our state at great peril to ourselves and to who we are as a people. As was said by my noble friend, it is one of the things that we do amazingly well, which attracts huge income from tourism and, far more deeply, deep respect and interest in our country.
This Parliament is a Parliament of three parts: the Commons, the Lords and the Crown. The Earl Marshal and Lord Great Chamberlain are visible embodiments of that. They are a part of our parliamentary constitution that can be traced back to early medieval times. They are every bit as important today, and they must be able to fulfil their duties at State Openings of Parliament and all the other events and places where they serve us, our House and our country.
When I look back on the great and moving events that took place in our recent memory after the demise of the late Queen and the accession and Coronation of His Majesty King Charles, I well remember, as we all do, the active, practical and dedicated part that the Earl Marshal and Lord Great Chamberlain took in making those events possible and so memorable. I record my personal thanks as then Leader of the House to the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, and to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and his predecessor, the Marquess of Cholmondeley. They are also ex officio here by a separate provision of the 1999 Act; they are Members of the House. They have often, over the years, brought great insight here. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell. When I went home late last night, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, was in his place, having made a full, practical and helpful contribution to the House.
Those of a longer memory will well recall the 17th Duke of Norfolk, referred to by my noble friend, who won the Military Cross under fire in 1944. As a career major general and director of service intelligence, he brought immense wisdom to our discussions of military affairs. With an Earl Marshal responsible for our State Openings of Parliament and a Lord Great Chamberlain in control of much of our estate—the Robing Room, the Royal Gallery, the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft—and their relevance to restoration projects, these officers of state will need unfettered access to the Chamber and the resource and office space needed to fulfil their roles on our behalf. I agree that they should never have to queue for access or beg for a pass.
As others have argued, given that the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain have such an intrinsic role in our House and its ceremony, much the best way forward would have been to allow them to remain as full Members of our House. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham, that their ability to serve us can only be strengthened by knowing and sharing the experience of our Members and staff. It worked for many hundreds of years and it seems a shame to change it now.
The unnecessary removal of these ex officio Members, separate from the 90 elected Peers, is to be regretted. However, I know that the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal has been talking to colleagues about this, and about the best and properly dignified way of enabling them to go about their important services to the Crown and to this House in an unfettered and unimpeded way in the future. We should all be open to hearing what she has to say.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, for an erudite and entertaining speech. His amendment is similar to one that was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, in Committee. I think the cries of “Front Bench”, which we do not hear too often, were made in eagerness to hear the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord True. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising. He came to see me about this matter, and I am grateful for that discussion, which was very helpful. Looking at the comments that have been made, I can satisfy noble Lords on some points, but there is one particular point on which I cannot, which I will come to.
This is something that has arisen many times during the passage of this Bill. I completely recognise the important roles played by noble Lords in those offices and the historic link between the monarch and the second Chamber. However, the point remains that in order to fulfil their functions and responsibilities they do not need to speak in the Chamber or to vote.
The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, is right that it would be appalling to suggest that they would have to queue up at the Pass Office or seek permission every time they come in. I can give him the categorical assurance that that will not happen, now or in the future. The commission has agreed that both office holders have access rights on the Parliamentary Estate. They will be able to perform their duties as they do now and engage with Members as they do now. That includes the ability to sit on the steps of the Throne, to listen to debates, to access catering and to access the Library. That level of access will ensure that they can engage with Members. In no way should their responsibilities or their abilities to do that be fettered in any way. I can discuss with the House authorities the possibility of office space—there is no office space at the moment—in the House, if required.
I know that some noble Lords have voiced doubts and questioned whether both postholders, now or in the future, would have to come back to the commission each and every time. I reassure the House that that will not be the case. The commission has confirmed the position for current and future postholders, so they would not have to come back. There should not be any impediment to their fulfilling their responsibilities. I assured the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, that I would make that commitment from the Dispatch Box and, as he requested, I am happy to do that.
To correct something that was said, the postholders will not be excluded from the House. They will be excluded from participating in the proceedings of the House but they will not be excluded from coming into the House, so I do not think that this amendment is necessary. There is certainly no criticism of the roles they play.
The noble Earl, Lord Devon, raised three points. I can satisfy him on two of them, but on one, I cannot. He asked what discussions have taken place. I have had at least one discussion with both postholders and probably more than that. He asked whether they have been consulted. Yes, they have, and there has been wider consultation. The point I cannot satisfy him on is the one raised by the Earl Marshal about more diversity. These are both hereditary roles, and they will continue to be hereditary roles. The position of Lord Great Chamberlain rotates through three hereditary positions so, in terms of diversity and inclusion, they will always have to be men at the moment. I know the noble Earl has particular interests and perhaps one day we can make some progress on that, but at present I cannot satisfy him on the diversity role because, as hereditary Peers, they will always be male.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
The point that I think the Earl Marshal was making was that the seat in the House that he might occupy would perhaps be open to more diverse occupants, not his role as Earl Marshal.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
That is a valid point. The Earl Marshal has been very clear that he is perfectly content with this.
I do not think this amendment is necessary. I assure the House that those postholders are essential. We will not in any way hamper or impede their ability to carry out their functions or their roles. The noble Lord, Lord True, made the point that we are grateful to them for doing that. They engage with Members of the House as well. I hope that, having heard the explanation and the assurances that I have been able to give, the noble Lord will be prepared to withdraw his amendment.
I want to add a more general point about issues that will come up in later debates. It is not entirely relevant to this amendment but, because so many of these issues are interconnected, I think it will be helpful to set the context to assist the House. Noble Lords are aware that, prior to the commencement of the Bill and throughout its passage, I have had more than 50 meetings, some as one-to-ones, others with much larger groups. I listened very carefully in those engagements and throughout Committee. Much of our discussions and debates have been on issues, such as this one, that were in the manifesto but are not in the Bill. I think the House is seeking reassurance that the plans for the next stage of reforms will not flounder and that the Government are serious about their intention for further reforms.
I have been greatly encouraged by support for two specific issues that have been mentioned many times and on which we have amendments later: retirement and participation. It has been 25 years since the first stage of this reform, and I think the House would be somewhat intolerant if we took another 25 years to bring anything further forward. We all value that this House is self-governing and I am keen that we take some ownership as a House in moving forward on other issues. I am sure we will discuss this issue further on other amendments.
I feel, having reflected on discussions and advice, that we need a formal, recognised process that is supported by the House. I have considered the mechanisms that we could use, and I have concluded that the best way forward would be to establish a dedicated Select Committee to look at those specific matters on which noble Lords have indicated that they are keen to make progress. I am open to discussing other mechanisms, but that is the way forward that I think may work the best.
Obviously, I will discuss this further with the usual channels before putting any such proposal to the House, but I hope that the House could set up such a committee within three months of the Bill gaining Royal Assent, and by this time next year it would be able to consider the committee’s findings. I am keen to see how quickly we can move on other issues as well without legislation, or prior to legislation, with a committee that could make those recommendations to the House. I say that at this stage to be of assistance to the House so that, when we get to those issues, the House has had time to consider them. In the meantime, I thank the noble Lord—not least for raising Andrew Marvell, perhaps one of my favourite poets—and ask him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
Before the noble Baroness sits down, the proposal is to set up a Select Committee to consider the issues that have been discussed with her. Those issues include offering life peerages to hereditary Peers. Is that something that the Select Committee would consider?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I do not imagine that that would be discussed by this Select Committee, which will look at the two specific issues that have been raised. We will debate the matter that the noble Lord refers to later on the Bill.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, what authority will this committee have? Would it be regarded by the Government as having authority? In other words, would its conclusions, if passed by the House, be carried on by the Government, or would it be what I rather suspect it will be: a very good and highly-qualified talking shop that will not, in the end, lead to anything because the Government will easily be able to ignore it completely?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I really hope that would not be the case. One of the reasons why I said we wanted to see what could be done more quickly is that some things may be able to be done by the House itself. If the House comes to a conclusion on matters that need legislation then it is easier to put through legislation if the House has taken a view. So I am keen to have the House express a view—which noble Lords have asked for many times—and the Government will listen, but there may well be things that we can do without legislation. If that is the case, we can proceed. Where legislation is required, I will take that advice from the committee because we have a manifesto commitment for legislation, and we are determined to press ahead on these two issues.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I welcome the setting up of the Select Committee. It is a great step forward. As the noble Baroness knows, I have been particularly concerned about the question of retirement age. I must declare an interest, by the way.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
No, I used to be director of Age Concern Scotland, so I have a particular interest in this. Could my noble friend confirm that this Select Committee would be able to consider all aspects of a retirement age—for example, whether it should be different for current Members and new Members, and whether it should be on the edge of a particular birthday or at the end of the Parliament in which the birthday takes place? All these issues can be considered and recommendations made to this House, and the decision could be made by this House.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I would say to my noble friend that we all have an interest in the retirement age because we all hope to approach one at some point in our lives. He is right. I am not going to set any preconditions on that. The manifesto at the last election said that someone would retire at the end of the Parliament after their 80th birthday. I have said repeatedly that I think a cut-off would create problems for the House when lots of Members reach that age at the same time and retire. If there are better suggestions, I would be happy to consider them. I am not going to put any parameters on what can be discussed within those two areas. I wanted to give the House the opportunity, when we come to discuss these issues, to consider what I have said and see whether noble Lords think it is helpful when we get to those amendments.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
Before the noble Baroness sits down, will the new committee consider the whole question of the relative powers of both Houses? There is no point in talking about changing the membership unless you decide what they are going to do.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
No, my Lords, that would not be in the remit. It would be purely on the issues of participation and retirement age.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
Before the noble Baroness sits down, I am sorry to intervene further but there are a number of other issues in the various amendments that we are going to consider. Would it not be logical for the Select Committee to think about those issues as well, in particular some of the things that were referred to in the Labour manifesto at the last election?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I am keen to make progress on these issues in what I call bite-sized chunks. I have always referred to these two issues as being stage 2. They are the two issues that have been raised most often in Committee and again now on Report. There seems to be a consensus around the House that they are specific issues that the House wants to deal with. I have chosen them because they have been mentioned so often by noble Lords.
Lord Swire (Con)
If the noble Baroness is trying to present the Select Committee as being in part an answer to some of the long-term questions about the future of this House, would she be open to considering outsiders joining it who may have an interest in the future of our bicameral legislature? I point out that, according to current polling, the Reform Party is likely to get 271 seats at the next election, against Labour’s 178. Should parties like that not be included in looking at the long-term future governance of this country?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord did not mention the number of seats his own party is projected to get, but I think it is a little irrelevant. Members of this House are best placed to understand its requirements. One thing that has emerged from the debate many times during the passage of the Bill is that Members would like greater input on this. I am not proposing to provide answers; I am asking questions of the committee. How does a committee of Members of this House, who know the day-to-day running of this House, think these things could best be achieved?
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House was very specific about the issues she wants the Select Committee to focus on, but, as she knows, one of the major issues that has been discussed for decades in this House is the size of the House. It was mentioned in the Labour Party manifesto, and we have seen very clearly the ratchet effect that changes of government can have on the size of the House. If it is not to be considered in the Select Committee, how are we going to make progress on that?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, it is a question of stages, and these are certainly issues we should make progress on. The more issues we discuss, the less likely we are to move forwards, as we have found so many times before. I am proposing a Select Committee on these two issues, but that will not stop us having further committees or looking more at such issues. I take great interest in the size of the House, and we need to address it.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, is it not really a matter for the Select Committee to determine what issues it wants to consider?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I would say no, because the danger is that the issues get wider and wider, and no decision is taken. Looking at these things in bite-size chunks in order to reach a conclusion and make recommendations is helpful to the House. I am not opposed to looking at other issues as well, but if this committee focuses on two specific issues, we can, I hope, make progress. I hope we can make progress quite quickly, too, because I think that is what the House is really looking for.
