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 Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 49-R-I Marshalled list for Report - (30 Jun 2025)
21:56 - Division on Amendment 5 - Ayes: 55 / Noes: 234 - Amendment 5 disagreed.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
“Life peerages not to be conferred against recommendation of the House of Lords Appointments Commission(1) The Life Peerages Act 1958 is amended as follows.(2) In section 1 (power to confer life peerages), after subsection (1) insert—“(1A) The power under subsection (1) may not be exercised in relation to a person if the House of Lords Appointments Commission has written to the Prime Minister to recommend that a peerage should not be conferred on that person.””Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would prevent a life peerage being conferred on a person if the House of Lords Appointments Commission has recommended against the appointment.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 5 is in the names of my noble friend Lord Newby, me and others. In preparing for this, I was also looking at preparation for Friday’s debate on a report from our Select Committee on the Constitution, Executive Oversight and Responsibility for the UK Constitution. That report in effect says that the chief responsibility for maintaining constitutional behaviour in Britain rests with the Prime Minister. That is to say the Prime Minister, who is the all-powerful Executive, is also responsible for making sure that the Executive behave themselves. That, of course, is one of the underlying problems with our unwritten constitution: it relies on our Head of Government being a “good chap”, or a “good chapess” in the case of Liz Truss. The responsibility, authority and power to appoint Members of the second Chamber also lie with the guardian of the constitution and Prime Minister, more or less unchecked.
The Written Statement we had the other week—quietly put out on the Government’s behalf—suggests that future party appointments to this House should require the party nominating them to provide a short note on the qualifications for the—
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)
My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but, just as a matter of accuracy, I think he is talking about the citations that are already in place and were used in the last list to come forward.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My apologies. The Prime Minister in future would have to justify overriding the House of Lords Appointments Commission. This perhaps is some control mechanism on the Prime Minister’s power of appointment, but we have lived through a difficult period in which we have had Prime Ministers who did not particularly pay attention to constitutional conventions and did override the advice on the integrity and suitability of nominations presented by the Prime Minister.
I think the long-term answer to this is clear: we change the way in which this House is constituted. The Bill we presented when we were in the coalition in 2011 and 2012 suggested that we would do much better to have a second Chamber elected in thirds for 15-year terms. That would resolve a lot of these problems, but in the meantime, with the very slow pace of partial reform that we have on these occasions, we need a number of interim measures to limit the Prime Minister’s prerogative and to guard against the real risk that we might again have a Prime Minister who is not a good chap or chapess.
Over the last 30 or 40 years the British have constructed a number of what are called constitutional guard-rails to limit the Prime Minister’s untrammelled prerogative power. We have the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests and the House of Lords Appointments Commission itself. The Labour Party’s manifesto committed to construct a new ethics and integrity commission that will also be a means, yet undefined by the Government, of checking the Prime Minister’s untrammelled authority and holding the Prime Minister to account.
We are all painfully conscious that not all Prime Ministers or presidents respect constitutional or ethical constraints. We have experience in this country, the United States has an extremely painful experience at the moment, and we might again have the experience after the next election, so this interim measure seems to many of us necessary and highly desirable. I beg to move.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I put my name to Amendments 5 and 6. I very much support enhancing the powers of HOLAC, largely for the reasons explained by the noble Lord. Too many appointments made by previous Prime Ministers have been of people who I rather doubt were in any sense appropriate. That, I am afraid, has happened on too many occasions.
In Committee I tabled an amendment which did not find favour with my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne. It would have required HOLAC to state its reasons for not approving an individual and allowed that individual the opportunity to make representations. I did that because I was very conscious that injustices can happen, and I think natural justice requires some form of remedy. My noble friend argued very persuasively, as he always does, that this would open up the prospect of judicial review. I am bound to say that I think he was unduly pessimistic; I do not agree with him. But I took the sense of the House, and I have not repeated that part of my amendment.
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
Is my noble friend not aware—I speak as a former member of HOLAC—that it does indeed subject any applicant for membership of your Lordships’ House to quite stringent questioning on the extent of the commitment they are likely to make to the House and the attendance they are likely to give to the considerations which take place within the House, and that that represents one of the key factors in HOLAC’s decision-making process?
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
I think we are in agreement. What I am in favour of is putting this in a statutory frame. I do not doubt that it is done in a discretionary manner, but I would like it to be statutory. I think it is a very slight difference between us, and I hope we will not fall out on the matter.
My second point—I feel sure that I will not have the agreement of the Front Bench here—I make as a permanent, paid-up member of the awkward squad, and it relates to the oath. It has been a long time since I took the oath of a privy counsellor. I did not take away a copy and I am not quite sure what it said. But I have been on the internet to have a careful look. What it actually says is that, when members of the Privy Council have a clear and informed view, they should vote and speak accordingly. I actually believe that is the duty of your Lordships—all of us. It certainly seems to be the duty of members of the Privy Council.
There are many matters—I now speak personally—on which I do not have a formed or an informed opinion. I like to think that they are the same. In respect of those matters, I am quite happy to take the guidance of the Front Bench. But then I ask myself: what is one’s duty when one has a formed and informed view? I think it is quite plain; it is to vote in accordance with one’s conscience and opinion. We are not echo chambers. This is not an echo chamber. We are not part of a chorus line; we are here to express an unfettered view in accordance with our settled opinion. I would like Members of the House to take an oath to that effect before they sit in this place. So when a member of the Whips’ Office comes along and says, “We want you to vote”, you would simply say, “My dear, I simply don’t agree with you and, what is more, I have sworn an oath that I will speak in accordance with my conscience”. That would be conclusive of the matter.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 19, in my sole name, which proposes the replenishment of the Cross Benches following the departure of the hereditary Peers with 20 appointments over five years via HOLAC, the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which is chaired so ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech.
Currently, there are 32 hereditary Peers sitting on the Cross Benches of your Lordships’ House—an increase in the years since I joined, when I believe there were 28 hereditary Cross-Benchers. No group will be greater impacted by the impending removal of the hereditary presence. Unlike other groupings within the House, the Cross Benches do not speak with a single voice, despite being so ably convened by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and his illustrious predecessors, nor do we have any political or parliamentary machinery with which to lobby for replacements to ensure the relative proportion of the Cross Benches remains consistent after the passage of the Bill.
Contemporary political scientists and commentators —and, after this afternoon’s debate, I think the majority of your Lordships—consider that the expert, independent and ameliorating presence of the Cross Benches in this House is an essential element of its good legislative function. The Cross Benches provide considerable subject matter expertise not found on the more political Benches and tend to carry an apolitical casting vote that acts as a dampener to the political noise that emanates from the other place and is echoed here through the party-political Benches. We mess with that tempering role at our peril. I would ask the Minister to explain clearly in her closing speech how the Government propose to ensure that the Cross Benches of your Lordships’ House will not be diminished as a result of this legislation.
Your Lordships may recall that we debated this in Committee with Amendment 51, to which the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, added their names. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, apologises that he cannot be here today, but he reiterated his support when we spoke this morning. He previously noted the importance of HOLAC and the people’s Peers process as a means of admitting distinguished and apolitical expertise to your Lordships’ House. The angels of HOLAC would not gain access by any other means. Think of the contributions of the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson, Lady Lane- Fox, Lady Bull, Lady Watkins and the indefatigable Lady Kidron—the champion of our creative industries. Think of the tireless work of many noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Krebs, Lord Pannick, Lord Patel, Lord Currie and Lord Adebowale. None would have been here but for HOLAC.
Amendment 19 would ensure that your Lordships’ House continues to benefit from this HOLAC appointments process, which is particularly important given the dramatic decrease in the number of HOLAC appointments in recent years. To reiterate the numbers referenced in Committee, there were 57 appointments during HOLAC’s first 10 years between 2000 and 2010. Since then, there have been only a further 19 appointments, with six since 2018.
Baroness Browning (Con)
As a former member of HOLAC, I wonder if I might intervene briefly. In the term in which I served on HOLAC, we would have liked to have introduced two or three Cross-Bench Peers a year, which had normally been the case. I am afraid that we were prevented from doing so by the Prime Minister of the day.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
That is very helpful, because I was going to propose a possible number. As I was saying: in other words, from initially making nearly six HOLAC appointments a year, we now have only one such appointment annually.
Despite having a non-partisan, highly qualified appointments commission, we are simply not making use of it. Given that this Government are determined to honour the constitutional commitments of the Blair years with the Bill’s passage and the final abolition of the hereditary peerage, should they not also honour the Blair Government’s connected commitment to HOLAC and permit the replenishment of the Cross Benches in the way proposed by Amendment 19, which would ensure a modest appointment rate of perhaps four people’s Peers per annum?
As I have previously noted, I do not think that hereditary Peers should be converted into life Peers in any significant number. Amendment 9 should not pass. This is because our particular demographic will remain well overrepresented among the remaining Members of your Lordships’ House. I do not therefore see Amendment 19 as a route for abolished hereditaries to return to these seats, albeit that they would be welcome to apply with anybody else as common citizens. Rather, we should take advantage of the removal of the hereditary presence to increase the diversity of our membership and bring a broader array of expertise and opinion to bear upon your Lordships’ legislative efforts.
As I understood it—and as mentioned earlier—one of the main reasons for retaining a rump of hereditaries back in 1999 was that it would encourage the further reform of this House, leaving it better, not worse, as a legislative body. I am concerned that the Bill, as currently drafted, removes a group of largely independent-minded Members and increases the proportion of Members that are politically motivated. Amendment 19 would reverse that and replenish the House with a group of non-partisan and technically expert Members. It also has the benefit of diluting, if only a little, the relative increase in prime ministerial patronage that will result from the loss of hereditary Peers, which must surely be a good thing.
On that basis, I recommend it to your Lordships and look forward to hearing from the Minister why it cannot be adopted to support the continued and essential vibrancy of our Cross Benches.
The Earl of Dundee (Con)
My Lords, in this grouping I support Amendment 6, proposed by my noble friend Lord Hailsham.
Your Lordships will agree that the membership composition of a reformed House must sustain and continue the high legislative scrutiny standard of the present House—and thus, conversely, that future membership composition should be designed to serve this priority aim.
If, within the temporal membership of a reformed House of 600, the political numbers were to be 450, the non-political representation appointed by HOLAC would then be 150 Cross-Bench Peers.
As a result, within that total of 600, respective proportions could then become: the government and opposition parties at 175 political Members each; next, the independent non-political Cross-Benchers at 150; and, next, all other political parties at 100.
These respective proportions would then provide a good balance for sustaining and continuing our present high standard of legislative scrutiny.
However, regarding life peerages conferred on independent non-political Cross-Bench life Peers within a reformed House—and as my noble friend Lord Hailsham emphasises—in the first place it must be HOLAC and not the Prime Minister of the day who recommends these appointments to the King.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, I intervened in Committee to explain why I could not support Amendments 5 and 6. I will repeat my argument briefly now. These two amendments would put the committee, HOLAC, into a position where it overruled the Prime Minister. In one case, the Prime Minister could make appointments to the House of Lords only on the advice of HOLAC:
“No recommendation may be made to His Majesty to confer a life peerage except by the House of Lords Appointments Commission”.
So HOLAC would make the recommendation. In the other case, the Prime Minister could be prevented from conferring a peerage on the recommendation of the appointments commission. Both these cases would mean that the Prime Minister was entirely constrained by this advisory committee.
My argument is that the Prime Minister’s powers should not be constrained by a non-elected committee of people, however distinguished. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, referred to other committees that constrain the power of the Prime Minister, but they are crucially different because they are simply advisory. In this case, what is being proposed is committees that would enforce their decision on the Prime Minister. In the case of non-elected people, that is wrong. If Parliament were constraining the power of the Prime Minister, either to appoint or not to appoint, that would be acceptable. It is not acceptable that a non-elected committee, however distinguished, should do so.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Butler. Like him, I have a similar view that the House of Lords Appointments Commission should not be able to constrain the powers of the Prime Minister. Our system of appointment may not be perfect, but it does at least have some semblance of accountability, in that the person who is responsible ultimately is directly elected.