Lord Roberts of Belgravia (Con)
I welcome the assurances given by the Minister and will not seek to test the opinion of the House. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Abolition of by-elections for hereditary peers(1) Section 2 of the House of Lords Act 1999 (exception from section 1) is amended as follows.(2) For subsection (2) substitute—“(2) No more than 87 people at any one time shall be excepted from section 1.” (3) For subsection (4) substitute—“(4) Any vacancy resulting from the death, retirement, resignation or expulsion of an excepted person under subsection (2) after the day on which the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2025 comes into force is not to be filled by further exception.””Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would amend the House of Lords Act 1999 to abolish the system of by-elections for hereditary peers. This would prevent any new hereditary peers from joining the House, while allowing those who are presently serving in the House to remain. It follows the proposals of the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, many sensible ways of improving this Bill were discussed in Committee, but perhaps the most sensible was one which has been discussed many times before. Amendment 2, which I am delighted to say is supported by the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, and my noble friend Lady Laing of Elderslie, among many others, seeks to abolish the by-elections through which hereditary Peers may join your Lordships’ House, while allowing those who have come here by that route or who still sit here through the ballot which followed the House of Lords Act 1999 to continue to do so until, like the rest of us, they choose to retire or leave by some other means. The amendment would ensure that, although we all come here by varied routes and for different reasons, we are all treated equally in our moment of departure.
This amendment was debated rather late in the evening in Committee and given slightly short shrift. I can quite understand the frustration of many, particularly on the Benches opposite, who have spent far longer than I have debating this matter, but I felt it was important to bring back on Report, not least because so many of us have not had that opportunity. It also seemed to me that the sudden opposition to it by those who have previously supported this solution was based on a few false assumptions.
The first assumption or claim is that these by-elections were never intended to be around for so long. In a sense, that is correct, but only because they were intended to ensure that further reform of your Lordships’ House would follow. The preservation of a small number of hereditary Peers, maintained through by-elections, came about as a result of a compromise agreed before Second Reading of what is now the House of Lords Act 1999. Then, as now, a Labour Government had been elected with a large majority in another place on a manifesto proposing reform of your Lordships’ House. Then, as now, there was some scepticism about whether they intended to carry out both stages of that reform with equal alacrity, or whether they sought simply to remove a large number of parliamentarians from Benches other than their own.
The Lord Chancellor at the time, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, said that he was not offended by such scepticism. That is why he accepted the comprise proposed by the Convener of the Cross Benches, Lord Weatherill, to keep a small number of hereditary Peers here by way of surety. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, explained at Second Reading,
“a compromise in these terms would guarantee that stage two would take place, because the Government with their great popular majority and their manifesto pledge would not tolerate 10 per cent. of the hereditary peerage remaining for long. But the 10 per cent. will go only when stage two has taken place. So it is a guarantee that it will take place”.—[Official Report, 30/3/1999; col. 207.]
The noble and learned Lord gave that guarantee from that Dispatch Box.
Noble Lords will note that stage two did not take place. The Labour Government carried on in power for more than a decade, but the only further reform they enacted was the removal of the Lord Chancellor from the Woolsack and the abolition of the Law Lords. In doing so, incidentally, they allowed those judges who had come here under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 to continue to do so for as long as they wished. That is why we in your Lordships’ House still benefit from the wisdom and experience of the noble and learned Lords, Lord Woolf, Lord Hoffmann, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Lord Mance, Lord Neuberger, Lord Collins of Mapesbury, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond.
Towards the end of his time in office, Gordon Brown proposed in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act to end the by-elections. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, predicted, Mr Brown could not tolerate 10% of the hereditary peerage remaining for so long. But the Bill did not contain measures for stage two reforms, so Parliament rejected that part of it shortly before Dissolution in 2010. What we have before us today is a proposal not only to abolish the by-elections, but to remove the remaining hereditary Peers from this House at the end of the current Session, without fulfilling the guarantee the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, gave. The noble and learned Lord told your Lordships, when he gave it in 1999, that it
“reflects a compromise negotiated between Privy Councillors on Privy Council terms and binding in honour on all those who have come to give it their assent”.—[Official Report, 30/3/1999; col. 207.]
Whatever else we may think of the Bill before us, we have the opportunity to defend that honour today.
The second claim or assumption is that the by-elections are somehow eccentric, alien or embarrassing to your Lordships’ House. In fact, they are not an unusual feature. Following the Acts of Union in 1707 and 1801, elections were held among Scottish and then Irish Peers to elect representatives of their number to sit in Parliament. When the Irish Free State was established in 1922, the Irish elections were discontinued but those who were already in the House were allowed to stay and continue their work. The Scottish elections continued until 1963, when the Peerage Act permitted all Scottish Peers, male and female, to take their place among the Barons. So apart from a 36-year gap between 1963 and 1999, there have been elected Members of your Lordships’ House for the last 318 years.
Like many other elements of our organic constitution, the by-elections of recent years have been easy to pillory, but so too are by-elections to other legislative chambers. Noble Lords may recall the Haltemprice and Howden by-election of 2008, which attracted 26 candidates, none of them from Labour or the Liberal Democrat parties; or the contest in Fermanagh and South Tyrone in 1981, which attracted just two, the winner being a convicted criminal on hunger strike who died 26 days after his election, provoking a change in the law.
The present leader of the House of Commons was first elected in a by-election with a turnout of 18.2%. The present Foreign Secretary and the Minister of State for Europe were elected at by-elections on a 25% turnout. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn, came to Parliament in a by-election where just 19.9% of the electorate turned out to vote. I am not sure that stands in such stark contrast to the by-election which brought his brother to the Labour Benches of your Lordships’ House.
It is easy to pillory by-elections, but we should not denigrate those who win them under the rules we have collectively devised. Just as no one would question the legitimacy of those members of the Cabinet who came to Parliament in those lacklustre contests, nor does it follow that seeking to end the by-elections to your Lordships’ House should be accompanied by the expulsion of those who have won them.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
Is my noble friend in a position to give an assurance to your Lordships’ House that, if this amendment were to carry, it would be part of a wider package of reform, some of which is indicated in the amendments and has been touched on by the noble Baroness? Those of us who have doubts about this amendment would be much happier about supporting it if we thought that it was part of a wider package to which the Tory Front Bench is party.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I think my noble friend’s question is directed more to the Government, who have the opportunity to say what they will do on stage 2 reforms. But I will come to my noble friend’s question in a moment, because it is important. In fact, it reflects a conversation that I had with a wise colleague from the Cross Benches who, when I told him I was intending to move this amendment, said, “I hope we will see some humility from those who have previously resisted it”. I hope the fact that I stand here at the opposition Dispatch Box to move this amendment is an expression of that humility.
I remind your Lordships that my noble friend Lord True, along with the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, suggested, as soon as the Government were elected, that the by-elections be discontinued in recognition of the Government’s manifesto commitment and in anticipation of the debates on this Bill. But I can be humbler yet. I say to the Government and to noble Lords in every corner of the House: on this, we give in. We will not hold the present Government to the guarantee, binding in honour, made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg. We yield to the mandate that they won at the ballot box and will take them at their word that further reform will follow. I welcome what the Leader of the House has said about the establishment of a Select Committee to look into some—not all—of the rest of the Government’s manifesto. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, is in his place. Ohers will remember the royal commission—rather weightier than a Select Committee—that was set up by a previous Labour Government to seek a way forward on stage 2 reforms then. I wish the Select Committee far greater success on this occasion. We will reserve our scepticism and hope to be proved wrong.
But, in return, we urge your Lordships to show the same clemency and generosity afforded to the Law Lords and the Irish representative Peers in days past to our friends and colleagues who sit here by accident of birth and who work just as hard as the rest of us in the service of the country that they love. I beg to move.
Lord Verdirame (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I added my name in support of this amendment, which has been so admirably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. I agree that the opportunity to adopt this solution should have been seized earlier. Those who tried but failed are right to be frustrated, and the Conservatives deserve the criticism they are getting. But these are not good enough reasons for us to fail to seize this opportunity now.
To begin with, a large number of us never had the chance to vote, as the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, said. As for those who did, it is true that some of them are supporting today what they opposed a few years ago. It is also true that others are opposing today what they supported only a few years ago. Consistency does not serve many well. Everyone is better served by returning to first principles and judging this issue on its merits. This amendment was a good idea when the Bill on which it is modelled was last given a Second Reading in December 2021, and it remains a good idea today.
To put things in some numerical perspective, since December 2021, 13 new hereditary Peers have come to this House through the route of Section 2 of the House of Lords Act 1999. If the proponents of those proposals in 2021 had had their way then, as I wish they had—I was not here—we would have 74 former hereditaries today, instead of 87. The difference is just 13.
It is certainly the case that the party that gained the most from the excepted hereditary route to this House was the Conservative Party, and there is no doubt that the biggest loser was the Labour Party. This is not fair because it has resulted in a political imbalance in favour of the Conservatives. However, as the numbers that I have just mentioned show, this is an imbalance that can be corrected. Indeed, this correction is already under way: 49 new Labour Peers were created since January 2024, with 45 since the election. Importantly, this political imbalance did not become a constitutional imbalance. In spite of the number of Conservative Peers, the House remained very effective at scrutinising legislation and holding the previous Conservative Governments to account.
Since 1911, significant changes to the make-up of this House, and to its legislative conventions defining our role relative to the other place, have generally travelled with the chief Opposition on board. We break this habit at our peril. We have often considered the hypothetical scenario of a Prime Minister coming in and appointing large numbers of new Peers to control this House—Lloyd George was not the only one to be so tempted. What stands between us and this scenario is the fact that we are not an elective dictatorship. We are a representative democracy with a complex system of checks and balances that has made it very difficult for a Prime Minister, even with a large majority in the other place, to effect a power grab. Each of the three main political parties with experience of government has historically acted as a check and balance. No party leader has ever achieved full control of his or her party. Indeed, a few of them were humiliated by their party—ask Jeremy Corbyn or Liz Truss.
But what if the next Prime Minister is not the leader of one of these political parties with experience of government? What if he is the leader of a movement that he set up and controls? That the scenario that has to be in our minds for the next election. Reform’s manifesto in 2024 said:
“Replace the crony-filled House of Lords with a much smaller, more democratic second chamber. Structure to be debated”.
I doubt that elections will be his priority. He will want an upper House that he controls in the way that he controls his party. He will seek to achieve this objective through a mixture of removals, appointments and, perhaps, some elections. If this scenario came to pass, we would have to accept the principle that the party that won the election needs a sufficient number of Peers to govern. But we would also be perfectly entitled—indeed, constitutionally mandated—to insist that there should not be removal of Peers en masse unless there is agreement with the main Opposition on the basis of a clear, fair, principled and transparent approach.
On a different note, one hereditary Peer told me that he was not going to vote because he did not think it right for him to do so. I respectfully urge him and anyone in a similar position to reconsider. The idea that we should not vote on constitutional rules affecting the composition of the House because we belong to the affected category of Peers is wrong and would create a bad precedent. Should Peers over 80 abstain on amendments seeking to impose an age limit of 80? Should Peers who might be excluded by a participation threshold abstain on those amendments? Of course not. In all these situations, Peers should vote on the basis of principle rather than personal interest. If our conscience tells us that our personal interest prevents us from fairly assessing the principle, then we should abstain, but if we are genuinely convinced that the principle is right, it is our duty to vote in a way that upholds that principle.