However, although I would therefore not support any amendment that gave greater powers to HOLAC, that does not mean that we should pay no attention to what a Prime Minister does, or that we should not seek clarification about what he intends. So I was intrigued by the Prime Minister’s Written Ministerial Statement of only last month—19 June—setting out the roles and responsibilities of all parties in making nominations to this House, and especially by what he had to say about his and HOLAC’s roles in relation to the Cross Benches.
In his Statement, the Prime Minister reminds us that HOLAC determines the suitability as well as the propriety of any Cross-Bench Peer it nominates to him for recommendation to the King. As I think other noble Lords have said, but I will add for clarification, I personally would not want HOLAC to have a role in considering the suitability of nominations from any political leader to the political ranks. The Prime Minister also says in his Statement:
“I will continue to recommend directly for appointment a limited number of candidates to sit as Crossbench peers … These nominations will … be vetted for propriety by the House of Lords Appointments Commission”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/6/25; cols. 26-27WS.]
The Prime Minister is making it clear that, for any peerage that he nominates straight to the Cross Benches, HOLAC’s role is only to look at the propriety of such nominations, which I think is quite interesting.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston, who has asked some pertinent questions about a topic that also caught my eye. Since this Bill was in Committee, there have been two significant developments in terms of the Cross Benches. As my noble friend has just alluded to, there was, on 17 June, a list of four nominations to the Cross Benches. They are four very eminent people: Sir Tim Barrow, Dr Simon Case, Dame Katherine Grainger and Dame Sharon White; we look forward to welcoming them all to the House and the work that they will do. The announcement of their peerages was accompanied by short citations; I have previously paid tribute to the Government for introducing those citations, as they are very helpful. They set out the great distinctions that people have had in their careers and the expertise they will bring to your Lordships’ House. It was not made clear, however, whether these four worthy people were nominated by the House of Lords Appointments Commission or directly by the Prime Minister.
There was a doctrine in the 1990s, under Sir Tony Blair—he wrote a Written Ministerial Statement to Parliament outlining it—that he would nominate a small number of distinguished people who, for reasons of their former career, were understandably not suitable to be partisan Peers, directly to the Cross Benches. At the time he set that out, he said it would be around 10 people per Parliament: they were known in Whitehall as the “Cross-Bench exemptions”. Are the four people nominated on 17 June Cross-Bench exemptions nominated by the Prime Minister, or were some of them nominated by the House of Lords Appointments Commission? Was my noble friend Lady Stowell correct just now that the House of Lords Appointments Commission has yet to make recommendations for the Cross-Bench Peers that it suggests, quite separately from the Prime Minister of the day?
Like my noble friend Lady Stowell, I was interested in the Written Ministerial Statement that the Prime Minister made to Parliament on 19 June, as well as in the questions that she asked about HOLAC’s role in assessing suitability. The Prime Minister said in that Statement of 19 June:
“The Commission can decline to support a nomination on propriety grounds and will inform the relevant political party if this is the case. It is a matter for the Prime Minister to decide whether to recommend an individual to the Sovereign”—
echoing the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell. He went on:
“In the unlikely event I, as Prime Minister, were to proceed with a nomination against HOLAC’s advice on propriety I would write to the Commission and this letter would be published on gov.uk”.
That happened under previous Prime Ministers. The current Prime Minister, the noble Baroness and others were extremely critical of that. Is it the case, as the Prime Minister has said to Parliament, unlikely though he says it will be, that he now agrees he may need to exercise that judgment, to disagree with HOLAC and to appoint people to your Lordships’ House against its recommendations on propriety? I would be grateful if the noble Baroness could clarify that.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, again I feel that I am slightly swimming against the tide in opposing this amendment, which seems to me rooted in the outlook that I think of as “good chappery”— I am borrowing the nomenclature of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, in introducing it. It is the idea that when you are appointed to a public body, in some presumably painful operation, your opinion glands are cauterised and you suddenly become a wise, disinterested, neutral person who is uniquely capable of raising your eyes above the partisan scrum and descrying the true national interest.
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, asked, “What if the Prime Minister isn’t a good chap or a good chapess?”, the implication being that, if you are appointed to HOLAC, you must by definition have these virtues. But who appoints you to HOLAC? How is it that you suddenly, by virtue of getting there, drop all your assumptions and prejudices and become this kind of idealised platonic guardian? I have to say that it is a doctrine that has debilitated and delegitimised successive Governments, because it has widened the gap between government and governed.
I called it “good chappery”, but actually a more accurate word would be oligarchy: it is a way of taking a group of people and putting them in a privileged position. It is an oligarchy based now not on birth so much as on outlook. How many HOLAC nominees, for example, would have voted with the majority in the 2016 referendum, just to take the one thing where we actually have an exact measure of how the country at large felt about one specific issue?
The idea that we can, in making these changes to the composition of this House, in effect narrow the way of coming here, put in another filter, strain the nomination through some sort of handkerchief of good chappery, strikes me as utterly inconsistent with the times and almost certainly unacceptable to public opinion. It is also, by the way, very much at odds with the previous amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby. I was one of the small number who supported it. It is one of those funny things where everyone spoke in favour of it and then everyone voted against it. It was rather like the Holocaust education centre thing: all the speeches were one way; all the votes were the other way.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
Not all the speeches, no: my noble friend Lord Howard was indeed one who spoke in favour of the education centre.
It seems to me that, once we start making these changes, the pressure is going to be for widening rather than narrowing the route by which people come here. In other words, there will be more pressure for some kind of direct representation, some democratic element.
I put it to those noble Lords—I suspect the majority on both Benches—who do not want a democratic Chamber that their best tactic was just to lie low and do absolutely nothing and allow this House, in the words of the Gilbert and Sullivan song, to do nothing in particular and do it very well. Once you open the issue of the composition and function of this Chamber, you invite the public into a conversation which I can guarantee will not end with a consensus around putting more power in the hands of some appointed committee rather than an elected Government.
To go back to something that my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said in a previous group, there is a very strong case—now that we have decided to open the issue and change our composition by removing our remaining hereditary colleagues, in my view mistakenly—for having a royal commission and looking in a measured and judicious way at how this Chamber can be made more democratically accountable. If we do not do so in a timely and temperate spirit, it is very likely that a future Government will make changes that the majority of noble Lords gathered here would not like and they would do so in a spirit of frustration, having been defeated on some measure. They would lash out in anger and legislate in haste.
Viscount Thurso (LD)
My Lords, I support my noble friends on the Front Bench in Amendment 5, to which I have added my name. I say in passing to the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, that the theory of good chaps in government was a wonderful theory of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, whom we do not see now as much as we used to, which depends on the fact that we all actually like to do the right thing. Unfortunately, as I think he said, we have discovered that we do not always do the right thing.
I support my noble friend on the Front Bench exactly because some check and balance on probity is required. The desire for probity in public life has been there as long as people have been in public life, but the desire to codify it began with the cash for questions scandal. It has grown over the years and today we have the Committee on Standards in Public Life and the Seven Principles of Public Life. If you stand for and are appointed to a public body, as I was in Scotland, you are required to indicate that you know what these are and agree to uphold them.
My noble friend’s amendment simply ensures that, where HOLAC has made a recommendation to the Prime Minister by informing him that it does not think someone has that required probity, the Prime Minister should not make the appointment. In this I rather disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, although I have the greatest respect for him. Under his argument, if a Prime Minister decides that the ultimate rogue on the planet should get a life peerage, he should get it. I disagree fundamentally with that. There should be a check and balance.
I regard this amendment as a negative rather than an affirmative instrument. The other amendments are more affirmative instruments, which I disagree with. Under this amendment, the Prime Minister puts forward a name and HOLAC looks at it—I think, generally, we can accept that they are people of good will, as good as we get in terms of neutrality in this House—says whether there is a fairly major problem and advises the Prime Minister of it. The idea that HOLAC is overridden on the person it has considered—Lord knows what they might have done; they could have fiddled their taxes or done all sorts of things—and the Prime Minister goes ahead is wrong.
This happens already. The Honours Committee receives nominations and goes through the probity. If the person it looks at is not thought, for whatever reason, to be fit, the recommendation does not go forward. This is very much in that vein. I will happily support my noble friend in his amendment because it is a simple, small buttress for probity in public life.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I oppose Amendments 5, 6 and 31. Noble Lords will probably realise that we are reprising the very excellent debate we had on 14 March about my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth’s Private Member’s Bill, which essentially sought to put HOLAC on a statutory footing.
This debate prompts us to address Tony Benn’s five questions about power, because this debate is about power and putting Members into the upper House of the UK legislature, and it is a very important issue. His five questions are: what power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interest do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? How can we get rid of you? In some respects, these questions are unanswerable, because the effect of the amendments is to put HOLAC on a statutory footing. I believe that would embed semi-permanently an already closed and opaque system of appointment.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
My Lords, it may be worth thinking about where this power for the Prime Minister to appoint Lords came from—I am thinking of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Butler. It derives from the fact that King John had his power to raise taxes taken away from him by the Magna Carta. He was left with the right to appoint Peers—to create Lords—to wage war and to write and sign treaties. Since then, the waging war and treaties have recently come under greater scrutiny. There are problems with that, and Parliament is certainly facing them at the moment in the treaties being written.
The one thing that no one seems to be questioning is that the Prime Minister has the right to advise the King, and constitutionally the King does not refuse the Prime Minister—because that is unconstitutional. Therefore, the Prime Minister has the ancient monarchical power to create Peers. If we think that this power is still right 800 or so years later, that is fine, but we should maybe be thinking, as our predecessors did all those centuries ago, about circumscribing this right and having more control over the unfettered power of the Prime Minister, who is also the head of the Civil Service—and the judiciary, which is now a Civil Service department, the Ministry of Justice—and the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons. I do not really like him having control over everything.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I have long thought that the problem with the Bill is that we all become rather high-handed in talking about the hereditary Peers, as though they are the epitome of anti-democracy in this House. To be honest, we have all been appointed; none of us was elected. Therefore, it seems to me that this is a way of feeling good about ourselves by looking down on the hereditaries, when in fact none of us has a legitimate right to be here.
That to one side, I had a lot of regard for the spirit of the previous amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, looking for a democratic way of electing a second Chamber. The spirit of that, at least, was that the demos—the people—should decide, and I regarded that well. Yet the lead amendment in this group, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, seems to epitomise the opposite of that last amendment, because it is all about anti-democracy. It would give the ultimate power to an unelected committee answerable to no one. The noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, explained that very well, and there have been follow-on speeches expanding on it.
In moving the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, asked us to imagine that the Prime Minister—or indeed president, as he said—may not be a good chap or chapess. I wondered who would decide who and what is good. Would it be HOLAC, or the noble Lord, Lord Wallace? It is possible that he and I would not agree. The whole tone was that constitutional guard-rails would be set up by those who know better, who are more ethical or more virtuous, just in case the voters voted in the wrong way and voted in a wrong ’un. We all know that this is a nod to having a go at the previous Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and that it is about President Trump, not President Biden. It has a partisan feel to it.
When it comes to legislation, I am very worried about how many Henry VIII powers are being used at present and about the number of statutory instruments contained in Bills. I argued that when they were put forward by the Conservative Government and agreed with many people in the Labour Party in opposition about that anti-democratic trend. I am sad to see that with Labour in government, there are even more Henry VIII powers and statutory instruments. In other words, we should be worried by an anti-democratic trend that we are witnessing. If we have to have a second Chamber, the Lords, and if we are going to appoint people, at least let us retain the notion that the Prime Minister—who has a democratic mandate—should be the person who decides, rather than an unelected committee.
As a note on the virtues of unelected expert committees, I am absolutely fine with them being advisory but not in charge. This morning, in relation to a discussion on the infamous door that has cost a fortune and does not work, and on that ugly fence that is an anti-social insult and looks like a barrier between this House and the public, we heard that it was all agreed by a very worthy committee. None of us even knew it was happening, because it was unanswerable. At the end of that discussion, I still could not work out who had made the decision. It was even more opaque than a Prime Minister deciding on who gets in this House. In other words, having a committee does not make it okay.
Finally, I will speak in favour of being partisan and taking sides. I am all for the virtues of the Cross Benches, but something seems to be wrong about the notion that the Cross Benches are full of the great and the good, who are experts, and that somehow they are superior to anyone who has an opinion, a passion or a principle, because they know more than the rest of us. I appreciate that I never joined the Cross Benches—somehow I did not get invited.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
I am just pointing it out.
They are apparently independent, but not that independent. There is a group of us who are sort of maverick; we are called non-affiliated—God knows what it means. It is very important that we defend the right to be political, to be partisan and to say, “I’m not an expert, but I absolutely believe in this”. If we are to exist in here at all, can we at least have some purpose beyond saying how many PhDs we have or how many charities we run?
The great and the good are great and good, but the writing of laws in this country—being legislators and being political—is not just about that. I am as frustrated as anyone about the way that party politics—the whipping process and so on—can damage political independence and courage on all sides of this House. We have witnessed it tonight and we have witnessed it in the other place over the last few days. That annoys me, because I want people to believe in something. On the other hand, the danger of saying that we are a House of experts, and that we will now have an expert HOLAC group that will decide on how many more experts it will bring in, is that we are kicking politics out of what should be an absolutely political place.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I will not delay the House long. Many years ago, under a Conservative Government, I advocated that Nigel Farage should become a Member of your Lordships’ House. If we had recognised the role that he played in taking Britain out of the EU, people would have said that he does represent the majority in this country.
At the time, he was polling quite significantly—which is more than one could say for most Cross-Benchers in this House—and he was a very significant political player, whether you agreed with him or not. Neither of the political parties was going to nominate him, so it would have taken the Cross-Benchers to make him an offer to join them. At that time he might well have done so, because he thought he had finished his political career by taking us out of the EU, and he would have had a very valuable role to play in your Lordships’ House.
Think how different things would be today. It does not follow that he could not have led Reform from your Lordships’ House, but I suspect that it would have been rather more difficult. We would have been in a very different position today if he were a Member of your Lordships’ House. When we think about how representative our House is of British public opinion, we have to bear in mind that there are serious players out there who are not represented here, and I believe that they should be.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
My Lords, while we are all pondering what might have been, I will just say that I agree, to an extent, with the noble Lords, Lord Jackson and Lord Hannan. Something that worries me about HOLAC, or any kind of body like it, is that the establishment appoints itself, which risks losing diversity.
On the other hand, I think we are trying to let perfect be the enemy of good. Surely we need a body to look at the propriety of the people proposed to this Chamber. The one point that I think is essential—and on which I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Butler—is that HOLAC should not have a veto on what the Prime Minister can do. We have to accept that we are dealing with human beings, and sometimes we may have a Prime Minister who makes erratic choices. The key thing is that they have to justify those choices, not that they are prevented from making them.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, described pretty much what is like to be a Cross-Bencher: without having to take an additional oath, you just speak your mind and vote with your conscience. I will let him ponder that one.
Finally, I am not quite sure how any of this relates to the Bill, but perhaps I am being too narrow in my thinking.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, I rise briefly and with some trepidation as somebody who came through the HOLAC process. Although I might have become part of the establishment, I did not start as that. I definitely came from a working-class family and I definitely came from the Midlands.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and others about the importance of increasing the diversity of the House because of the importance of having diverse views within the House. I worry that the combined effect of our procedures and allowances system will always mean that it is very difficult to have people who have not become a little bit like us.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, I spoke extensively about HOLAC in Committee, and noble Lords will probably all be grateful that I do not intend to repeat all I said.
I know that there are many different views across this House on HOLAC, but I think we can all agree that we want a House that serves with integrity and commands public trust. HOLAC provides a non-statutory safeguard within the process for appointments to your Lordships’ House, and its recommendations are currently advisory and do not bind a Prime Minister.
Amendments 5 and 31 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, seek to prevent life peerages being conferred when HOLAC recommends against their appointment. Amendment 6 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hailsham proposes that HOLAC, in place of the Prime Minister, should propose peerages and any recipient should be fit and proper as well as committed to participating in your Lordships’ House. The effect of these amendments would place the power of nomination to this unelected Chamber in the hands of HOLAC—an unelected quango.
As the noble Lord, Lord Butler, reminded the House, and this was reinforced by many of my noble friends this evening, HOLAC was created as an advisory committee; it was created to advise, not to dictate. To make its recommendations binding would fundamentally change its remit and transform it from being a source of counsel to being a gatekeeper for your Lordships’ House. That would be a profound constitutional shift.
The power to recommend appointments to His Majesty should rest where it does now: with the democratically elected Prime Minister, who is accountable to the people. I am glad that the present Prime Minister, who was very critical of former Prime Ministers who ignored the views of HOLAC, has now said that he might, now that he is in power, do the same. My noble friend Lord Parkinson has already quoted from the Written Ministerial Statement, but it is worth saying again:
“In the unlikely event I, as Prime Minister, were to proceed with a nomination against HOLAC’s advice on propriety I would write to the Commission and this letter would be published on gov.uk”.
As a slight digression, I am grateful to my noble friends Lady Stowell and Lord Parkinson for bringing the attention of the House to the Prime Minister’s words on the directly appointed Cross-Bench peerages that were referred to in the same Written Ministerial Statement. My noble friend Lord Parkinson reinforced the concerns and referred to the Statement from the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair. I remember this Statement because I had to dig it up when we were trying to work out how the Prime Minister made Cross-Bench peerages. At the time, these Cross-Bench peerages were limited to 10 per parliamentary Session or per parliamentary term.
Baroness Finn (Con)
I thank your Lordships. So there were to be only 10 of them per Parliament, and they were meant to be for public service; I think they were meant to allow Cabinet Secretaries to be appointed here—which is marvellous, of course—and various others. But there has been a slight change in approach, and I would be very interested in the Minister’s views, following the comments of my noble friend Lady Stowell, on this idea that there might be a two-tier Cross-Bench peerage process: those that HOLAC judges suitable versus those that the PM judges suitable. It is interesting, because this raises a new question of what the criteria for suitability are, if these appointments are supposed to be non-partisan. The more Peers the Prime Minister appoints to the Cross Bench, the more he risks potentially undermining the status of that section of the House. I think that is worth bringing to the attention of the House. As I say, I would be interested in the Minister’s views. That was a small digression, I suppose.
To refer to the amendments in the group, although I have sympathy with the two conditions proposed by my noble friend Lord Hailsham, particularly the latter, in light of the Bill’s move to expel some of the most active participants of our House, I point out that the current system balances expert scrutiny with democratic accountability. HOLAC exists to advise, and the Prime Minister decides. I am sure that the Prime Minister, like his predecessors, will continue to place great weight on the commission’s careful and considered advice, but HOLAC must remain an advisory committee, and its remit should not take the place of a Prime Minister.
Finally, Amendment 19 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, like his amendment in Committee, seeks to encourage HOLAC to recommend 20 new life peerages for the Cross Benches. I appreciate the sentiment of this amendment. Your Lordships’ House is set to lose a considerable amount of experience and expertise from the noble Earl’s Benches—not least his hugely respected convenor, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull—if the Bill passes unamended. Other amendments are still to come from various noble friends, and they seek to resolve this problem in a similar way but for the whole House. I hope that colleagues on the Cross Benches will consider lending their support to these amendments.
In conclusion, I appreciate the strength of feeling across the House on HOLAC and appointments to your Lordships’ House but, as I said in Committee, the balance we have preserves scrutiny and responsibility, and we must be wary of trading one form of discretion for another, particularly when it moves away from democratic oversight.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, and to those who tabled amendments. We have had a very thoughtful and helpful discussion.
I will pick up on a couple of points, because a range of views has been expressed this evening and questions asked. The point about what is your Lordships’ role in this House has come out quite clearly. There are those who said we are a House of experts, while the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was quite clear in asking what is wrong with politics and political parties, even though she does not represent a political party. It just strikes me that, yes, we have a number of experts in your Lordships’ House and we value their expertise, but we are not all experts. The reason we have a number of experts is that we listen to their advice and the information they give, but we are all here to exercise our judgment. That judgment is what we should all bring, and that is the seriousness with which we take our role.
I have considerable sympathy with the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Newby. I think we are trying to get to roughly the same place, to ensure that those who are appointed to your Lordships’ House will have the confidence of this House and the public that they are here to do a role and exercise their judgment in the right way. I think the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, goes further than that, because he is seeking to completely remove the Prime Minister or any democratic accountability from the process of giving the sovereign advice on appointments, instead giving it to a commission that has no accountability—he is nodding; that is the correct interpretation. I think that I and a number of other Members struggle with the idea that that is appropriate. The noble Earl, Lord Devon, is looking to give the commission a new power to advise the sovereign on 20 new non-party-political appointments over the next five years.
Let me address some of those points. The Statement that the Prime Minister issued really clarified the role. This comes to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell. There is no change in the arrangements for HOLAC for appointments to the Cross Benches. For those appointments that come through the Prime Minister, whether to the Cross Benches or from the political parties, but go through the Prime Minister, HOLAC is asked to assess for propriety.
It would be totally wrong for any Prime Minister to use that route to make party-political appointments, and I have spoken to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, about this, giving an absolute assurance this Prime Minister would never do that. It would be completely inappropriate. There is no change: it is exactly as it always has been. The rules are those that other Prime Ministers should have followed—and have in most cases, I am sure—for that route through to the Cross Benches via the Prime Minister. There has been a slight change. I think that originally it was for public servants, but both the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and the current Prime Minister said that it was for people who have a track record of proven public service. Our recent appointments show dedicated public service. Four excellent appointments have been made to the Cross Benches. They are not necessarily public servants, but public service is important. That was a wise move by the now noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and by the Prime Minister to reconfirm his interpretation of that. HOLAC has a role on suitability in the appointments made by HOLAC to the Cross Benches.
Those are the appointments where HOLAC will also look at suitability, as well as propriety. The Prime Minister also mentioned in his Statement a pretty unlikely event which reminds us of the prime ministerial prerogative on this issue, something I think some noble Lords are seeking to remove. It would be a very serious and almost completely unprecedented step, but there has been one occasion when a Prime Minister has gone against HOLAC on propriety. We have set out the process that the Prime Minister should follow and been transparent about that. I think it is quite a serious step to take.
If the Prime Minister were to make an appointment against HOLAC’s advice on propriety, he would be completely transparent on the reasons why, and he would be held to account for that decision. He would be held accountable—that accountability is the issue that has been raised. He would write to the commission to explain the decision and HOLAC would write to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee to notify Parliament that that advice had not been followed. The key there is accountability, as set out in the ministerial Statement.