I went back to the Second Reading speeches. It is clear that many of your Lordships expected that, by now, there would be some compromise on the question of the transitional arrangements for the 87 hereditary Peers. Those who expressed such an expectation included many who were fully supportive of the Bill and deeply critical of the attitude of the main Opposition. The key principle is that the resolution of this issue must be clear, fair and transparent. To say, “Vote for this now and we will see later” is none of those things. We are already being asked to pass the Bill and leave for later fundamental questions about the reform of the House foreshadowed in the Labour manifesto, although I welcome the announcement by the Leader of the House earlier.
We cannot be asked to pass this legislation while remaining blind to the transitional arrangements for the 87 Peers. It would not be a good outcome for this House and its credibility if some of the 87 reappeared on a basis that is neither clear nor transparent and does not reflect any prior consensus. The question of what happens to them must be resolved in this House and before this House. This could have been achieved with a firm assurance on the basis of cross-party agreement. We have received no such assurance. It is now our duty to fix this problem by voting for this amendment.
Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Con)
My Lords, it is an honour and a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. Like him, I have added my name to this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, set out very clearly, and with his customary brilliant oratory, the arguments for the amendment and I will not take up the time of the House by repeating them. As he explained, your Lordships often refer to the issue we are discussing in this amendment by the shorthand of “the Grocott Bill”. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, persevered with his Bill for many years. I have to tell your Lordships that I go back even further than the first Grocott Bill.
In 2010, Lord Steel of Aikwood, as the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, mentioned, introduced a similar Bill. It passed its stages in your Lordships’ House and when it came to the House of Commons, I, as a little junior Back-Bencher, adopted it as a Private Member’s Bill. I tried to introduce it there, but as is so often the way with these matters, it did not proceed. Your Lordships might recall that at that time, the measures in the Bill were not Conservative Party policy and might wonder what a loyal Conservative such as me was doing supporting the Steel Bill.
I have always been loyal to my party, but I was vehemently opposed to the Liberal Democrat constitutional reforms adopted by the coalition Government. On those matters, I was a rebel, and it is just as well that those of us who were rebels at that time succeeded; otherwise, your Lordships’ House would probably not exist at all, or it would be a faint shadow of what it is today and a mere mirror image of the House of Commons. So I was glad to be a rebel. I tried to make progress with what was then called the Steel Bill and was referred to as the principle of “withering on the vine”. I always thought that that was a rather sad way to speak about the demise of the hereditary peerage, but it is not quite as sad as that which we are facing today.
We can all understand why noble Lords on the Government Benches wish to stand by the principle in their election manifesto. They are right to do so: the principle that there should be no more hereditary Peers created is a good principle and nobody is disagreeing with it. But this amendment is not about principle; it is about practicality. We are all here—except the hereditary Peers, of course—because somebody in a position of authority made a subjective judgment that our past experience and our future potential made each of us a suitable person to become a Member of your Lordships’ House. When I glance at the Bishops’ Benches, I wonder whether my theory on that is correct, and then I think to myself, yes, it is—even more so; it is just that the subjective judgment in their case was perhaps made by a higher authority than was the case for the rest of us.
We were all invited to become life Peers because, as I said, our past experience and future potential made each of us appear to someone making a subjective judgment to be a suitable person to become a Member of your Lordships’ House and to contribute in some way to the government of our nations. Every one of your Lordships is here by virtue of a subjective judgment.
I am asking your Lordships to make a subjective judgment today. Those among us who were first admitted to your Lordships’ House by virtue of the achievements of their fathers and grandfathers have, over the years—for some, over the decades—by virtue of the contributions they have made to the government of our country and the work of this noble House, earned their places here. They might have come here in the first instance because of the achievements of their fathers and grandfathers but, now, look around and your Lordships will know that they deserve their places because of their own achievements. They have served this House, various Governments and Oppositions and the Cross Benches in roles in which they have worked hard and achieved much.
My argument in favour of this amendment is that, as individuals, they have earned their places here just as noble Lords who are life Peers have earned theirs. Consider for a moment what each of your Lordships individually has done in the past to merit your position as a Peer, then consider our colleagues who face expulsion and ask yourselves, “Is he really less worthy than I am?”. I ask noble Lords to examine their consciences and to consider this as a matter not of principle but of practicality. We have in our midst some excellent parliamentarians. It would diminish your Lordships’ House to lose them. It would be sad to see their experience, dedication and talents lost—not gradually, as they leave the House one by one, but in one fell swoop, diminishing this House immediately and irretrievably.
I implore your Lordships to make a subjective judgment, just as a subjective judgment was made about each of you, and support this amendment.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I want briefly to express some concerns about this amendment. Despite the eloquence of the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, who in the end have advanced a very good argument, the concerns are threefold.
First, if we accepted this amendment, we would entrench numbers. If we want to get this House down to around 600, entrenching the numbers at around 830 would make the task more difficult. Secondly and differently, we have to ask what the perception of the public will be; they will say that this is a self-serving amendment, in that we are looking after our friends, and that in the absence of any other measures we are not serious about proper reform. That takes me to my final point. I will support this amendment, but on the basis that my party is committed to serious, robust reform and will play a full part in any negotiations that take place so that we have a properly reformed House with participation requirements, a fit and proper test, an enhanced HOLAC, maybe term peerages and a retirement age. I want to see a fundamentally reformed House and will support this amendment on the basis that there will be substantial support from my Benches for that.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, the issue before the House is not the merits of the hereditary Peers or the contribution they make, about which there can be no doubt. The issue is very simple: is it really acceptable in 2025 that, for decades to come, a House of the legislature should continue to consist of a large number of people who are here purely because of who their ancestors were? For me, that is unacceptable.
Baroness Monckton of Dallington Forest (Con)
My Lords, I support the amendment from my noble friend Lord Parkinson. “Peer” comes from the Latin word par, which means “equal”, and in this House, wherever we sit, we are all equal. We have a shared experience; we are here with a common purpose to scrutinise legislation and serve our country. There may be Peers with whom we disagree or Peers whom we admire, but in the brief time that I have been in this House, I have understood one thing: we are all in this together. Both hereditary and lifetime appointments form a constituent part of the legislative process within the framework of the constitution of the United Kingdom. To abolish the hereditary element is an attack on our constitution, but this has already happened, so I accept reluctantly that there should be no further elections for hereditary Peers.
What I find hard to accept is the spiteful ejection of the existing hard-working hereditary Peers, who across this House bring so much energy and expertise. The unique composition of the House of Lords does not seem rational, but it really works, as Ian Dunt wrote in his book How Westminster Works … and Why It Doesn’t. He is a man of the left, and this was not what he thought he would discover when he began working on this book. But that was his conclusion: this is the one element in our system that works.
The hereditary colleagues in the last Parliament had overall a better attendance record than life Peers, and over half of them serve as members of Select Committees. I declare an interest as my father was a hereditary who was booted out in 1999. He was a retired general who brought all his military experience to the Defence Committee. One of the things I have noticed is that our hereditary colleagues have a greater humility—and perhaps, if I may put it this way, noblesse oblige—than those of us who think we have been placed here because of our wonderful achievements. I really believe that the removal of our colleagues will leave our House worse off, rather than better, and surely the principle of any reform should be improvement, not diminishment.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, will not be surprised that I do not agree with this amendment, for the reasons so pithily put by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. There are a number of points with which I could take issue, but I will pick up a couple from the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. He implied that those of us who supported the “Grocott Bills”, in their various guises, were almost being hypocritical by not voting for this today. The truth was—with all due respect to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott—that the Grocott Bills were second best. They were the best that was on offer, and we saw them as a way of making some progress while believing that what is in this Bill was preferable.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
How can the noble Lord possibly argue that it was second best when the Leader of the House has told us that, had we accepted Grocott in the last Parliament, this would not have been necessary?
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I am explaining to the House what I thought at the time, not what anybody else might think.
The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, said that the system of by-elections should not be thought to have been eccentric. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was very eloquent in pointing out just how eccentric they were, particularly in respect of by-elections for the Liberal Democrats. On one notable occasion, there were seven candidates and three electors, and nobody in the Liberal Democrats knew who half the candidates were. They were truly eccentric. They brought the House into disrepute, certainly in respect of those by-elections, and they were simply not sustainable in any way.
I strongly agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, in pointing out that one consequence of this amendment would be to maintain over a considerable number of years—unless there was a great increase in the size of the House—a significant Conservative plurality over the Labour Benches. That seems me to be a bad thing, because the inevitable consequence would be that the Government would increase their numbers, and we would have a bloated House. Apparently, everybody agrees that the House is too big, yet this amendment, if agreed, would have that consequence for decades to come.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, I will make two very short points. First, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, knows the respect in which I hold him, but it is a subtle piece of advocacy to say that the hereditaries sit here purely because of the family they were born into, to use the noble Lord’s phrase. Since 2005, that has not been the case; it is the family plus an election. Indeed, some of them sit here on a firmer basis than many other Members of your Lordships’ House.
Secondly, on the “too late” argument, which seems to be the primary point put by the Government Front Bench, I have never quite understood why opposing a Private Member’s Bill, with all the legislative hurdles and difficulties that such Bills have, precludes you from later supporting an amendment to a government Bill which is bound to become law.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, I am finding it difficult to compute exactly what is going on today, because Friday after Friday, Bill after Bill, to a three-quarters empty House, which is characteristic on a Friday, I have been faced with substantial opposition, not just from individual Members—not exclusively from the Tory party but overwhelmingly—but from the Government. The Bills got no further.
Here we are now, with a pretty full House, all agreed that these by-elections are farcical. The amendment gets rid of them; the Bill before the House—which I strongly support—gets rid of them. That was my motive for bringing the whole process in to begin with. Believe it or not, the primary motive was to stop this absurdity which the noble Lord, Lord Newby, described as the most offensive of the lot.
I did not think it would be a problem. I have been around quite a long time, but I thought, “Surely, there is no one in this House who thinks that a by-election to get into this House should be exclusively for men, both the electorate and the candidates, and it is feasible to have an electorate of three when you’ve got seven candidates”. By the way, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, did not mention the last line of that, which is that all three votes went to one of the seven candidates—so there was 100% turnout, with 100% of the vote going to the winning candidate. I mean, North Korea would not dare to do that.
I am flattered, I suppose, to find that everyone suddenly seems to be agreed on this. We could have saved ourselves so much time when I brought it in first in 2016—since when, 27 new hereditaries have come here. To those who say that we might as well do it now, I say a whole new generation has been elected since I first introduced the Bill. But I must be immodest about this—
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
Will the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, tell us who elected him to come to this House?
Lord Grocott (Lab)
As far as I know, although I do not know the intricacies of the mechanism that brought me here, there were probably more than three people who thought that it was okay.
I would be dishonest to the House if I did not admit to being flattered that it seems to be universally described as the “Grocott Bill”. It is lovely to have a Bill named after you, even if it was rejected time after time. It is no longer the “Grocott Bill”. I liked the ring of that, but I very much like the ring of the new, improved Bill before the House today, so I think we ought to call the original one the “House of Lords (Grocott No. 1) Bill” and the one before the House now the “House of Lords (Grocott No. 2) Bill”. Why do I support the “House of Lords (Grocott No. 2) Bill”? It is because it is better, it does the job more effectively and it means that we can move on from this endless debate to discuss other aspects of reform.