Lord True (Con)
May I ask the Minister a clarifying question? I think this is important, irrespective of which party is in office. I think she has described the situation very fairly and clearly. Obviously, this prime ministerial power, which is not new, of direct appointment to the Cross Benches, raises the question of how those are assessed. I do not quite understand the internal procedures of the Cross Benches, but I know of people who sit on the non-affiliate Benches who have been put through some kind of process. The Cross-Benchers may think that they are a bit too close to one party or another. If the Prime Minister—I am not saying necessarily a Labour Prime Minister or a Conservative Prime Minister—used this procedure, would the Cross Benches be able to say, “We think that this woman or this man is too close to the Conservatives” or “too close to the Labour Party”? How would that operate? Do the Cross-Benchers have a say in who is appointed to the Cross Benches in terms of their background?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
It is probably more of a question for the Cross-Benchers than me, and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, is ready to leap to his feet.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
I thank the noble Baroness very much. This is obviously an issue that has arisen and has been the source of considerable correspondence, which predates me—Lord Judge began it. It would obviously not be proper for the Cross Benches to be part of some approval process, but we have been able to lay out sufficient rail track so that, certainly for my part, I feel very comfortable that the Prime Minister is going to appoint only people suitable for the Cross Benches and have no recent record of involvement in party processes.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
The noble Earl will know more about the history of non-aligned appointments. I do not think we have appointed anybody who is not aligned at all.
Interesting points have been made about accountability and suitability. Political parties must be responsible for the suitability of those whom they put forward, just as HOLAC is responsible for the suitability of its appointments. Partly because they are largely my idea, I think citations are a good thing because there is more information in the public domain about why somebody has been appointed. However, it would be a regrettable situation if a political party was then to say, “Oh, we don’t test suitability. That’s a matter for HOLAC; we don’t take responsibility for our appointments”. All political parties should take that responsibility rather than pass it on to HOLAC.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
Is the Leader of the House comfortable with the fact that Reform commands 36% of popular support in the polls and has no representation whatever in this House?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, there is a whole issue around this because the SNP has no representation in your Lordships’ House either. The noble Lord has spoken about Nigel Farage being offered a role. Given that Mr Farage’s policy is now to abolish the House of Lords, he may not have been willing to accept that role. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, made this point well. There should be a diversity of opinion. The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, made the same point. There are a range of diversity issues that we should look at, including diversity of opinion. We make better decisions because of that. However, as my noble friend Lord Rooker said earlier—I have used this line, having heard him use it in debates here—in many ways we are a sub-committee of the House of Commons. We can only recommend suggestions and changes to the House of Commons. We bring our judgment to those decisions.
To finish the point that I was making beforehand, we do not believe that the amendment for 20 new life Peers is necessary. The number of nominations is a matter for the Prime Minister, but he will take into account the political balance of the House when making those decisions. It is essential for the House. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was a little cross with the Cross-Benchers, perhaps because they have not invited her to join, although they may reconsider that now. A Private Member’s Bill tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, proposed the Cross Benches being roughly 20% of the House. That is a fair figure for the House. The noble Lord has heard me say time and again that the House works best with those kinds of figures, with roughly equal numbers of both political parties of government and when we abide by the conventions of the House. That is when we do our best work.
In some ways, I appreciated the honesty of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, in his amendment about removing the Prime Minister from the process and having HOLAC deal with this, but he also spoke about participation and the role that we expect Members to play. He is absolutely right that we should expect all Peers to participate in support of the core functions of this House. That means not just turning up to vote occasionally but taking the role as a Member of your Lordships’ House seriously. That is one of the qualities mentioned in the Prime Minister’s Statement—willingness to contribute and play an active role in the House. It matters how Peers get here, but it matters more what Peers do when they are here and how seriously they take that role. Although participation is not a matter for this Bill, I have set out—we will discuss this later—a proposal that may allow us to take that forward.
The noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, talked about the independence of the Cross-Benchers. I think there is a role both for independents and for party politics in your Lordships’ House. I do not think any of us would say that we slavishly follow our party. I think sometimes we wish more did, and I am sure the Opposition Front Bench may say the same, but we do bring judgment. I just keep coming back to that point. Our judgment and integrity are important on these issues.
My final point is on the suggestion from the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, of a new oath for all appointments. I think I understand why he has raised that, and it is a thoughtful approach, but we do not consider it necessary. When a Peer takes the oath in this House and they sign as a Member of this House, that includes a commitment to uphold the Nolan principles of public life so, in a sense, that oath is already there. The Nolan principles are important, and I trust noble Lords to take that commitment to the Nolan principles as seriously as they would take any extra oath, so I do not think it is necessary.
I understand why the proposals have been put forward. The noble Lords, Lord Newby and Lord Wallace, have been sincere in this, but I wonder whether it is a stretch too far. There has been only one case where a Prime Minister has overridden the propriety advice of HOLAC. I think it is wrong to do that. It is hard to envisage circumstances where it would be appropriate, but I think that ensuring absolute transparency, if it were to happen, is the appropriate way forward. I see the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, is about to leap to his feet, so I will give way before he asks.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
Before the Minister sits down—literally in this rare instance—I am grateful to her for the comments she made about the Prime Minister’s Statement and the clarification she gave. She alluded to it, but, just for clarity, is she saying that our four new Cross-Bench colleagues are Cross-Bench Peers selected by the Prime Minister rather than Cross-Bench Peers recommended by HOLAC? I think that is what she was alluding to, but it would be good to have that.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
Those four Cross-Benchers have come through the route of public service, and there is still obviously the expectation that HOLAC would have its appointments done separately. I think that was quite clear in the Statement. I am sorry that that was not clear to the noble Lord before.
Having answered questions again, I respectfully ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, this debate has gone a good deal wider than our modest amendment. Perhaps we will come back to oaths, and the question of the balance in appointments of Cross-Benchers, between the great and the good and people’s Peers, is another thing that we should clearly come back to.
I was very struck at various points in the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, particularly when he was discussing the difference between liberal democracy and popular democracy. Liberal democracy is where those who govern do so with a degree of checks and balances to make sure that decisions are taken with due consideration and that policy does not swing with popular opinion too rapidly from one to another.
When the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, says that we should not have unelected judges holding Governments to account, he is actually saying that the rule of law should not be a check on the tribune of the people, whoever the President or Prime Minister may be. In this amendment, we are talking about a check. We are not saying that HOLAC should make all the nominations. We are saying that, when the Prime Minister makes nominations, HOLAC should advise and the Prime Minister should accept that advice.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
The noble Lord says this is not about all nominations but just those from the Prime Minister. However, the only other nominations other than the HOLAC-appointed ones come through the Prime Minister from the political parties, so which nominations is the noble Lord referring to?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
In that case, I must have misspoken and I apologise. The Prime Minister makes the nominations and HOLAC considers them. That seems to us to be a valuable part of the checks and balances of a liberal democracy.
This is not a new problem. Boris Johnson is not the only person who has abused the system. If one is looking for villains of the past, my party provides by far the greatest in David Lloyd George, who sold peerages. Thankfully, we have moved away from that. I wish to press this to a vote, so I ask if I may test the opinion of the House.
Viscount Hailsham
“Term limits and retirement age(1) A member of the House of Lords who has sat in the House by virtue of a life peerage for 15 years or more ceases to be a member of the House of Lords at the end of that Session of Parliament.(2) A member of the House of Lords who reaches the age of 85 during a Session of Parliament ceases to be a member of the House of Lords at the end of that Session.”
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, in view of the lateness of the hour, I will be very brief. I will say out of an abundance of caution that I will not test the opinion of the House. However, I think there is a very strong case for introducing peerages for a limited period and a retirement period. There are two reasons for that.
First, membership of this House needs to be refreshed, otherwise you get inflationary numbers of an intolerable degree. My two proposals, of a retirement age and limited peerage duration, address that. If one is honest about this, one’s experience decays over a period of time. When I first came into the House, I knew rather a lot about criminal law. That was about 15 years ago, and I knew a great deal more when I went into the House of Commons in 1979. But one’s knowledge changes and, while I have an understanding of the general principles of criminal law, I do not pretend I have the expertise I previously did. So my first point is that one’s expertise declines.
Secondly, many of the issues one is wholly conversant with have changed. When I first came into Parliament, we knew nothing about transgender, artificial intelligence was wholly unknown and we did not have to worry about the internet. But now we have to regulate and debate the application of these matters to try to regulate AI, social media and debate transgender in a sensible way. It is much easier for those who are more conversant with these issues than my generation are to address them. That requires, in part, a refreshing of the membership of this House. For those reasons, I see merit in a retirement age and limiting the period for which peerages are created. So I beg to move but, as I said, I will not be testing the opinion of the House.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, I too see the benefits of a retirement age and therefore will speak briefly to Amendment 20 in my name, which is a variation on that theme. Whereas the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, proposes a retirement age of 85 in Amendment 7, my Amendment 20 is somewhat simpler. It proposes the introduction, only for newly appointed life Peers, of a retirement age of 80 or of a date 10 years after the Member’s introduction to the House, whichever is later.
Amendment 20 would thereby give effect to the Labour Party’s manifesto commitment to introduce a mandatory retirement age of 80. However, it would also introduce an important allowance for those who join your Lordships’ House after the age of 70. This is an important distinction, as it would do away with an arbitrary 80 year-old age limit and ensure that those such as serving Supreme Court justices, whose period of public service has a retirement age of 75, will be able to enjoy at least a full decade of service in your Lordships’ House, irrespective of the age at which they are appointed.
Noble Lords may recall the probing amendments in Committee from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and his excellent speeches introducing them, along with the famous Blencathra Excel spreadsheets calculating the impacts of various retirement ages. He noted that a retirement age of 80, if implemented immediately, would have a draconian effect on numbers in your Lordships’ House, removing up to some 327 Members. My Amendment 20 avoids that guillotine, as well as the organisational shock that would result therefrom, by imposing the age limit only on the newly appointed life Peers appointed under the Life Peerages Act 1958.
This would ensure that we do not instantly lose the valuable institutional wisdom among our more experienced Members, and it would not impact any current life Peers. Amendment 20 would thus fulfil Labour’s manifesto while tempering the age-based guillotine—at least for our existing Members—and gently introducing a retirement age that certainly seemed to find favour with the majority of those present in Committee who expressed an opinion. On that basis, I recommend it to your Lordships and look forward to the response from the Leader of the House, particularly in light of the indication she gave earlier that there may be a Select Committee convened to consider just this topic.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 20, which was ably proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Devon. Let me remind the House again of the commitment in the Labour Party manifesto:
“Labour will … introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House”.
The next sentence says that Labour
“will introduce a new participation requirement as well as strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced members can be removed”.
As the noble Earl, Lord Devon, so kindly pointed out, in Committee I attempted to help the Government by putting down a number of amendments on retirement ages, giving the House three options of retiring Peers at the age of 80, 85 or 90. A retirement age of 80 would have removed 327 Peers, which was far too draconian. I think that is why the Labour Party suddenly dropped the proposed retirement age of 80—it realised it would lose 95 of its own number. A retirement age of 90 would remove just 16 Peers and would not be worth it. A retirement age of 85 would remove about 185 Peers, and I think there was quite a bit of consensus in the House that that figure was about right. The noble Earl, Lord Devon, then made this refinement, which makes a lot of sense and is a vast improvement on my suggestions. I think he also had the support of the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Burns, and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull—I hope I am not doing them a disservice by misquoting them.
I have not tried the patience of the House by tabling those amendments again tonight, but I suggest that the solution to the objections we will hear from the Government at the end of this debate explaining why we cannot do this lies in my Amendment 14 in the next group, which I will elaborate on then. The Government will reject these amendments—and next week will probably reject Amendment 18 from the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, on non-attendance—on the grounds that they are too complicated for primary legislation, that there are a lot of loose ends still to be tied up, that there are unforeseen consequences, that we must consult goodness knows how many people and organisations before we legislate and, of course, that there must never be any amendments to this sacred Bill, no matter how meritorious.
Apart from the last two bogus points, there is merit in the Government’s arguments. We do not have the minutiae of how a retirement scheme at about 80, with amendments and tweaks, would work. Would it be on a Peer’s birthday or at the end of the Session or the Parliament? As for consultation, I submit that there is not any single person or organisation who knows the slightest thing about the retirement of Peers compared with all the current Peers in this House. We are the people to be consulted. I accept that we do not have the minutiae of retirement provisions ready to put in the Bill or any primary legislation.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
My Lords, I observed in Committee that everything in life tends to have a retirement age, so I feel that it is vital to bring in Amendment 20, or something like it, as part of the modernisation of the House.
I will make only two points. The first is in respect of the cliff edge. In organisations that I have worked in, we have often done mergers and acquisitions and had cliff-edge problems with people. It is generally the case that an organisation that expels the seasoned and the good—expelling the human capital that it has bought—without replacements right away, is an organisation that weakens itself. In our House we have people aged beyond 80 —we now know that there is a large number, thanks to the spreadsheets of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra—and, were we to show them the door, that would be very weakening.
This has an elegance in it, because it does not expel anybody but sets down the premise for the future. It is the route that is peculiarly British, in that it was chosen, as we have heard, by the senior judiciary when they did the same thing many years ago, and indeed by the bishops when they brought in a retirement age. In both of those circumstances—I have spoken to people who were around at the time—the people, in any event, chose an earlier retirement age. So we would smooth out the great problem of the cliff edge.
My second and final point is about the wrinkle that the noble Earl, Lord Devon, has cleverly introduced about the 10-year minimum alternative. From the Cross-Bench perspective—and indeed, through us, from the House’s perspective—this is a very good wrinkle. The Cross Bench has to provide quite a lot of judges. We need to provide judges for Special Public Bill Committees, the Ecclesiastical Committee and other purposes, for which we are lucky to have members of the senior judiciary on the Cross Benches—I am looking at at least one here—who are very valuable to the House. The trouble is that the Supreme Court has a retirement age of 75 so, if they can get trained up only by the time they are 77, say, we will have them for a very short period of time. So it is extremely helpful for us if the senior judiciary gets at least 10 years at bat. That is helpful for the Cross Benches and the House.
When I was at the Bar school, I was told that the judge only ever hears the point the third time you make it. I have now made this point four times. The Leader was pointing out that we are all judges and that we are here for judgment. I hope that noble Lords will ponder, for the fourth time, that this might be a good point.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I recognise that this country rather likes retirement ages, but I am afraid I do not share that view. I think of my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who recently retired when he was, I think, 93—someone says he was 97; even better. He was absolutely as sharp as a tack until the time that he stood down. His contributions to this House were memorable. He was a very serious man in every way and people listened to him in this House. To think that we would put in place a system that would have got rid of Lord Mackay fills me with absolute horror.
If we want to reduce the numbers, I have never understood why a committee of this House turned down the idea of internal elections. We all know who are the people in our parties who do not come, who do not contribute and who play very little role in this House. Why not allow us to elect them out and reduce numbers that way? Then we would not have this arbitrary business of saying that, because someone has reached a retirement age of X, that is the reason why they should go.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, had summed up the situation at the end of Committee very well when he said that there was a broad agreement across the House that we needed to act on attendance, participation and retirement. I reckoned without the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, but, having sat through those earlier debates, I suspect that he is in a relatively small minority in your Lordships’ House. If we think that we need to move on those issues, the key question is how we can do it expeditiously and with the best likelihood of getting an outcome that your Lordships’ House wishes to see. In my view, one way that will not achieve that is to expect to do it all via primary legislation, for two reasons.
First, no Government will want to put before your Lordships’ House a Bill with a raft of provisions for further relatively minor changes, because they have seen what has happened this time. I would not fancy being the Leader of the House who went to the Cabinet committee to explain why another Bill dealing with all these things was a priority for the Government. The other argument, which I have made on a number of occasions, and for which I apologise to noble Lords, is that I do not want the House of Commons deciding what constitutes proper attendance and participation by Members of your Lordships’ House.
To take up some of the proposals that we have just heard, if you were to say to MPs that 85 was to be the par for retirement, you would be more likely to get them to pass something saying that it should be 70, because 85 is so far beyond any retirement age for anything of which I am aware that it appears almost ridiculous to people outside your Lordships’ House. This is not to say that we do not have, and have not had, many Members over the age of 85 who have been extremely impressive well beyond that age, but there are reasons for a retirement age that go way beyond competence. Retirement ages are very often introduced in order to see a throughput of people, get new experience in and prevent an organisation living off its past. That is why retirement ages are very often introduced, and is one reason why we need a retirement age here.
If I am right in thinking that we should not be looking to the Government to produce a Bill covering all these things, how else do we do it? My view is that we can do quite a lot of it via our own Standing Orders. The way to get to the point where we can change the Standing Orders is, in my view, the one that the Leader of the House has proposed.
If we have a Select Committee of your Lordships’ House with strict terms of reference and strict timetables, and which produces proposals, we can implement them very quickly on our own. We should decide what we consider a proper level of participation and what, in our view, constitutes an adequate level of attendance, and we should decide and recommend what we think is a sensible retirement age.
I understand why noble Lords are rather cynical about any proposal by any Government to set up a committee to do something that has no statutory powers to implement its recommendations, but there is such a swell of opinion on this issue about the need for change and a willingness on the part of the Government to accommodate it that I believe we should grasp that proposal. We should put forward good people from our groups to serve on it and task them with coming forward with agreed proposals in the quickest possible time. That is the way we should deal with all these issues. Therefore, I believe that we should not be looking to put amendments in this Bill that deal with one or all of them.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Newby, who said almost everything I was about to say in the next group, but it is no less welcome for that. I just want to pick up the point about us all voting for each other. I was here in 1999, and it was a very unpleasant experience to have people constantly sidling up to you, who had never spoken to you before, and urging you to vote for them because they were such a good chap, to use a phrase. I really hope that we do not go back to that, but let us get on to the next group and we will talk more.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, I must declare a conflict of interest in this respect, because I am not quite certain—I have rather forgotten—but I think my 85th birthday is next weekend. I have to say that I am still employed; I am still producing experimental work, which is being published; I am still teaching; I am still training post-doctoral students and younger students; and I am still talking to children’s schools. The fact is that we are discussing a biological problem, which your Lordships seem to have neglected. If we had a rule that we only had people of a certain height in this Chamber and that, let us say, less than 5 foot 10 would not be acceptable, we would actually forget the Gaussian curve of normality and the statistics.
The fact of the matter is that, if we look historically, in the last 20 or 30 years of this House of Lords there were many people in this Chamber who were actually demented in their 60s, and far more in their 70s and 80s who were actually clearly not suitable mentally to be taking judgment on legal issues and issues of social care. The fact of the matter remains that medicine is changing, and there is no doubt, if we actually get successful medicines in future, as we in the Labour Party hope—we will have to see about that, of course—that we will see ages increase and people being mentally competent for longer. I suggest that an arbitrary rule at any age is probably inappropriate biologically, and we should find a more sensible way of considering how we might encourage people to retire when they are no longer competent to be Members of this House.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
I cannot resist responding to that, because I agree with it. One of the problems we have is that the Whips do not have sufficient power to tap people on the shoulder and tell them it is really time, whatever age they are, if they are infirm. From that point of view, I agree: it is a matter not of age but of capability, and I think participation is the way to go to address that.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, those final comments compel me to draw your Lordships’ attention to the amendment coming up later on power of attorney, which tries to look at the problem that we have all seen of some colleagues whose mental faculties, sadly, decline at earlier ages and who need to be encouraged to retire from your Lordships’ House.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hailsham and the noble Earl, Lord Devon, for their Amendments 7 and 20, which refer to other commitments in the Labour manifesto that are not in this Bill. We were told that they are not in this Bill because of a piece of punctuation in the manifesto—a full stop, which got a lot of attention in Committee and on which I shall not dwell tonight. This touches on the anxiety of many noble Lords to understand what stage 2 might look like and when it might come, and to ensure that, if we are to remove some of our colleagues from your Lordships’ House, the House they leave behind will be improved in lots of other ways, as we have discussed repeatedly.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
I should note that the term limit I propose is only for those who join the House after the age of 70.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I thank the noble Earl for the clarification. On the difference in ages, neither outlined why they had selected the ages that they chose, but I note that the noble Earl remains, until August, a member of the under-50s club in your Lordships’ House and I congratulate my noble friend Lord Hailsham on his 80th birthday this February.
These are matters that the House or the Select Committee will have to consider carefully in the light of the very wise comments of the noble Lord, Lord Winston. We are an ageing society and hope that we will all live many years longer and be able to contribute to civic life, family life and many other things in different ways. It is inherently arbitrary. My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern was mentioned and the noble Lord, Lord Winston, is a great example of somebody in his mid-80s still playing a very active part in your Lordships’ House. I responded to the debate on VE Day, when we were all moved to have among us the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who is very active in your Lordships’ House in his 90s and a living reminder of some of the things this country and others have been through. It is very valuable to have people of all ages in your Lordships’ House.
The other significant difference between the two amendments is that the noble Earl’s would apply only to new entrants to your Lordships’ House. Following on from debates that we have had, can the noble Baroness the Leader of the House say something about her attitude to participation thresholds and retirement ages? Does she envisage those applying to current Members of the House or to new entrants? She was opposed to grandfather rights for people who are here as hereditary Peers, but would she afford grandfather rights to those here over the age of 80 presently who came to your Lordships’ House with a certain understanding and who have arranged their lives, houses and so forth on the expectation that they would play a full part until they choose to retire? If the hereditary Peers are to find their basis here changed at the end of the Session, should the same apply on the basis of age?
I note what the noble Baroness said in an earlier group about the Select Committee and we are grateful for that information. She said that she would discuss it in the usual channels and I appreciate that there are details to be ironed out, but can she say a bit more about her thinking on its composition? What would the party breakdown be? How many Cross-Benchers might there be? Would there be a mixture of hereditary and life colleagues? Obviously there would be no hereditaries if it is set up after Royal Assent, but might former hereditary Members be able to play a role in its work? Who should chair it? From which party or none would they come? Would Bishops sit on it?
The noble Baroness said a little about timeframes and hoped that the Select Committee could be set up within three months of this Bill achieving Royal Assent, although she was a little less ambitious on the conclusion of its work. She said:
“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”.
I know that that is a figure of speech, but would the Select Committee report in this Session? If the work was not completed in this Parliament, could the Select Committee be carried over into future Parliaments?
I appreciate that this is flurry of questions, even by my standards. However, what the noble Baroness said earlier begs a number of questions about how this Select Committee is going to be constituted, how it will work, and how it can really deliver on the points that my noble friend Lord Hailsham, the noble Earl and others have touched on in this group. I look forward to her response.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, there is a sense of déjà vu all over again when we discuss these issues, as we have done a number of times. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has the distinction of proposing the only amendment I have ever seen that was longer than the Bill itself, when he looked at the options. We are grateful for his contribution this time and for the spreadsheets he produced before.
I was slightly puzzled by a number of the points the noble Lord made, including that we had dropped things, the issue of retirement, and why we are going to consult so many people when this House knows best. I am not sure he was here when I spoke earlier but I hope my comments will reassure him. He also mentioned a number of phrases that he said I had said, but I never said them. I will check in Hansard; he may be mistaking me for somebody else.
The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, made a couple of really important points. He and I have spoken about judges and he knows I am aware of that issue. He also spoke about the issue of a cliff edge. This is partly the reason, as I have said many times before in your Lordships’ House, that we have a manifesto commitment that is very clear: those who turned 80 would retire at the end of the Parliament in which they did so. As others have pointed out in my discussions with them, one of the issues is that it is quite a significant cliff edge for the House if Members leave at the same time. The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, raised that issue—sorry, there is a wasp that keeps flying at me.