However, I really despair at times about the inability of this House to deal with such a simple proposition: a two-clause Bill. It would have cost nothing—it might have saved money—and upset no one, but time and time again it was rejected. It was filibustered—I will not mention all the Peers who opposed it. In anticipation of this debate, I checked who had spoken against it at Second Reading on its various outings. There were two culprits—I will not embarrass them now—who were worse than any others and who persistently put down 60 or 70 amendments the day before Committee. We are powerless in this place if there are people determined to wreck a Bill in that way. Perhaps they can reflect, in the quietness of their own souls, on what might have been if they had not done that, because I believe that if a Bill like this had been passed —if not mine, then certainly Lord Steel’s Bill—most of the hereditaries now would have peacefully moved on, by whatever mechanism, from membership of this House.
It has been a bit of fun, this somersaulting by sundry Members opposite, but thank heaven that we are removing the hereditary principle as a mechanism for membership of this House. It is long, long, long overdue. It could have been dealt with much earlier, but let us not cry over spilt milk; let us just get on with this and quickly.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord said that we are now removing the hereditary principle. It is accepted, on this side, that we are removing the hereditary principle. His speeches are very entertaining, mocking the system that was brought in by his own party in government.
My difficulty is that the Leader of the House has repeatedly told us, both publicly and privately, that, had we not opposed what is called the “Grocott Bill”, this would not be necessary. I therefore have to ask: what is the principle that we are discussing? It appears to be that the hereditary principle should be got rid of—that has been accepted. However, I am concerned by the idea that we should pluck out of this House hard-working Members, who are mainly Conservatives. We heard from the Liberal Benches that they are worried about numbers. On my count, 45 new Labour Peers have been appointed since the general election. That does not strike me as being the activities of a party that is concerned about the size of the House; it strikes me as being a party that is concerned about the number of people who will go through the Lobbies in support of it. Therefore, one is left with a terrible suspicion that what is going on here is taking a group of people out of this House, who happen to have come into it as hereditaries, for party-political reasons. That is a very dangerous—
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
I will give way in a second.
That is a very dangerous precedent to accept. How soon will it be before people arguing for this precedent argue that other groups of people can be taken out, because they are not convenient?
I am trying not to be too partisan today, so I will appeal to the Government. To put it gently, the Government are in a certain amount of difficulty on a number of issues. The one thing I learned when I was in Government was that having a good and effective Opposition is a really good thing for a Government, because it makes you avoid making the kind of mistakes that Governments make. Therefore, it is very important—especially in this House, where we simply ask the Government to think again and we have no ability to force them to do otherwise by force of argument—to have an effective Opposition.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
I will give way to the noble Lord when I have finished my point.
One-third of the Opposition Front Bench are hereditaries. They are people of enormous experience and dedication. By not accepting this amendment, the Government are damaging not only the House by creating a terrible precedent but the Opposition, as well as the number of Tory Peers that there are. That is a disgraceful thing to do.
What is the argument? I know that people on the Benches opposite have sought to argue, “Can’t you get other people to sit on your Front Bench?” I say to the Leader of the House: she should try using that argument. It is very hard, especially if they are not paid—I will come to that later—to ask people to give up the time and for them to have the expertise. You can bring in new people, but it takes a very long time to get used to the way this place operates—it has taken me a very long time.
If we do not accept the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, we are talking about disabling the Opposition and gerrymandering the composition of the House. That is a disgraceful thing to do.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for finally giving way. He talks about the disabling of the Opposition. Would he like to explain to the House what his party did in Government from 2010 to last year in terms of the numbers they appointed? I excuse the noble Baroness, Lady May, because she took the issue of the size of this House very seriously but, alas, her predecessors and those who succeeded her did not. As a party, we have put new Members of the House in since the election to try to get ourselves a reasonable balance after the disgraceful approach of so many Conservative Prime Ministers over those years.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
There are a lot of things that we did in Government that I would not like to defend. I do not disagree with the noble Lord. I understand why a number of very good and excellent appointments have been made to the Benches opposite. I understand the reason why they wish to make up the numbers. All I am saying is that to argue that the Government are not going to accept the amendment from my noble friend because they are worried about the size of the House is ridiculous when, at the same time, they are increasing the size of the House. Have a care here for the importance of Parliament, of effective opposition and of not disabling the ability of this House to carry out its constitutional duties. In the end, it will be to the disadvantage of the Government and the House.
I support my noble friend’s amendment. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Hailsham is going to vote for it, but I do not see any conditionality about it. I am going to support it because it is in the interests of our country, democracy and this splendid institution—the House of Lords—which all of us should hold in the highest regard.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
The thing I find odd about the argument just advanced, and, indeed, about the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and the way in which he introduced it—splendid though it was—is the implicit assumption that if his amendment were to pass here, the other place would say, “Goodness, that’s a good idea”, and accept it. Does he really think that would happen? If so, I have a Westminster Bridge to sell to him. If he does not, does he think that the process of ping-pong will be good for the image of this House?
Baroness Meyer (Con)
My Lords, this is not about ping-pong but about reform, and for reform to be legitimate, it must be principled, proportionate, fair and respectful.
The hereditary Peers currently serving this House entered under a binding cross-party agreement in 1999. They did so in good faith, committing to public service, many without expectation of office or reward. Some are relatively young and gave up successful careers to serve here. To subject them now to mass eviction is not just poor constitutional practice but an act of bad faith. They are not ceremonial relics but active and dedicated parliamentarians, as many have noted. The question is not about reform and whether it should happen—we all agree on that—but about how reform should be done. Can we do it with fairness and decency, or will we allow it to proceed with injustice and haste?
This amendment would not preserve the hereditary principle, but it would allow those already here to remain until they retire. This is reform done properly and fairly. The Minister will argue that the Bill fulfils a manifesto pledge, but the pledge said nothing about mass eviction. Delivering on a pledge does not justify injustice, particularly when it breaks a binding agreement and when just 34% of the electorate voted for it.
Without this amendment, the Bill amounts to constitutional vandalism. The Bill removes a long-serving group with an age-old sense of duty and responsibility, not for what they perform but for how they arrived. This is why it feels vindictive. It also sets a dangerous precedent, as my noble friend mentioned. Today it is the hereditary Peers; tomorrow it could be the Cross-Benchers or anyone who dares to dissent. This House draws its strengths from its independence and diversity of thought. Let us not mistake destruction for progress. Let us pursue reform the British way: incrementally, inclusively and fairly.
This amendment would allow reform without injustice. It honours service, and it gives the Government the chance to act with principle, not vindictiveness. I urge all noble Lords who value fairness and decency to support this amendment. This is a U-turn worth doing.
Lord Dobbs (Con)
My Lords, I shall make a very brief comment on the points of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, about the image of the House.
We know and accept that hereditary Peers are anomalous, but what about most of the rest of us? Let us be clear about this: we are here—the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and I—because we crawled so far up the affections of a Prime Minister that we got parking rights. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
As for the idea that this is going to cause a great change in the reputation of this House, I wish that were the case. Meg Russell of the Constitution Unit at University College London has just published a new set of findings, having done some opinion polling on this very point. One point was that you could either limit the number of prime ministerial appointments to this House or get rid of the hereditaries. She said that limiting the number of prime ministerial appointments had by far the highest support among the public. Just 3% of voters chose removing the hereditary Peers without also limiting the number of prime ministerial appointments. We are not in such a bad way as is sometimes suggested.
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)
Does the noble Lord not think it possible to do both—to limit the number of appointees through the prime ministerial structure and to reduce the size of the House in the way that is suggested in this Bill?
Lord Dobbs
I had finished my remarks but will respond to say that I would love that to be the case.
Baroness Browning (Con)
My Lords, I have been waiting for the noble Lord, Lord Burns, to contribute to this debate. He has not done so, so perhaps I might, as a member of the Burns committee, set up by the former Lord Speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Fowler.
We brought before this House a report from the Burns committee with a suggestion of how we could limit the numbers and deal with retirements, but it was based purely on Prime Ministers of the day—and there have been quite a few of them since our report was debated by this House—making sure that they played their part in not sending so many people to the Chamber. As we know, it is only my noble friend Lady May who has kept that bargain and understood why that was important for it to work. Indeed, in subsequent Burns reports that have been available to the House, it was clear that the agreement on retirement was working. We had it within our grasp some years ago, agreed by this House that that was how we would proceed. Had we stuck to that—in particular, had former Prime Ministers stuck to their side of the bargain —I do not think we would be in this position today.
Lord Sentamu (CB)
My Lords, noble Lords will remember that I intervened in a debate when we had been going on for hours and went on to actually address the issue in this small Bill. It is not a big Bill and its aims are very clear, but I think we lost the opportunity of concentrating on what the Bill is about. If noble Lords remember, there were many speeches about reforming and about age, and they went on and on. I remember intervening to say that those propositions would go nowhere, because the purpose of the Bill is well defined.
It was with deep regret that I sat in your Lordships’ House and listened to so many speeches, with a lot of hereditaries sitting around, addressing the future as if they were not present. That was the sort of experience I used to have in this country when we were talking about black people. I would be in a meeting where they were talking about black people, and suggesting what would be good for them, but the black people were not being asked what they thought was good for them.
We have got be clear on what the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, is about. First, it seeks to abolish the system of by-elections for hereditary Peers. Secondly, it seeks to prevent hereditary Peers joining the House. Thirdly, it would allow
“those who are presently serving in the House to remain”,
but no new hereditary Peers would be made. The problem with this amendment is what the Government would do. They have already tabled a Bill, which we have discussed, and we know where it is going.
In the Select Committee that the Leader of the House intends to set up, will thought be given to what might be done with those of our number who go out under this Bill who wish, if the opportunity is granted, to continue to serve, no longer as hereditaries but as life Peers? Would that question be worth taking up? If it is taken up then the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, has raised an issue which should have been raised, again and again, in those long debates.
Finally, on the question of memory and where we are going, the problem is that any society, church, community, organisation or Parliament that forgets its memory becomes senile. We know where we are going with this Bill but, to prevent senility, it would be quite good to know from the Leader of the House—who told us that she would set up a Select Committee—whether there will be a mechanism to allow those who wish to continue to serve in this place to do so, rather than this Bill being the end of their time here.
We can all change titles. I came into this House in 2005 as a right reverend Primate. That caused me some trouble: why was I a “primate”—I thought primates were certain animals? I came here as a primate, and maybe a vicious one, and when I retired I became a Cross-Bencher. We can all change in ways that do not disrupt the reality of the House.
I have had a fantastic time here. I love everybody here who has given us their wonderful words and thoughts. It will be a very sad day when I look around and see that those who feel that this is still a place where they can do their public service—not everybody will feel that way—cannot be changed from hereditary to life Peers. If it is to happen, there must be a way in which we say that, yes, this Bill triggered a change, and then those speeches which were made about change can be revisited in the future. We need to reflect. I hope that we will not have more and more debates, but will finish this tiny Bill very quickly.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I do not wish to still the debate, but perhaps I might, as the noble Baroness did on a wider point in the first group, intervene briefly. As a previous Leader of your Lordships’ House and now as Leader of the Opposition in this House, the remarks I am going to make, I make as Leader of the Conservative Party here and with the full assent of my right honourable friend the leader of the Opposition nationally.
I say, by the way, to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, that this House should never be cowed from proposing a thought to the other place. Indeed, one of the arguable contentions that we have had on this Bill is that it must have no amendments. I am sure there have been occasions, but it is unusual in our parliamentary proceedings that the expectation should be that a Bill, and certainly one of this constitutional significance, be unamended. Would the proposition that one cannot have a conversation with the House of Commons on this matter apply to a future Bill to remove people over 80, as promised in the Labour manifesto? I hope not. I hope this House would vigorously raise questions on that.
I have been listening carefully to the debate that was initiated very ably by my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, brilliantly supported by the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, and my noble friend Lady Laing. They put a proposition that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, acknowledged he owns and loves, but he is going to vote against it today. It is a proposition that I think many of us know in our heart is the right and balanced way forward. I think many of us know in our heart that if there were not a party whip applying, there would be a majority in this place to reach a balanced solution. That balanced solution gives the party opposite and the Liberal Democrats what they have legitimately wanted for a long period, which is the end of the hereditary principle as a route of entry into this House, but which does not hurt existing Members or impede the workings of this House in the way my noble friend Lord Forsyth suggested.
In case there is any doubt, I put on record beyond any doubt what those who have been following the debates on the Bill from the outset will already know, which is that my party has no plan, intention or device to block the Bill indefinitely or to delay its passage by the kind of constant ping-pong that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, referred to. From the very outset, within days of the last general election, on my initiative and that of the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, we recognised, regret it or not, the Labour Party’s mandate to end the entry of Peers to this place by any preferment of heredity. The convenor and I proposed—and the noble Baroness the Leader of the House graciously accepted and helped to develop—that proposal, that by-elections for hereditary Peers should be suspended. That has been accomplished, and it remains so. It is done. It is not an issue in this debate, even though the word by-elections has featured a great deal. No person has entered this place by reason of election under the 1999 Act since Labour’s victory in the last general election, nor shall one ever do so again.
That is a mighty thing under the eyes of 800 years of service here by hereditary Peers. By the end of this month, a Bill will pass which will permanently end entry here on the grounds of heredity, and if the Government should choose to send it for Royal Assent, it could be law by dawn on the first day of August. That is the position. Whatever may be implied or said to the contrary, we on this side are not arguing for the continuation of the hereditary principle as a route of entry here.
My noble friend’s amendment would not alter, detract from or frustrate that in any way; in fact, it would enable it. The sole issue before your Lordships in this debate, as my noble friend Lady Laing argued so passionately, is not who comes here in future but who goes now.
As the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, said—I think the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, slightly missed this point—if the Bill successfully affirms that any Government may expel summarily a group of existing Members of our legislature who for whatever reason they do not like, then any future Executive, using what will be the awesome power—unique, actually, in the world—of a Prime Minister to choose who comes here, and now, on this example, who goes, any future Government, of whatever colour, and heaven forfend it should be the example put before us by the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, could use the same arguments—
Lord True (Con)
I will complete my remarks and then I will give way. They could use the same arguments to expel any other group now among us in the future.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, this is such an absurd, fanciful and imaginative suggestion. By way of evidence, can the noble Lord explain to us how 667 hereditaries being removed overnight in 1999 raised the spectre that he is trying to put before us—that it enabled subsequent Governments to act in the completely arbitrary and brutal way that he has described? It is pure fantasy.
Lord True (Con)
Well, it certainly encouraged the Labour Party, which removed the Law Lords—although allowing those who were here to stay—and are now removing the rest of our hereditary colleagues.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
I did not follow the noble Lord’s argument that the ability to change the composition of the House of Lords by legislation, which has been brought forward after a manifesto was provided to the electorate, is the same as the ability of a Prime Minister at the moment to nominate and bring into the House as life Peers any number of people. The arbitrariness comes from the prerogative in terms of how people come in, but we are talking now about the composition of the House and changing it by legislation, and those two are not comparable.
Lord True (Con)
The Prime Minister has no power to exclude. Prime Ministers have the power, by royal prerogative, to recommend appointments to the monarch, but no Prime Minister in the world has the power to exclude. The only other House of Parliament in any way similar to ours is the Senate of Canada, and there is no power for the Prime Minister to exclude a Member or group of Members.
The debate ranged widely, but the decisions that we always make as people who make law must be on the face of the paper before us, the proposed Act of Parliament, and it is the Bill before us that the noble and right reverend Lord raised. In a few minutes, what each of us privately has to decide is not whether entry by heredity is over—it is—but whether we assent to the expulsion of over 80 of our comrades on all Benches. These are people we know and whose worth we know, as no one outside this House knows them. They are people we respect, as no one outside this House respects them, as we have seen them sitting on the Woolsack, on our committees and on the Front Benches, as my noble friend said, in service as Ministers over the decades. They are people we like, although that is a small thing in relation to their service and the holes that their departure will leave in our ranks.
When the Bell goes shortly, we will all rise from our place and we will go this way or that. We can go and say, “Out with you all”—that is what the Bill says—“and you must go for one wrong about which you could do nothing: by whom you happen to have been conceived”. Or else we may, by quiet assent or our active move into the other Lobby, say, “Yes, we agree that we will have no more new hereditary Peers but we do not wish to hurt those who serve now or to hurt our House. We value who you are and what you have done and may yet do for this House, and we should like you to stay, sit with us and serve as our Peers”. That is the choice we will make in a few minutes.
It is not about who comes here. That is settled; it is history. No other hereditary Peer will ever take the oath at this Dispatch Box. The decision we make is about who goes. It is simple and binary, and it is a decision that each of us in this great House of Lords—which, as the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, said, has the right to make this decision about its composition and its future, and to suggest a way forward to the other place —must now make, with our unique sense of this House that we love and the good that the people we are discussing do for it. We must make a decision about those people we know who have been, often for decades, are and, I submit, should continue to be our fellow Peers.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, we have had a bit of a rehash of a debate that we had previously in Committee on a similar amendment. Amendment 2 today is almost identical to the previous amendment, seeking to amend Clause 2 and return to what is commonly known as the Grocott Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, possibly alone in the House, has the benefit of consistency on this issue, in that, as I recall, he consistently supported the Grocott Bill as a way forward.
I think I understand the emotion displayed by the noble Lord, Lord True, on this issue, but he will now probably regret not taking up my offer to ensure that the Grocott Bill could have passed all its stages and got through the House as a Private Member’s Bill. I gave him my party’s guarantee that we would do that. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, frowns at me, but I gave the guarantee of my party that we would support that Bill and do our best to get it through the House. So we could have done that, but the opportunity was lost, and that is a shame, but that is where we are now. We are now debating a manifesto commitment from the Labour Party.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
The noble Baroness said that I frowned. The reason I frowned is that I do not really understand the argument that says, “You should have taken my offer but you didn’t, so we’re going to throw all these people out of the House of Lords”. If you thought it was okay for Parliament to continue, having got rid of the hereditary principle, why is it any different now?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, there was an opportunity for this House. Had we not had the by-elections since 1999, there would have been far fewer hereditary Peers in this House then. Since my noble friend Lord Grocott introduced his Bill, there have been a number of by-elections and there are now 28 hereditary Peers who are here through those by-elections. I think the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, referred in his comments to them being here by an accident of birth.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
Does the noble Baroness also recognise that there are 257 of us who have also arrived here since the last time there was a vote on this and who would really like the opportunity to take the offer that was not given to us?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
The noble Lord has tabled an amendment and is offering it at this point now, although, had he been in the House when this was debated, I doubt he would have voted differently at the time from the leader of his party, who was very much against it.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I will take one more intervention. I have listened with great care to noble Lords and have not intervened on anybody, and I want to respond to those who have spoken. I will take the intervention from the noble Lord because he used to be quite nice to me, but that will be the last intervention that I take. I think it is in the interests of the House for me to wind up the debate.
Lord Mancroft (Con)
I am most grateful to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House and I hope I will continue to be nice to her. I just wanted to make the point that, although the opportunity may have been available to the House of Lords to pass the Grocott Bill in the previous Parliament, it would not have gone through because it could not possibly have got through the House of Commons.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
Members of my party would have supported that Bill in the House of Commons. The noble Lord has little faith in the House of Commons, but I take his point. I think the noble Lord, Lord Newby, made the point in a previous debate —I know the noble Lord has been here for a number of debates on this issue—that when we send amendments to the House of Commons, how it responds to them is a matter for the House of Commons.
I was actually paying the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, a compliment, praising him for his consistency—he should take them while he can.
I want to move on to a number of the issues raised in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, tried to depart from the view of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, of an accident of birth being the route by which hereditary Peers have moved here. He said it was accident of birth and a by-election. Even taking the amendment from his Front Bench today, I think those elections have been discredited.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, looked at by-elections in the House of Commons, but I would probably liken the by-elections to this House to those from Dunny-on-the-Wold in “Blackadder”. They brought discredit to the House and Members were embarrassed by them.
The noble Lord, Lord True, said that he and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, came to me with the proposal to end the by-elections. They did but that was after the manifesto was published and after the King’s Speech. I was grateful to them; I think it was the sensible thing for the House to do, but the by-elections are just suspended, not ended. If the Bill does not become law, we would return to having the by-elections and the House would have to take a separate decision to stop them. They were just suspended—I think the noble Lord was quite keen that they should be suspended—because we do not really have the power in current legislation to end them.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, made the point that we should not be seen to be looking after our friends. There are many hereditary Peers in your Lordships’ House whom I regard as friends; they might not regard me in the same way at the moment, but I have regarded them as friends for a long time. That is not the issue here; it is a matter of principle, which the Labour Party set out clearly before the election. It is not a criticism of any noble Lord in your Lordships’ House. It is a criticism of the system that has been allowed to continue for so long.
I often agree with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, but I shall take issue with him on a number of things. He said that Labour has brought in 45 new Peers since the general election; his party have had 21 new Peers since the election. Another statistic that I think is helpful to your Lordships’ House concerns the appointments. Like others, I exclude the noble Baroness, Lady May, from this. When we left office as the previous Labour Government in 2010, the difference between the party of government, as we had been, and the Official Opposition, which then became the Government—the Conservative Party—was fewer than 30 Members. When we came into government in 2024, the difference between the two political parties was over 100.
It is a point made very well by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. This is not just about exits; all leaders should exercise restraint. I am on record as saying— I stand by it—that this House works at its best when the main government party and the main opposition party have roughly equal numbers and we abide by the conventions of the House. That is when this House does its best work.
The Opposition have 286 Peers but the noble Lord thinks that when the hereditaries leave this House—and, contrary to what a noble Baroness said, they will not be expelled immediately but at the end of this Session of Parliament—his party will not be able to field a Front Bench from the remaining Members. My party had to field an Opposition with far fewer than that—probably about 100 fewer—and I think we were a pretty effective Opposition. It is not always about numbers.
This argument that if the hereditaries leave we will then come for other groups of people is utterly ridiculous. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, made that point. We are talking about legislation that was in the manifesto and trailed by the manifesto. Which other groups are we talking about: everybody with red hair or those who wear the wrong-coloured jacket? It is a nonsense. This was clearly defined. The noble Lord is chuntering at me from a sedentary position. He had a long time to speak but he wants to jump up again.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
It is only because the noble Baroness the Leader of the House said that she would take no further interventions. The current government manifesto commits to excluding the over-80s at some point, so we know that this Government intend to remove further Members from your Lordships’ House. The examples given in the debate were about future Governments, of neither of our parties, who might come for more of us for other reasons.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, that is always in the hands of the electorate when they have the manifesto published before them. But again, on the retirement age, we have set that out as a clearly stated manifesto commitment. I have said, and have been clear, that the House should come to a decision on that as a House. We ought to be taking far more responsibility for, and ownership of, matters that affect the House. We tried to do that under the Grocott Bill but, for various reasons, the party opposite would not support it and we did not get that far.
The noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, raised the issue of Members not speaking on different issues. I have to say to him that all Members of the House, when they are here as Members, are equal and can speak or vote on issues as they wish, and should do so within the Code of Conduct. When Members declare an interest or their interests preclude their participating, that is in the Code of Conduct; otherwise, we are in the same place.
There is a real issue here. We are talking about the principle, established 25 years ago, that the hereditary principle would not be a route into your Lordships’ House. That does not decry any individual Member who has arrived by that route, but the time has come to an end. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, who I cannot see in his place at the moment, said in an earlier debate that he was surprised it had lasted so long. It was trailed in our manifesto. I said from the Dispatch Box many times, as Leader of the Opposition on the other side, that if the House failed to pass the Bill that my noble friend Lord Grocott was suggesting to end the by-elections, the consequence would be a Bill of this kind.
This is where we are now. It is a chance—the noble Lord, Lord True, is absolutely right. Members of your Lordships’ House have an opportunity today to make a decision. Do they accept the words of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, about an accident of birth followed by a by-election, as the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, says, or do they think that now this has to end? We are not criticising any individual Member—
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
Those are exactly the words I wrote; we can check Hansard later. The noble Lord’s amendment is a way to slow down the process so that all those Members remain here. I speak to my party’s manifesto commitment, which was made quite clear before the election, and urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness and all who have spoken in this debate. I will not detain the House much longer; we have debated this for many years. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the interventions she has taken.
Frustratingly, however, today’s debate has rather missed the point. My Amendment 2, like the Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is titled
“Abolition of by-elections for hereditary peers”.
If we pass this amendment, those by-elections will be permanently abolished. We have already discontinued them. There will be no new people coming to your Lordships’ House because they have inherited their title and won a hereditary Peers by-election. The noble Baroness takes exception to the phrase “accident of birth”; others have used other phrases. The principle is that, if we pass this amendment, the Government’s manifesto pledge to remove the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords can be fulfilled, but it can be fulfilled in a way that is kinder.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I took interventions, so the noble Lord can accept one and be helpful. He is wrong in his premise. Hereditary Peers would remain as hereditary Peers because all that happens in his amendment is that the by-elections will end permanently.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
But we will have ended their right to sit and vote in the Lords and they will leave in the same way as the rest of us, including the over 80s, who at some point, following the recommendations of a Select Committee, may leave your Lordships’ House as well. They will leave in a way that is consistent with the way the Law Lords continue to sit here until they choose to retire or leave through another means. They will leave in a way that is consistent with the way the Irish representative Peers left, after rendering great service to this country. This will be the first time that a category of Peer has been removed with no exceptions and no way back. The proposal is to do it at the end of this Session.
I am happy to continue to call this the Grocott No. 2 Bill, and I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, spoke. We saved a space in the list of supporters in case he could be tempted to add his name. I understand why, after many years of campaigning, he is frustrated and has chosen not to. He said that he prefers the No. 2 Bill because it does the job more effectively. The question is: what is that job?
If the job is to expel the remaining hereditary Peers from your Lordships’ House as quickly as possible and to move on from the guarantee given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, in 1999 without any further reminder of it—we heard not a mention of it from the Leader of the House in her winding speech —then the No. 2 Bill does that job better. However, if the job is to improve the standing and function of your Lordships’ House, and to keep some of the expertise—not just on the Opposition Front Bench but those who serve as Chairmen of Committees and Deputy Speakers on the Woolsack; those who are the custodians of the conventions and kindnesses of this House—then the proposition put forward for many years by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and many other noble Lords from all corners of the House, is a better way of doing it.
I was raised to believe that it is never too late to do the right thing. If you are someone who, like the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is exasperated that we have taken so long, or someone who has previously opposed it and rues that and repents now at leisure or if, like me, you are one of those 257 noble Lords who have never had the opportunity to vote for this kind of modest change that would allow us to say farewell to our colleagues in a more organic way, then I hope you will join me in the Division Lobby and support this amendment. I would like to test the opinion of the House on this matter; it has been too long since we last had that chance.
Lord Newby
“Duty to take forward proposals for democratic mandate for House of Lords(1) It is the duty of the Secretary of State to take forward proposals to secure a democratic mandate for the House of Lords.(2) In pursuance of the duty under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must carry out the steps set out in subsections (3), (4), (5) and (6).(3) Within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament a consultation paper on methods for introducing directly elected members in the House of Lords.(4) After laying the consultation paper under subsection (3), the Secretary of State must seek the views on the matters covered by that paper of—(a) each party and group in the House of Lords,(b) each political party represented in the House of Commons,(c) the Scottish Government,(d) the Welsh Government,(e) the Northern Ireland Executive,(f) local authorities in the United Kingdom,(g) representative organisations for local authorities in the United Kingdom,(h) the general public, which may include citizens’ assemblies, and(j) such other persons and bodies as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.(5) Within 16 months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament a report on responses to the consultation.(6) Within 18 months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament a draft Bill containing legislative proposals on the matter mentioned in subsection (3).”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause imposes a duty on Ministers to take forward proposals to secure a democratic mandate for the House of Lords through introduction of directly elected members.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, excuse me while I find my notes; I am not used to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, being so reticent. Before I begin, following the injunction of the noble Lord, Lord True, I feel I must declare the interest that I am a life Peer.
I rise to move Amendment 4 in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Wallace, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, and the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. The question of whether to elect the second Chamber is one of the longest-standing unresolved issues in British politics. Amendment 32 from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, helpfully reminds us of the wording of the preamble to the Parliament Act 1911, which says that the Lords should be elected but at a more convenient time than the present. For 124 years, no convenient time has presented itself, and we on these Benches think that at long last we should put that right.
Our amendment sets out a timetable for doing so. It would require the Government, within a year of the passage of the Bill, to publish a consultation paper on methods for introducing directly elected Members to the House of Lords. This would contain a number of options and could, for example, include the option of retaining an element of non-party Members of your Lordships’ House.
Having produced this paper, the Government should then have an intensive period of consultation involving the groups set out in proposed new subsection (4). Importantly, and having taken account of comments made in Committee, the consultees would include members of the general public, possibly involving citizens’ assemblies. I strongly favour the use of the citizen assembly mechanism on an issue such as this; ordinary citizens should have a direct say on how they are governed, and the citizens’ assembly route has proved itself very effective in a number of countries for deliberating on contentious public policy issues. At the conclusion of the consultation period, the Government would then be required in short order to produce a report on the conclusions of the consultation and to come forward with a Bill for introducing direct representation into your Lordships’ House.
This issue was debated at great length in Committee. As the arguments have not changed since then—indeed, some of them have not changed for over a century— I will not belabour them all. In short, we believe that the Lords should be elected on the basis that, in a democracy, laws should be passed by people chosen by the people to act on their behalf. It should be elected because the unelected House has a strong geographical imbalance in which London and the south-east are greatly overrepresented and the north, Scotland and Wales are underrepresented, and because it would almost certainly be more representative of the ethnic and party-political diversity of the country.
I will not elaborate on all these arguments, but I would like to say something about geographic representation. It is unfortunate that we do not even know the geographic breakdown of the complete membership of your Lordships’ House, but on partial evidence collected by the Library we find that, between them, London and the south-east provide 45% of our membership, compared with 32% of the population. By contrast, the north-west, with 13% of the population of the UK, provides only 4% of Peers. All other northern regions, the Midlands, Scotland and Wales lag behind. This severe imbalance is reflected in our debates. At a time when the cohesion of the country is under threat, this is clearly unsatisfactory.
In Committee, noble Lords across the House argued that the Prime Minister had too much power over appointments, and I strongly agree. I think that if people realised quite how much power the Prime Minister already has, they would be appalled. The Prime Minister decides not only how many of his own party should be in the Lords but its balance. There are no rules. Opposition parties have to play the role of Oliver, pleading with the Prime Minister for more. Sometimes they get it; more often, they do not. Either way, this sort of horse-trading over the composition of your Lordships’ House is demeaning to our democracy and should be brought to an end.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
I note what the noble Lord says about the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Brady, and the risk of first past the post in two Chambers. Although I agree with the principle of what he is arguing, why does his amendment say nothing about how the powers of the two Houses are to be resolved in the event of both being elected? Does he accept that one of the great failures of the Clegg Bill was the fact that Mr Clegg refused to have any debate at all about what the respective powers should be?
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, this is the main argument that has been used consistently by people who do not want this place elected. It is based on a false premise, which is that, if both Houses are completely or largely elected, it will lead to persistent and irresolvable conflict. If the noble Lord looks at the work that the convener has instituted, which compares second chambers around the world, he will find that there are many that are wholly or partially elected, in countries that have mature democracies, in which there is not persistent stasis because they cannot agree. There may be arguments about the relative powers of the House, but I simply do not believe that having the sorts of elections that I am talking about will lead to the complexities that many noble Lords raised and that, in many cases, are raised as a basis for opposing a principle to which they object.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
Does the noble Lord accept that most of those countries, which I have looked at as well, have a written constitution? We do not. That is the thing that would make it incredibly difficult to resolve disputes between the two Houses. There has to be another formula for that.
Lord Newby (LD)
I am not sure the noble Lord is right about that. We do not have a written constitution now, but we have conventions that enable us to deal with difference—
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt again, but this is a really important point. We have conventions. We voluntarily decide not to exercise all the powers that are given to us. Why on earth would an elected second Chamber keep to those conventions?
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, we on these Benches have argued consistently for a written constitution, which has been opposed by the rest of the political establishment. We would definitely support a written constitution, but, in the absence of a written constitution, Parliament operates in a manner based on conventions. If the rest of Parliament—the other parties—will not have a written constitution, there is no reason why a new basis of election here should lead to the tearing up of all the conventions.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
The noble Lord would surely agree that, if we were going to have an elected second Chamber, which I strongly support, it would require legislation. In the course of the debate regarding that legislation, we would have to put in anti-deadlock procedures.
Lord Newby (LD)
Of course, that would be debated as part of that process; I accept that.
If I could proceed, I was saying that I believe that, under our proposals, people should be elected on a regional basis, so that they could look to the common interests of a wider area than a single constituency. They should be elected by proportional representation, so that we can avoid the dramatic swings in membership that we have seen in the Commons.
After the 2015 general election, I was mocked—very effectively, if I may say so—by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, because we did very badly in that election yet retained significant numbers here. After the last election, the Tory party finds itself in the position we found ourselves in. If we had the system that the noble Lord, Lord Brady, is proposing, a future Conservative Party in the House of Lords could be decimated in the way it has been in the Commons. What I am proposing here is a more balanced system that means that these wild swings, which you see through first past the post, do not persist. That would bring an element of stability to Parliament that would be extremely sensible.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
I wonder whether the noble Lord would stand for election under this system. I am thinking about how it would operate: I knock on someone’s door and they say, “I’m worried about the health service”, “I’m worried about housing”, or whatever, and I say, “Actually, that’s for the House of Commons, but I’m very good at revising legislation”. There might be a reaction on the doorstep that is even more hostile than we are used to—certainly those of us who were in the House of Commons. How does the noble Lord expect the voters to take us seriously if we are not able to say that we will absolutely fight for whatever it is? This division of powers will mean that we are second-order operators. I suspect that the noble Lord’s answer is that he would not stand for election, and that is probably true of most of the Members of this House. So what we will get is a whole load of party-list B-team people.