In my discussions and consultations in your Lordships’ House, it has been very clear—notwithstanding some very good points made by those who are not supportive of a retirement age—that there is a general consensus around the House that a retirement age is a good thing, but it was a matter of two Peers and three opinions of how that could be implemented. Tonight’s debate has raised this issue and the noble Earl himself said it should be only for new Members rather than existing Members, and if you come in at a certain age you could stay longer. These are all variations on a theme. What is the best way of reaching a decision when you have variations? I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, on bringing forward legislation that said, “These are the various options. Discuss them and come up with something”. I went through the pretty unedifying experience of House of Lords reform in the House of Commons; MPs trooped through the Lobbies again and again, rejected practically everything and accepted nothing—we got nowhere very fast.
The noble Lord and I discussed what the mechanism could be. I have been discussing this with other noble Lords and developing how the House could take a bit more ownership of the issues and decide what could be a way forward. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said the best people to look at this are Members of your Lordships’ House, who understand how the House works.
I am prepared to accept variations of an implemented manifesto commitment. I do not know how we implement a participation requirement. I have very strong views on how it might be done; I might not be right. Other noble Lords have made suggestions around attendance and participation. I think the noble Lord missed this point in my comments. When I mentioned a timetable for a Select Committee, I referred to moving at pace. It seems to me there is no reason why it could not be set up within three months of Royal Assent.
I said that I hoped that this time next year, the House could discuss any proposals coming forward from that committee. It may be sooner, it may be later, but I do not want to curtail any committee because it is for it to say, “This is what you’ve set us to do, these are the terms of reference you’ve given us, how long will it take us to do that?” So that is a discussion for the usual channels. It should be set up in the same way as any other committee of the House.
The noble Lord asked about hereditary Peers; he seemed to think they were leaving on Royal Assent. If he reads the Bill, he will find it is not on Royal Assent but at the end of the Session. That would be for the parties that nominate to make a decision on who they want on that committee. Noble Lords have said they are interested in this issue, but if they are genuinely serious about making progress on it, I would be very interested to hear what they say.
The noble Lord says that a lot can be done by Standing Orders. Maybe some things can, but it may be that other things need legislation. This could be one of the remits of the committee. If it needs legislation, then what better way to get legislation through your Lordships’ House than if we have a settled view on what the outcome should be?
I have discussed with noble Lords across the House whether there is a way that this House can come to a view on a way forward that we are broadly agreed on, that we can implement more quickly where we are able, and where we are not, that we have the fallback of legislation where there is agreement around the House. Sometimes the House says that we have to have legislation to do this—but if there are things we can do more quickly and more expeditiously, and the House agrees with that, why not do it? That is the purpose of setting this out, and I hope that answers the questions from noble Lords.
I know there are some noble Lords who think that if you come in at a certain age, it should be later, but the committee can look at those kinds of issues and would have the usual representation. It is important that we do not let these issues just drop away and that we do not just say that there are lots of options. Let the House reach a decision on this and do something about it.
I hope that assurance answers the noble Lord’s questions. I am sure that as time goes on, he will have many more—but those are the sorts of things we will come to as we try to set it up. If he has a better idea than a Select Committee to do it, I am open to suggestions, but I want Members of this House to take ownership of decisions that affect this House.
I am also mindful of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby—previously and this time—that if we send legislation to the other place with an age, it may have a different view. This is something that we can do more quickly, but if we have a settled view, I am sure the House of Commons would respect that as well.
I hope that, having heard that, the noble Viscount is willing to withdraw his amendment, and we can continue to look at this issue as we move forward.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I very much welcome the suggestion that there should be a Select Committee addressing some of the issues covered by Amendment 7. With your Lordships’ consent, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Duke of Wellington
“Further reform of the composition of the House of LordsWithin two years of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a draft Bill containing legislative proposals for further reform of the composition of the House of Lords.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Government to lay before Parliament a further bill to reform the House of Lords after the removal of hereditary peers.
The Duke of Wellington (CB)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Altmann, for signing the amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, would have done so if she had been in time.
I have stated in previous debates that although I will be immeasurably sad to leave, I do not feel able to oppose the Bill. I have always recognised that the matter was in the Labour manifesto and the King’s Speech, and was passed by the House of Commons unamended. But before I and others leave, I want to try to persuade His Majesty’s Ministers to go a little bit further than the Leader has already indicated.
I suspect that some of the reforms—for which there is probably quite wide support in this House—will require legislation. I think the noble Lord, Lord Newby, is being a bit pessimistic about the risk of legislation coming from this House to the House of Commons on reforming some of its aspects. If it comes having reached a consensus in this House, I think it very likely that the Leader would be able to persuade her ministerial colleagues that the Government should back it in the House of Commons.
The Leader announced earlier in the debate that she was proposing to recommend that the House sets up a Select Committee, but she initially referred only to it considering retirement and participation. I suggest that there are other matters in the manifesto, and indeed other matters still, that ought to be considered by the Select Committee, such as the removal of disgraced Members, an improvement in the regional balance—a very good point—and of course the report by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, on the size of the House. I believe that there is considerable support across the House for a number of those reforms.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak very briefly to my Amendment 29, which would link the exclusion of hereditary Peers to a stage-two proposal. In Amendment 29, I have set out what ought to be included in a Bill. There is merit in saying to the Government that the hereditary Peers should not be excluded from this House unless and until the Government have brought forward stage-two proposals—that is the simple purpose of my amendment.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, in theory, my Amendment 14 ought not to be in this group because it would do something quite different. I did not ask for it to be degrouped because I did not want these Benches to be accused of trying to have separate groups of amendments to pad it out.
I say to the Leader that I listened carefully—on the monitor because I could not get in here—to what she said in her opening speech. She did not mention consultation, but in Committee numerous Ministers on that Front Bench told us that retirements and attendance could not be addressed in the Bill because they needed to consult on it, they needed to get more expert advice and there were lots of loose ends to be tied up. The noble and learned Lord, the Attorney-General, did most of that. That is a separate matter that I just wanted to put on the record.
Those of us who were here for the whole of Committee stage knew there was widespread support for a retirement age of around 85 and some tweaks, as we have heard. There was widespread support for removing the minority of Peers who never turn up or turn up so infrequently that their contribution to the House is not essential. A couple of speeches per annum from a grandee who never serves on a committee nor does any of the other heavy lifting in this House does not, in my opinion, justify attendance. That is why I support Amendment 18 from the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, which we will deal with next week.
There is also limited support for a participation requirement, but that is much more difficult and technical and would require a lot of Peers to give thoughtful consideration as to how it would work.
I say to my noble friend Lord Hamilton that I, too, do not like our retirement age, but the Government have said that one of the justifications for the Bill is that there are too many Peers and they have got to reduce the size of the Lords. Therefore, a sensible retirement age is a far more moral and legitimate way to do it than evicting hard-working hereditaries.
On the first two points, on retirements and attendance, I believe there is a majority view in the House that we should do something about it. I believe that view is just as strong on the Labour side. I think Labour Peers want to act on it, but they accept the government line that there cannot be any amendments on this issue since that would open up the Bill to all other amendments. In Committee, the Government said they needed to consult on it, but now they have suggested that a Select Committee do that consultation and all the heavy work and then they will bring forward a new Bill in due course to implement those requirements on minimum attendance, participation requirements and possibly even tightening up the removal of disgraced Members. Today, we have seen a masterful stroke from the Leader in her opening remarks, offering this special Select Committee to look at these matters.
But, if this House and a Select Committee come up with solutions, does anyone seriously think the Government will implement them? I will give way to any noble Lord or Lady who will say that they are absolutely confident that this Government or any Government in the future will bring forward new primary legislation on changes to the composition of this House. I do not think it will ever happen. Any new primary Bill will be subject to getting all the amendments which have been tabled for this Bill. I suspect the Public Bill Office would even accept amendments—because they are quite wide-ranging—on the reintroduction of hereditary Peers, which we would debate for days on end. It is far too dangerous for any Government. With the pressure on the Government over the next few years with all the legislation proposed, I do not see it happening.
My amendment says that we need to build in a mechanism to introduce any changes this House wants to make in a tightly constrained statutory instrument. That is the guts of my Amendment 14. I say to government Peers in particular that there is nothing in my amendment which sabotages the thrust of the Bill to get rid of hereditaries, utterly wrong though I think that is. My amendment would not open up the Bill to a myriad of other amendments. It simply says that, if a resolution of this House establishes or changes the age at which Peers must retire or imposes a minimum attendance level or a participation requirement, then the Government must, within 12 months, implement that resolution by laying a draft SI first.
I envisage it working as follows. On retirement, for example, this House would set up a special committee of the great and the good and try to thrash out a retirement regime. It may take us 12 months, two years or we might never agree on it. If we came up with something, it would come before this House as a resolution. If we approved it, the Government would have to implement it within 12 months in an SI. I trust the Government not to change it.
If, hypothetically, we set a retirement age of 85 with various tweaks, no Government will change that to 80 or 90. If they do, we will simply vote it down and be right to do so. I suggest that the same procedure would apply to the other things of participation or attendance. There would be no obligation on this House to create these regimes and resolutions. We may decide, for whatever reasons, not to do some of them because it is too difficult.
I conclude by stating that the majority mood in this House is that we want to make some changes, especially on retirements and attendance. We cannot do it in this Bill for the reasons I set out, and I strongly believe that we will not get another bit of primary legislation to do it either.
The noble Lord, Lord Newby, said that we can do it through orders. But my amendment says that we may need to amend the following Acts of Parliament: this Bill itself when it is passed, the Life Peerages Act 1958 and the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. That is not my whim; it was the advice of the Public Bill Office. It may or may not be right, but I do not think that in Standing Orders we can amend an Act of Parliament; therefore, we need an SI to be able to do it.
I am old and ugly enough to be cynical about what the Government suggest here. Lords Select Committees are brilliant because they are excellent and come up with brilliant solutions. But let us be clear that there may be a danger that the report is so long, and may cover other things, that the Government will decide that they need to consult on it further or not implement it immediately. Let me take the Leader at her word; she is a thoroughly honourable and noble lady.
If the Select Committee is to be the way forward, at Third Reading I will put down a revised version of this amendment, so that when the Lords special Select Committee reports and makes recommendations on retirement, attendance or participation, the Government must introduce an SI implementing them. Nothing else—keep it that simple. If the Lords Select Committee is the answer, an SI implementing its conclusions is the solution. What could be wrong with that? That is the only way to get the reform we want through in an expeditious time.
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Hailsham and the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington.
Earlier today, my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay reminded your Lordships’ House about the assurance given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, when he introduced the legislation that removed the majority of hereditary Peers from your Lordships’ House. He gave an assurance from that Dispatch Box that the remaining hereditaries would not be removed until stage 2 of reform of your Lordships’ House was in place. He was asked what weight could be given to that assurance—what credence could be placed on it—and he told your Lordships’ House that it was a “matter of honour”. He could have said that the assurance would last only for 25 years, but he did not. He could have said that it would last only until a Government were elected on a manifesto pledge to remove the remaining hereditaries from your Lordships’ House, but he did not. He said neither of those things. He said it was a matter of honour.
Earlier today, in our very first debate, the Leader, for whom I have a great deal of respect, gave your Lordships assurances about the future from that same Dispatch Box. I have no doubt that she gave your Lordships those assurances in good faith. But if any noble Lords were just a tiny bit sceptical about the durability of those assurances, they might perhaps be forgiven in the light of what happened to the assurances given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
If it helps the noble Lord, I think he is talking about some 25 years ago. I am talking about a rather shorter period of time —a matter of months—to set up a Select Committee. He might be reassured by that, because I am not likely to forget that in a matter of three months.
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
I was not talking about those assurances; I was talking about the assurances the noble Baroness gave in our first debate about the durability of the status of the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
That is not my assurance; it is the assurance from the House of Lords Commission, from Members of all parties across the House.
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
I dare say, but the noble Baroness repeated those assurances from the Government, from that Dispatch Box, and that carries as much or as little weight as the assurances given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, when he introduced the original legislation.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
My Lords, much of the debate on the Bill has focused on what should be in it, rather than what is in it. Amendments 8, 14 and 29 seek to bind the Government into a timed programme of further reform after this Bill has passed.
In Committee I tabled an amendment to the effect that shortly after the Bill is passed, a time-limited group within the House be formed to hammer out not just the definition but the real application in practice of a participation requirement, and my amendment received wide support across the House. I have not brought it back today because, on reflection, it is a matter that might be best addressed internally in this self-regulating House, rather than included in this Bill and sent to the Commons to alter, block or tamper with it—much as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, was saying during debate on the last group, as indeed echoed by the Minister. That is why I no longer support amendments that seek to bind the Government to producing legislation about further reform, and I am encouraged by the idea of a Select Committee, which has become such a wide topic of discussion today.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I too support the idea of a Select Committee that has been proposed by the Leader of the House: I think this is a very good way forward. I therefore very much support my noble friend Lord Blencathra because, as he says, we need a way to implement the recommendations of that committee. All my experience in this House, and doubtless that of many other people too, is that the other place is extremely reluctant to embark on legislation regarding this House. I would not expect us to get the offer of another Bill for a decade or two. To give ourselves in this Bill the power to move forward seems basically sensible. If we are to have a committee, let us make it a potent committee, not an impotent one.
The noble Lord, Lord Newby, says that we can do that of our own volition. Given the difficulties that we had in having to go to primary legislation to give ourselves the right to have basic disciplinary procedures in this House, I am not aware of any evidence that we actually have the power of our own volition to change the sort of things being considered for the Select Committee. I would be very grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Newby, could outline what he thinks our powers are and on what he bases that understanding, because if indeed we have them, that would be an encouraging and simplifying approach. Depending on what the Minister says, I very much hope that my noble friend, when we come to it next week, will press his amendment to a vote.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, I agree entirely with what my noble friend Lord Lucas has just said. I support in principle Amendment 8, in the name of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, but I think he is rather timid. If he believes in substantive reform of your Lordships’ House, he should table an amendment to achieve that now. Surely he knows that, as my noble friend Lord Lucas has just suggested, there is no real chance of further reform of your Lordships’ House being seriously proposed during the current Parliament.
I do not want to irritate the Minister but, however many times I read the Labour Party manifesto, I do not believe that it suggests there will be three stages of Lords reform—as the noble Baroness has argued on several occasions. I am afraid that I do not agree that it was quite clear in the manifesto that there would be three stages. Any rational person reading the Labour Party manifesto would understand that it proposes two stages. This Bill seeks to achieve only one of six measures which the manifesto proposed as part of a single “action to modernise” your Lordships’ House. Those words I repeat from the manifesto.
If the Labour Party had clearly stated in its manifesto that there would be three stages of reform, of which the first would be the removal of all those who entered the House as hereditary Peers, and nothing else, it would have been strongly criticised across the media. It would have been seen as discriminatory to treat some members of a body of people doing the same job with the same rights in a different manner from others.
I am most surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for whom I have always had the highest regard, believes that the amendment to which she has added her name would lead to further substantive reform. If she really believes in a more democratic House, which has been the firm policy of her party for decades, her best chance of achieving it would be to work together with others to amend the Bill. I had hoped that the noble Baroness might see the value in tabling an amendment similar to Amendment 6, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lucas in Committee, and Amendment 8, which I tabled, to retain 90 Peers who are elected in some sense but to “de-hereditise” them. We could thereby avoid moving to an all-appointed House. We could retain the sand in the shoe, but on a more open and democratic basis. I would suggest 20 for the Cross Benches and 70 for the principal party blocs, to be allocated based on the average number of votes cast in the last three general elections.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, can the noble Viscount confirm which amendment in this group he is addressing?
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
I am addressing Amendment 8 and addressing the general debate on the group. I am about to conclude my remarks, if the noble Baroness will allow me.
It would have been a nod to PR and, in terms of numbers, it would benefit the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party, but it would be less devastating to these Benches than the effects of the Bill as it stands at present. Leaving aside the complications that are presented by the national parties of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—which can of course be solved—the “three elections’ average votes” formula would produce 29 Conservatives, 27 Labour, eight Liberal Democrats and three each for Reform and the Greens.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to add my name to Amendment 8, so ably moved by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, who has contributed so much to the work of this House, as have so many other noble Lords who happen to be hereditary Peers and whose tremendous and dedicated contributions to this House will be removed by this Bill. This amendment is deliberately not prescriptive, but seeks to ensure that this Bill will not simply represent “job done” in terms of House of Lords reform. This Bill will not improve the effectiveness and value added of this House. It will leave a net loss.
I think we all agree that we need to reduce the numbers in this House and that we would like to modernise it and improve its effectiveness and efficiency, but if this is all we do, it will not leave our House in a better place—and there is further reform. As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, suggested, expelling the seasoned and the good, rather than those who do not turn up or the underperformers, will not add value. The noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, talked about participation being particularly important. I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to reassure us that this will not be the end of the matter and that there will be further reform to improve on a net-net basis the composition and effectiveness of this House.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, this has been an interesting discussion. In some ways it ran over from the previous group, I rather thought. There were some very important points raised and I do not think the House in any way—I will come back to it—should underestimate the challenge, which is in no way a challenge to any individual. It is a challenge to the realities of power and the exigencies and priorities of government that was put out by my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne, which are also intrinsic to the amendment so ably moved by the noble Duke.
I said earlier today that I feel that we on this side have been very emollient in this long process and that we have made many efforts to reach accord and not to obstruct this legislation. So far, there has been little in return. Continuing on that track, I have to say, in the light of what I said earlier, which I meant, speaking with the authority of the Leader, as Leader, that I cannot support, much as I understand his motives, the amendment from my noble friend Lord Hailsham that would effectively seek to delay the implementation of this legislation, which I think is better now, as it was amended by the House earlier. It is defective in the sense that it is not a full reform, but I think that the amendment proposed by my noble friend would, because of all the conditionalities in it, potentially lead to a very lengthy delay in the implementation of the legislation, and I think that may lead us into paths of conflict that might not necessarily lead to the most fruitful outcome. But I do understand exactly the point that he is making and that others have made.
As far as the amendment from my noble friend Lord Blencathra is concerned, I think the House was not only entertained but hugely illuminated by the many amendments that my noble friend brought forward in Committee. He raised an enormous number of points of thought. He has not brought back many on Report, but I think he is in a sense offering us a bridge to make some of those things possible. Again, I understand where he is coming from. It is not really for me, but for others in this House, but I doubt his aspiration that he could bring forward an amendment at Third Reading in the manner that he hinted at, because the normal expectation of the House is that that happens when the Minister says that they are prepared to have a discussion on the thing.
The methodology that my noble friend has proposed is ingenious, and the Leader of the House, who is emollient and inclusive, may well say that she is prepared to discuss this mechanism with him. If so, he could do that, but if not, my noble friend, between now and when we reach his amendment, which I think will be on the second day, may have to reflect on the way forward.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, once again, we have had a wide-ranging and very helpful debate. I can think of no other legislation before this House or the other place where there is more interest in what the next piece of legislation will be than there is in the current piece of legislation. Nevertheless, I will do my best to help noble Lords.
First, I am grateful to the noble Duke, because he has had discussions with me on a number of occasions, and I know his commitment to reform. I will come to his amendment as well. Where I would depart from him is that he wants something brought forward within the next two years; I would like to move more quickly. His amendment does not specify any detail of what should be in the reform, as he said. It compels the Government to lay before Parliament further legislation within two years of a Bill receiving Royal Assent. I know he is seeking to provide latitude in his amendment and trying to be helpful. I do not think the amendment necessarily does what he intends it to do, because it depends on the length of the Parliament and when the next King’s Speech will be. He will also know that no Minister will ever commit to, or hint at, what will be in the next King’s Speech or the one after that. The assurance I can give him, as I have said, is an absolute determination to deal with these issues.
The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, seemed very welcoming of a Select Committee. The noble Lord, Lord True, seems more sceptical. I do not know what the Select Committee will say. I have heard noble Lords say, “It’ll make so much fuss out of this”, and, “It’ll take so long that you will never get another Bill to reform the House of Lords”. That is an irresponsible attitude to take. I want to see further reform. I am determined that we make progress on these issues. The reason why I have proposed a Select Committee—it is up to the House if it wishes to take advantage of it—is so that there is an opportunity for the House to come to a decision on the particular issues.
I look at these things in bite-sized chunks, because I think that is how we best make progress. Those two issues are stage 2, which I think is quite clear in the manifesto, but perhaps those of us who helped draft it were not as clear as we thought we were. I think it is quite clear. There has also been increased consensus around this House during the debate that Members want action on participation, attendance and retirement. If the House is serious about wanting that and can come to a conclusion on it then that will certainly make it much easier to take legislation forward, because we will have an agreed view.
The noble Lord is right; I would have those discussions with my colleagues. I would expect the House of Commons to listen carefully to what this House has to say to any reasonable proposals within the bounds of our manifesto. I would also ask the Select Committee to look at what is possible, and if it is possible—it may not be; the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is right that, until a committee has legal advice, it cannot be absolutely certain—to take action more quickly without legislation or prior to legislation. I think that would apply in particular to the issue of participation. I think that would be welcomed.
That does not rule out the opportunity of legislation. However, the best way to get legislation through is not, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, suggested, through very long amendments, and lots of different suggestions and options. If we have a clear view, then that will give us a really good opportunity to get some legislation through on a focused Bill.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
I was not suggesting a long-winded series of amendments. I merely suggested a short SI to implement whatever the Lords recommend. If a Select Committee is going to recommend things around retirement and participation, can she not just use an SI to implement it rather than new legislation?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I appreciate the noble Lord’s impatience; I was going to come to that point, so bear with me. Part of my problem with his amendment—I have not quite finished dealing with the noble Duke’s amendment—although I fully agree with his direction of travel and intention, is that I am not too comfortable with removing the role of this House. I think there is real benefit, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said earlier, in that the best people to do some of this work are Members of this House—obviously taking advice as any committee sees fit. I am keen that we should do that.
If that does not work, then there is still legislation. We still have the option and the manifesto commitment, but I think it is easier and quicker to get something through if we have a settled view from this House. If we can do things without legislation or prior to legislation then we should do so to move quickly.
The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is nothing if not inventive. I have always admired his ingenuity, but he will know as a former Deputy Chief Whip in the other place—
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I apologise; I was demoting him. He was a Chief Whip, so he should know even better that a Third Reading amendment is brought back only if the Minister offers to keep something open at Third Reading. I will tell noble Lords why I cannot do that on his amendment. I will be very clear about this. We had a discussion earlier and spoke about the problems of legislation by SI and Henry VIII powers. The noble Lord proposes, within his way of working, that we should take decisions on quite serious and important issues by SI. It is inventive and it is a way he would want to do it, but I do not think a simple resolution such as that is the appropriate way forward. It would also give the other place the opportunity to reject it as well; I do not think that is appropriate. The existing mechanisms or primary legislation would be a better way forward.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, has been very thoughtful throughout this debate. His amendment stipulates that the next stage of reform requires, among other things, changing the appointments process to limit the discretion of the Prime Minister and party leaders. We have already discussed that, and I think the House made its view clear on the previous vote, so I do not want to repeat the same arguments. As I have said before, we are committed to strengthening and clarifying the roles and responsibilities in the appointments process, which we discussed earlier.
The noble Viscount also talked about term limits and a size cap on the House. As I have said before, the Government’s preference is for a retirement age. That is something, along with participation, that a committee of this House could look at. His amendment does, in effect, deal with the size of the House, which is a very important issue. I am afraid that the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, went way beyond some of the issues we are discussing here, but I noted the comments that he made.