Lord Newby (LD)
If we had succeeded with the Clegg Bill and I had been summarily evicted from your Lordships’ House, nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to knock on doors across Europe—
Lord Newby (LD)
Doors across Yorkshire—and Europe; I am quite ambitious, really. Nothing would have given me more pleasure than to knock on doors across Europe—
Lord Newby (LD)
Across Yorkshire, and to say to people, “I am standing for election here to fight for the things that I believe in on the economy, the health service and so on; and I am doing so because I think there should be a group of people who represent the whole of my region, not just a small proportion of it”. I believe—indeed, I know—that there is a raft of issues being dealt with at the moment at a regional rather than constituency level, for which there is no accountability. I would have been extremely confident in standing and making that argument anywhere in Yorkshire. I am only sorry that the delay in getting a democratic basis for the House of Lords means that I will be far too old to exercise that opportunity if and when it comes.
I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Brady, that I have not been able to do it in a coherent manner because of the interruptions, but I was attempting to say that his suggestion of holding elections metronomically, two years after the Commons, would not work. We could have in future, as we have seen in the past decade, periods of instability or situations such as we found ourselves in in 1964 and 1974 when the Government had a slim majority and called a second election soon after the first. In these circumstances, having a second Chamber that is elected independently from events in the Commons would give a degree of stability, rather than adding to the level of instability. The noble Lord, Lord Brady, is right to want this Chamber to be elected but wrong in his recipe for how to do it. Our amendment sets out a clear process to consult and then decide upon a method of electing the House of Lords, and I commend it to the House.
Lord Brady of Altrincham (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, is right to want to see an elected upper House but completely wrong in the way that he wants to see it enacted. However, the reason I want to speak briefly to my Amendment 22 and, I think, also to support his Amendment 4 is that the principle is correct that we should have an elected House. The kind of process that he suggests in Amendment 4 would be valuable and important, but it is also important to make it clear that there is a very wide divergence of views, both about the appropriate powers of the two Houses and indeed the way in which they should be elected and put together. I favour geographical constituencies—not as big as the whole of Europe, which he appeared to want to represent—but that is obviously very different from party list systems and the PR system of election that the Liberal Democrats want to see.
I am delighted to speak here with my noble friend Lord Hailsham sitting in front of me because one of the great authorities on this issue who is always cited is of course his ancestor—his father—who famously talked about an “elective dictatorship”. My concern, having spent 27 years as a Member of the House of Commons, is precisely grounded in that worry that a Government with a significant majority in the House of Commons—unless it has completely lost control—can get its legislation through with almost no impediment. It is also free to ignore amendments sent from this House, precisely because we do not have the legitimacy that an elected House would have.
I discussed this a little while ago with the great constitutionalist, Professor Sir Vernon Bogdanor. He said to me, “I completely disagree with you. It would be quite wrong to have an elected upper House”. But his next comment made, for me, the argument as eloquently as anybody could for an elected upper House. He said, “I’ve written many times that what we have achieved in Britain is the perfect unicameral Parliament, just with two Chambers”. I am afraid that, all too often, that is how our Parliament operates. For this House to have effect, we depend entirely on a Government with a large majority in the House of Commons deciding whether they will accept or take an interest in amendments and improvements that come from the often excellent revising work done by the House of Lords.
I do not want to detain the House for long, but I do think that, in principle, it is right to move to an elected House. I completely disagree with the prescription from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, for how to go about it—and I am greatly reassured to find that he disagrees so profoundly with me. This is a debate that has been going on for over a century, as he said. It will continue, but it is important that we engage with it in the spirit of accepting that it is not a given that the House of Commons operates so well as a democratic assembly that it automatically deserves unquestioned precedence. My time in the House of Commons tells me that it works very poorly in most ways. Its principal function is to select a Government and, most of the time, it then then lets the Government get on with pretty much what they want to do. More challenge in our Parliament, which comes with democracy, is the way forward.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I strongly support, with one qualification, the observations of my noble friend Lord Brady. I have always been a strong supporter of the concept of an elected second Chamber. My real reason is that I want to see a second Chamber being more than a revising Chamber; I want to see it as a determinative Chamber with powers commensurate with the House of Commons. I accept, however, that in the modern world it has to be legitimate, and the only legitimacy that this country—indeed the world—recognises is an election. Therefore, having settled on the view that I think the second Chamber should be a determinative Chamber with substantial powers, I favour an elected Chamber.
I accept that there are problems about deadlock and this and that, but I do not think that they are insuperable. They are in fact addressed in many other jurisdictions in other parts of the world. I think that we would need staggered elections and that—here I disagree with my noble friend—the method of election should be some form of proportional representation. I am very much against party lists. I think too that there should be constituencies, probably similar to the European constituencies that existed in 1979—very large county-based constituencies. The fundamental justification is that we would be able to face down the “elective dictatorship” to which my noble friend referred.
I agree that, after the chaos of yesterday in the House of Commons, one wonders whether we have an over-mighty Government, but we can have such Governments. My experience is very similar to my noble friend’s experience in the House of Commons, where I was for 30 years. I find the power of the House of Commons, when it controls its Back-Benchers, a deeply worrying fact. That is why I want to see an elected second Chamber.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My noble friend said that he was concerned about gridlock. What would he do about it?
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
We need to have anti-deadlock mechanisms. That is perfectly right. I think that you could have qualified voting, but there are a variety of measures that you could put in place. My noble friend is right to say that there are problems and that they would have to be addressed, but they are not insuperable and they would be addressed in the context of any debate on the legislation setting up an elected second Chamber.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, before I begin my remarks in support of Amendment 4, I will comment on the announcement by the noble Baroness the Leader of the House earlier. I welcome the establishment of a Select Committee to look into retirement age and participation. Although, obviously, I would like to see it go much farther, it is a good first step: I accept that even small changes are progress, so I look forward to that Select Committee being formed.
I turn to Amendment 4 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, to which I have added my name. In Committee, I tabled my own amendments on an elected House, but I am pleased that, since then, successful cross-party work has led to a single, unified amendment on an elected House being presented to the House today. I will not repeat remarks I made at Second Reading and in Committee, but I will speak to a new aspect of this amendment, in order to be helpful to the House. The new addition is the inclusion of citizens’ assemblies as a mechanism for deciding the second Chamber’s form and composition. We are at a dire time in our politics, when trust is at an all-time low. This is largely due to ordinary people not feeling that they have a voice that is listened to by decision-makers. Can we blame them? We can and must do so much better.
The British Social Attitudes survey, published by the National Centre for Social Research last month, found that 79% of those surveyed believe that the present system of governing Britain could be improved “quite a lot” or “a great deal”. I am not saying that there are not good things about this place; there are. There are many individuals here who bring expertise in their field, and that is invaluable. Our conduct through cross-party work could perhaps be learned by the other place and other Parliaments. However, its form, composition and procedures are not fit for the 21st century. It is clear that this Chamber needs reform. I believe that this work can begin only once we establish that those of us who scrutinise and draft new laws must be accountable to the people who live under those laws.
So what is a citizens’ assembly? It is a group of typically 50 to 150 randomly selected citizens, broadly representative of the population. Members are selected by a civic lottery and brought together to learn, deliberate and make recommendations on a specific policy issue. Governments around the world have used them to engage citizens in decisions on complex issues, such as constitutional reform, climate change, social care and electoral reform. I support using citizens’ assemblies as a mechanism for shaping a new elected House for two main reasons. First, trust in Parliament is at an all-time low. Secondly, I trust ordinary people to know what is best for them.
Citizens’ assemblies and similar deliberative forums are well established and used all around the world as a way of delivering informed and trusted decisions on complex issues. In Ireland, citizens’ assemblies were utilised in 2016 and 2018. The Irish Citizens’ Assembly involved 100 randomly selected citizen members who considered five important legal and policy issues. In France, the Citizens’ Convention on Climate took place in 2019-20. It was formed following the yellow vest protests and resulted in 149 policy recommendations, many of which were incorporated into national legislation. In Canada, the British Columbia citizens’ assembly took place in 2004 on electoral reform.
Here in the UK, citizens’ assemblies have been used across our nations and regions, covering a range of topics from climate change to constitutional reform. For example, in 2020, six House of Commons Select Committees commissioned Climate Assembly UK to examine how the UK should reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. It was the first UK-wide citizens’ assembly on climate change and published its final report in September 2020. The process was well run, highly engaging and produced a highly impressive report that shows how seriously the participants took their responsibilities. Between October 2019 and December 2020, the Scottish Government commissioned the Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland, which met regularly to deliberate on issues and challenges facing the people of Scotland. Closer to home—for me—in 2019, the National Assembly for Wales commissioned a national citizens’ assembly to examine how people in Wales can shape their future through the work of the National Assembly for Wales.
I turn back to the amendment at hand. It is not off-brand for the Labour Party to support this amendment as drafted. In fact, we have heard from senior members of the Labour Party who are supportive of citizen juries. The recent biography of the Prime Minister stated that Labour wanted to take a new approach to government by directly consulting voters on some of the most vexed questions on Britain’s future. It was suggested that citizens’ assemblies could be used to come up with positions on devolution, assisted dying and House of Lords reform, while recognising that Whitehall will not like this as it will not have control. Of course, we can pursue this option only with the political will of this Government. However, on something that they have history in supporting, why the delay? I ask them to join as supporters of this amendment and let us crack on with getting this done.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
My Lords, I shall say just a few words about Amendment 4, which I support wholeheartedly. It is a move in the right direction. The problem is that if this House does not have some democratic authority, it will lose the powers that it has left. In this modern day and age, we must have some democratic legitimacy, as has often been referred to, in particular on the previous amendments. To survive, we must have a democratic element. I am not here to talk about exactly what that should be. The whole point about this amendment is that it does not specify what it should look like, despite some comments from across the House that seem to presuppose what the outcome of this consultation would be. If moving in the right direction is starting to implement the promise given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, all those years ago then we might be moving in the right direction, but we have to get some democracy into this Chamber or it will not survive into the future.
Viscount Thurso (LD)
My Lords, I support the amendment from my noble friend on the Front Bench and I very much echo the noble Earl’s thoughts. I have spent 30-something years, between this House’s first incarnation, the other place and this House’s second incarnation, arguing for a democratically elected upper Chamber. I do so because I believe wholeheartedly that we need and deserve a strong Parliament, which requires two Houses, both of which can exercise complementary authority to give parliamentary activities what the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, described as legitimacy. This House as it is currently composed, even after we hereditaries have all gone, still lacks the legitimacy necessary for a strong Parliament.
My support for my noble friend is because this amendment offers a route map to getting consultation without prescribing the exact manner of how that democratic legitimacy can be achieved. I am not going to be tempted into a long speech on what I think: if anybody is remotely interested, they can find it in Hansard. What I will say is that the principle of a democratically elected second Chamber is essential for a legitimate Parliament. As I think I said at Second Reading, I am a parliamentarian first and foremost. Therefore, I hope that my noble friend will seek the opinion of the House, and I will certainly support him.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, my support for this amendment is largely symbolic, but at least it is consistent with things that I have said and stood for in the past. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, talked about my Amendment 32, which we will come to late next week. Its purpose is to provide an echo of the Parliament Act 1911, that there is still a requirement for a democratic element to House of Lords reform, and to remind not just the House but the people of this country that democratic reform was a worthwhile stage 2 objective, which has been sadly missed by this Government in this Parliament, and that is the greatest missed opportunity of this entire Bill.
Of course, a wholly appointed House in itself has no democratic legitimacy, or very little. The argument I favoured and supported in 2012 under the Cameron-Clegg Bill of that year was precisely to provide the case for an elected House which included an unelected element—the great Cross Benches—which provided a good, tempering role on the whole of the House of Lords. At present, the House of Lords does an excellent job. It revises and scrutinises legislation, and it debates the great issues of the day. It does not overdo the power that it has. The noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, are entirely correct in saying that we are governed by conventions. The fear some of us have had, if we change the composition of the House of Lords, is: would those conventions exist and continue to provide that slight softening of the attitude of your Lordships’ House?
Of course constituencies are important, and I join my noble friend Lord Hailsham in saying that the only way of doing it—here I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Newby—is to have constituencies, perhaps based loosely on the old 80 or so European constituencies in the country, with voting in perhaps a third of them every five years to get the kind of difference that this House needs.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, when I am at a college in the Midlands this Friday morning with the Learn with the Lords programme, the first thing I will say is that the House of Lords is nothing more than a large sub-committee of the House of Commons with the power to ask it to think again. That being so, it does not matter how its composition is arrived at.
The legislation that would be required by the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, must by definition reduce the powers of this House. It would have to remove the right to chuck out a Bill. We have the right but do not use it, for self-evident reasons, but what is to stop a troublesome elected second Chamber throwing out a Bill before it even revises it? That would be chaos. That would have to be put in the legislation before the new Chamber arrives. Would the Prime Minister down the other end appoint the leader of this new Chamber? Of course not. Self-evidently, that could not happen. So would there be Ministers in the second Chamber? There do not have to be; Ministers can be summoned by this Chamber from the other place to Select Committees and to explain Bills.
There are a few issues to be raised here that are not being talked about, which is why this idea is a bit more complicated than people think. I fully accept that the Chamber should be half the size of the Commons and should not have any Ministers. I have formed that view since I first came here. Noble Lords talk about the House of Commons as it is now, but I can tell them that between 1974 and 1979 we Back-Benchers had a lot more power, because the Government did not have it. The Lib-Lab pact was there. We have the problem of the current situation; we should not form ourselves on the basis that it will always be the same. There are a few more questions to be asked of the noble Lord, Lord Newby—which I do not expect him to answer—than have been asked so far today.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is nothing if not consistent on this issue. We voted together on the seven options that your Lordships’ House was presented with in February 2003 following the royal commission. The noble Lord will recall that, in the Commons, none of the options got a majority and the whole thing failed.
If I am to be critical of what happened with the original proposals put forward by the Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, the royal commission and the various proposals put forward since, including Mr Clegg’s Bill, the proponents of an elected House—of which I am one—need to do the work on the powers and relationship. You cannot get away with simply saying, “We should have an elected House”. I absolutely agree with this, but my noble friend is right that, to make it work, you would have to constrain the current powers of the Lords to make the relationship work effectively.
You would also have to tackle secondary legislation. You could not leave an elected second Chamber with a veto power—which we have used six or seven times in our whole history—particularly if it was elected under proportional representation. Clearly, a second Chamber elected under proportional representation is bound to claim greater legitimacy in the end than the Commons; the claim would always be that we represent the voters much more accurately than a first past the post system.
The noble Lord, Lord Newby, may not realise this, but I am very sympathetic to what he seeks to do. But, for goodness’ sake, let us do the work on what the relationship between two elected Houses should be.
Lord Winston (Lab)
Does the noble Lord agree that this House prides itself on being a Chamber that gives excellent views and expertise? In general, people of expertise tend not to stand for election. They tend to be chosen, for whatever reason. Is that not rather relevant to how this Chamber is supposed to work? Maybe we ought to have more experts in the House of Lords and fewer politicians.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend, whom I respect greatly and have worked with over many years, underestimates the calibre of many Members of Parliament. I take his point that many of the people who come forward in relation to an appointed House might not put their names forward for an elected second Chamber. But at the end of the day, as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said, it is very hard to justify a second Chamber of Parliament that does not have electoral legitimacy. My plea is that we make sure that that legitimacy is produced in a way that does not bring us to conflict.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am very torn on this. I favour a unicameral approach and a lot of the arguments against the elected second Chamber have been made very well, even though I want a more democratic way of making decisions.
There is a crisis of democracy at present that expands far beyond this debate. What really struck me in the debate on assisted dying in the other place was the number of times that MPs effectively said, “Let’s leave it up to the House of Lords to sort out”. That is a disaster, because it is anti-democratic. It worries me, as we increasingly watch a certain implosion happening at the other end, that the House of Lords is given far too much credit for being able to sort that out. The unelected House being the ones who are trusted is the profound crisis of democratic accountability in this country. That is what we should be debating. I feel very self-conscious about being in an unelected House of Lords debating the survival of an unelected House of Lords—which people stay and which people go. It is so self-regarding.
As for the notion of a House full of experts—philosopher kings and all that—I cannot imagine anything more off-putting to the British public than us patting ourselves on the back and saying that we know more than anyone else. I appreciate that is fashionable, but it should not be something we embrace. That is not to undermine the expertise that is here, but please do not try to make it a virtue in terms of democratic decision-making.
However, to go back to the spirit of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, one problem with the discussion on hereditary Peers is that it is too limited. It suggests that it is revolutionary and reforming; in fact, it is just going for low-hanging fruit when we should be having a proper discussion about a democratic shake-up at both ends of this Westminster Palace. I feel that we are wasting an awful lot of time while Rome burns.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, it has been an interesting debate, even if it started slightly predictably. If an all-appointed House is eventually created by this Bill, many—whatever some of us think—will contemplate the logical next step in reforming the House of Lords, which is to consider a democratic mandate. We must not get away from that. I heard talk earlier of “bringing the House into disrepute” by our debating the issues we were, but I am not sure that it helps to be seen laughing at the idea of election, which we did earlier, although it might have been that we were laughing at the Liberal Democrat obsession with proportional representation—one never knows.
As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, explained, it has been a long-held aspiration of the Liberal Democrats and, before them, the good old Liberal Party, which really was liberal, to replace your Lordships’ House with an elected Chamber. It is there in the preamble to the 1911 Act, as my noble friend Lord Strathclyde always reminds us. There have been various attempts, often supported in this Chamber, to achieve a democratic second Chamber: in the 1960s, in the 1970s and most recently by the coalition in 2011. My colleagues are not unhappy with me at the moment, but I will upset them by saying that it was a proposal which I and many others in this House assented to. As we know, it could not be prosecuted because it was frustrated procedurally in the other place by a number of Conservative MPs and the Labour Party.
There is logic and consistency in the noble Lord’s position. I hugely respect the noble Lord, Lord Winston; he really is an expert, whatever others say. However, speaking humbly as someone who has fought seven elections in my ward and won them all, and twice fought elections to be leader of my council and won both—sorry—I hope your Lordships do not consider me to be a complete nincompoop. I do not claim to be an expert, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that some people who are elected can be good.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I have spent a whole life in the Conservative and Unionist Party, and I dare say people in the Labour Party could probably say the same thing.
The desire for election therefore is not just in the Liberal Democrat party. There are people on our Benches who have spoken on it; we heard from my noble friend Lord Brady of Altrincham. The reality is that this Bill, as presented, creates something unique in the world, outside Canada, which is an all-appointed House, stocked by the Prime Minister, now with the aspiration to be able to remove people. No other democratic nation allows the Prime Minister of the day to decide who his opponents in Parliament will be, and how many, or to stock the Chamber. We will stand alone in the world. They used to say that this House was the only house outside Lesotho which had a hereditary element coming into it. If this legislation goes through, we will not find many models without the kind of additional elements that my noble friend Lord Hailsham talked about earlier. We have to look at the shape of the House being created as the result of this Bill as presented. I welcomed what the noble Baroness the Leader of House said earlier about an opportunity; we have not discussed the shape of it in the usual channels, but we obviously will, and I welcome that. The only thing that she did not say was anything about a Bill, although we have a later debate on the amendment tabled by the noble Duke. When he moves his amendment, I would like to hear a little bit more about whether there will be a Bill—the first I heard of it was at the Dispatch Box. The Minister told me she has been having consultations, and she has come to House and said that, but we still do not know the full shape of what is proposed. What she said earlier seemed quite narrowly confined to the issues of age and participation. The challenge by my noble friend Viscount Hailsham that we will need to look a bit more at the full nature of reform is important.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, this has been a genuinely interesting debate, and I thank the noble Lords, Lord Newby and Lord Brady, for tabling their amendments. First, I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that I am one of the minority: a West Midlands-based Peer.
My noble friend Lord Winston as always makes a pertinent and interesting point with regard to experts. He is someone I regularly reference when I talk about our House of experts. I usually say that I doubt he, like many of us, would ever have put his name forward for an election—but we are lucky to have him.
Amendments 4 and 30, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, are similar to his Amendments 11 and 115 in Committee. They seek to place a duty on Ministers to take forward proposals to introduce a democratically elected element to the House of Lords. In bringing forward proposals, the Government would be required to consult with a number of groups—I am glad the noble Lord remembered to add the public to his list this time around.
Amendment 22, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Brady of Altrincham, is similar to his Amendment 90D in Committee. The amendment seeks to place a duty on the Government to produce a Bill which makes provisions to limit the size of the House and provide that all its Members be elected.
We had a spirited debate on similar amendments on the second day in Committee, when your Lordships made a number of insightful and intriguing points about the fundamental nature of this House and its place in our constitution. That debate and this one underscored the importance of considering the potential benefits of reform, alongside the implications for the balance of power within Parliament. Like then, I note that the debate today has demonstrated that the House has yet to settle on a particular side of this issue. This remains a fundamental issue with all the amendments.
Put simply, amendments of this kind are not for this focused Bill. This legislation is the first step in reforming the House. As stated at the beginning of Report, once the Bill receives Royal Assent, the Leader of the House will set out in more detail how we plan to approach the next stage of our reforms.
The longer-term aim is that the Government will consult on proposals for more fundamental reform through the establishment of an alternative second Chamber that is more representative of the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. There will be an opportunity for the public to provide their views on how to ensure that this alternative Chamber best serves them. Amendment 22 in particular cuts across this aspect of the Government’s manifesto commitment as it does not make any provision for consultation with the public.
It is clear that there is an appetite for reform and that there are ongoing conversations that we will need to have, but it is also clear that we are not yet ready to have a settled position within your Lordships’ House. With that in mind, I respectfully ask that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, withdraws his amendment.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. It is normally the case that at this point, one says that it has been an extremely interesting debate. Despite us having debated this many times, it has been a very interesting debate because it has illuminated the central issue that a democratically elected Lords would raise. Are we to be a mere adjunct of the Commons—and, at the end of the day, a totally powerless one—or not, and are we to be part of a more effective parliamentary system in which the Government are challenged effectively?
The truth is that under the current system, the Government are challenged effectively in the Commons only when they have a rebellion in their own ranks. The Opposition cannot challenge them because, at the end of the day, they always win. We cannot challenge them, because at the end of all the ping-pong, we have no legitimacy to stand firm. I do not think anybody who has followed recent decades of British parliamentary activity would claim that the Government have been challenged effectively and that nonsenses have been called out effectively by Parliament, so I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Brady, and the noble Viscounts, Lord Hailsham and Lord Thurso, for making that point.
Obviously, as noble Lords have pointed out, there will be tensions between two elected Houses, but I believe that—as in many other countries which have this—it is possible to resolve them. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, said he opposed having the House of Lords elected under PR because it would give us more legitimacy in some senses than the Commons elected under first past the post. Of course, there is a very easy answer to that, which is to elect the House of Commons by PR as well. That would clearly be a great advantage.
The Government’s approach is an Augustinian one of “We want to reform, but not yet”. We ought to be putting a bit of pressure on them, nudging them towards the goal which they claim to espouse. Therefore, I wish to test the opinion of the House.