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
I am grateful to the Leader of the House for giving way. Does the caveat that she has just entered about future Parliaments apply to the assurances she gave on behalf of the Government from that Dispatch Box earlier this afternoon on the future status of the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
It does not, because that is not the legislation we are talking about. That is a decision of this House, and I find it very difficult to understand why anybody would want to change that position in this House. I have faith in your Lordships’ House, so it does not apply, and I think the commission has said that in relation to those officeholders and future officeholders as well. If, at some point in the future, this House took a different decision, I would oppose it very strongly—I think it would be totally the wrong decision, and I find it impossible to consider that it would happen. But when it comes to legislation, it is the case that one Parliament does not bind another. Indeed, I think his party has changed its mind on the Grocott Bill from the last Parliament to this one, so we do see changes as we move forward.
My impression is that, as the noble Duke has said, the House wants to make progress as a matter of urgency. None of us knows our longevity in any position or any place, but we are talking about a very short space of time. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, raised this issue with me. I would have thought that a Select Committee could be up and running very soon after Royal Assent. The normal Select Committee rules would apply. I think the terms of reference are quite clear: there are two specific issues. I understand what other Members have said about the need to broaden this out, but the danger there is that we do not get anywhere —which has happened time and again. The House has to make a decision: does it wish to make further progress or not? I think and hope it does. I want to, and I hope noble Lords will not press their amendments.
The Duke of Wellington (CB)
My Lords, I am most grateful to those who have contributed comments on my Amendment 8. I must admit that I have not quite persuaded the Leader to go as far as I had hoped she might, but I have to accept—and I know that she spoke in total good faith—that it is her intention that we should carry out further reforms. She believes the best way to do it is through a Select Committee, which, as she just said, could be prior or leading to legislation, and I must take her words as she just stated them. I hope that all her government colleagues sitting next to her on the Bench have heard what she said—including, if I am not mistaken, the Attorney-General, which is very good.
So I thank the Leader again for her efforts to move to where I hoped she would be, with a categorical assurance that there would be a second Bill. She certainly tried and, in that spirit, I withdraw my amendment.
Lord Keen of Elie
“Lord ChancellorIn the case of any person who holds the office of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain who is not currently a member of the House of Lords, the Prime Minister must recommend to His Majesty the King that the person be granted a life peerage under section 1 of the Life Peerages Act 1958 (power to confer life peerages).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure that the Lord Chancellor is a member of the House of Lords, as was the case for over two centuries leading up to the passage of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.
Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful that so many of your Lordships have remained in the Chamber for this particular amendment. I rise to move this amendment with due deference to successive Lord Chancellors, albeit I take no position as to their past suitability. This may appear to be a slight amendment, but it serves a serious purpose. There was a time when Lord Chancellors provided an authoritative senior legally qualified voice in Cabinet, as well as undertaking duties in your Lordships’ House. Today the post has been changed significantly, and of course we have had a number of Lords Chancellor who have not been lawyers.
I tabled this amendment to explore further the possible benefits of returning to the position where the Lord Chancellor sat in your Lordships’ House. My amendment is not, as I say, seeking to look backward. We of course should look forward to the contributions that future Lord Chancellors could make, not only in Cabinet but to your Lordships’ House.
Although we may not be able to return to the position before the role of Lord Chancellor was changed under the last Labour Government, we can place the role of Lord Chancellor on the same level of status as it previously held. If, as was discussed in Committee, the office of Lord Chancellor was to be seen once again as what might be termed a “destination” appointment, rather than one held by a politician on their progress through the Cabinet, we might gain a great deal.
I suggested in Committee that the Lord Chancellor, newly restored to your Lordships’ House, could also serve as a Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and thus as a guardian of our constitution. We lack that guardianship today, with responsibility for the constitution being divided between various government departments, without any clear insight as to who is responsible finally for important constitutional decisions.
The Bill is liable to set a dangerous constitutional precedent, and I wonder whether a distinguished Lord Chancellor in your Lordships’ House who was entrusted with the guardianship of our constitution and was sitting at the Cabinet table, might have offered a sage warning to the Government about the potential challenge that Bills such as this can present to our constitutional order. It is in these circumstances that I beg to move.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, I will be brief, because this is the fifth time I have spoken on this topic. The first time I spoke, when I advanced the proposition that the Lord Chancellor should come back to this House, Lord Judge—whom I think we all miss very much—inquired in that very gentle way of his whether I was making a job application on the Floor of the House of Lords. I confirmed that I was not and I declare the same non-interest in this speech today.
As my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie has made clear, the position of Lord Chancellor occupies a distinct role in our constitution. The Lord Chancellor is still the only Cabinet Minister who takes a distinct oath to uphold the rule of law, and while the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General and I have had some interesting debates about what is and what is not constituted within the term “the rule of law”, it is an important—indeed, a fundamental—part of our constitution, and I think it is undeniable that in moving the Lord Chancellor away from this House and allowing the position of Lord Chancellor to be held by a Member of the House of Commons, for whom, as my noble and learned friend indicated, it might be an intermediate station stop on a ministerial career, rather than a grand terminus, I think we have lost something.
We have also changed the position of Lord Chief Justice, because while formerly the Lord Chancellor was the person who would speak up for judges, that role now falls to the Lord—or now the Lady—Chief Justice. While there have been some excellent holders of that post—the current holder is particularly excellent —it is unfortunate that we have, in part, turned that post into something of a shop steward for the judges, whereas in the past they had a member of the Cabinet around the Cabinet table, speaking up for judges, for justice and for the rule of law.
I also think, finally, that there is considerable merit in what my noble and learned friend said about the Lord Chancellor heading a small but focused department. One could even call it the Department for Constitutional Affairs: I seem to remember that name being used in the past. That department could have responsibility for the rule of law, for devolution, for civil liberties, for treaties and for human rights—the very things that keep our society the sort of society that we want it to be. These things should not change; they should not come and go with Governments. Frankly, under the last Government as well, we had too many Secretaries of State for Justice, because it was treated as a Cabinet position like any other, but the reason it is treated as a Cabinet position like any other is because that is essentially what the 2005 Act did.
I do not want to go back. We cannot go back to the status quo ante, or to a situation where the Lord Chancellor was a Cabinet Minister and a judge and occupied the Woolsack here; but we can identify that there is something about the role of the Lord Chancellor that is different from all other Cabinet Ministers. For those reasons, I have put my name to this amendment, and I support it.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, it may be helpful if I inform your Lordships’ House that my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General also took an oath to uphold the rule of law when he took office.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
The point I was trying to make is that I think—the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General may correct me—that he took an oath because he wanted to. I think the only one that is based in statute is the Lord Chancellor’s. That is the point I was making.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
That is correct, but I think it is important to note that my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General chose to because he views that as part of his role.
Amendment 10, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, seeks to ensure that the Lord Chancellor is always a Member of the House of Lords rather than of the other place. It is the same amendment tabled previously by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, who, as ever, made an effective and articulate argument for the change, but, with the greatest respect, as my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General said in the previous debate on this matter, the amendment is more focused on unpicking the constitutional settlement agreed in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and recasting the role of Lord Chancellor as it currently stands than it is on the principle of the Bill before us. The noble and learned Lord made his case with his customary eloquence, but the Government are not persuaded of the constitutional or policy rationale for a return to the 2005 decision.
The 2005 Act rightly ended the mixing of the Executive and the judiciary, and this is not something that this Government wish to reverse. The amendment would, in effect, bind the hands of the Prime Minister over whom he can appoint to be Lord Chancellor, excluding Members of the other place from holding this role. This is unnecessarily restrictive. It would also have the practical effect of forcing the Prime Minister to appoint a new Lord Chancellor, either by appointing a new Peer to this place, choosing an existing Peer or triggering a by-election so as to appoint the present Lord Chancellor to your Lordships’ House.
As my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General said in Committee, the Constitution Committee noted that
“character, intellect and a commitment to the rule of law”
are the most important qualities of a Lord Chancellor. My right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor demonstrates these qualities in abundance, and the House she sits in does not hinder her from discharging her duties as Lord Chancellor. This amendment does nothing to safeguard such qualities in the role of the Lord Chancellor.
I am surprised that the Official Opposition have raised the creation of a department for constitutional affairs; they had 14 years in which to create such a department if they had chosen to do so, yet they did not. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, said that the Lord Chancellor should be in charge of a department for constitutional affairs. Such machinery of government changes are of course a matter for the Prime Minister, not for this Bill. Since the creation of the Ministry of Justice in 2007, different Government departments have seen value in a single officeholder having a more holistic oversight of the justice system, by virtue of their responsibility for prisons and probation, as well as for courts and tribunals.
I therefore respectfully request that the noble Lord withdraws his amendment.
Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
I am most obliged for the Minister’s contribution. The amendment proposed is of course within the scope of the Bill. The concept of the Lord Chancellor being a Member of this House did seem to work for rather more than 200 years without any real difficulty. Indeed, the difficulties that we have faced around constitutional affairs have emerged since 2005, and as a consequence of those changes.
Nevertheless, having regard to the hour, I will not seek to divide the House. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Lucas
“No majority for one party in the House of LordsAfter section 1 of the Life Peerages Act 1958, insert—“1A No majority for one party in the House of Lords(1) An appointment may not be made to the House of Lords if it would have the effect of taking the total number of peers from parties forming part of the Government to more than 40% of the total members of that House. (2) If at any time the number of peers from parties forming part of the Government exceeds 40% of the total members of the House of Lords, no appointments to the parties forming part of the Government may be made until that number is reduced below 40% either by resignation, new appointments or leave of absence.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to limit the unfettered power of Prime Ministers to make appointments to the House of Lords.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, when considering the future of this House, one of the most important parts is what the relative proportions of the parties should be. The Government, when in opposition, quite rightly complained about our habit of adding Conservative Peers well beyond the point that would ordinarily have been considered acceptable.
If this House is to have a long-term future, we must get away from the idea that the Prime Minister can tip us over any day he wants just by appointing a lot of new Peers. We must have a degree of solidity in our independence. During all my time here, there has been a recognition that we should have a rough balance between the Government and the Opposition, with the Cross Benches holding the balance. As a concept, that has worked well, although it has been very hard to hold to it, given the actual appointments of Peers. I very much hope that this will be an area that the noble Baroness’s committee will cover. I beg to move.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
I appreciate that, at this late hour, there will be a keenness for everyone to go, but I want to remind the House of its history in opposing amendments such as that proposed by the noble Lord.
One has to remember that, without the right of the Prime Minister exercising the royal prerogative, we would not have had the Parliament Acts and, perhaps more importantly, we would not have had the Great Reform Act 1832. It was because of the royal prerogative and the ability of the Prime Minister to appoint Peers that we were able to move forward to our current democratic state.
I will quote from the debates that took place in this House—but of course not in this Chamber. Speaking from the Opposition Benches, the Earl of Winchilsea
“said, he suffered a pain of mind greater than he could express in thinking that he had lived to that hour to witness the downfall of his country. That night would close the first act of the fatal and bloody tragedy. It would close the existence of that House”—
the House of Lords—
“as one branch of the Legislature, for its independence, which was its brightest ornament, had fallen, and without that independence it might be considered as having ceased to exist”.—[Official Report, 4/6/1832; col. 349.]
Well, we still have the Earls of Winchilsea on the Opposition Benches forecasting total catastrophe from this move towards a more democratic House. Earl Grey, the Prime Minister—at a time when the Prime Minister was in this House—said in response that
“if the House of Commons should, after their Lordships rejecting, for a second time, a Bill sent up from that House, persist in asserting the opinion expressed by it with reference to that Bill, and that it should appear that in the event of an appeal to the country, it was not probable that another House of Commons would be chosen less zealous for Reform, then, in his mind, the emergency had arrived which would justify that exercise of the prerogative by which only a serious collision between the two Houses could be prevented”.—[Official Report, 4/6/1832; col. 362.]
I think the point persists almost 200 years later that the right of the Prime Minister to subject this House to the appointment of Peers is part of the process by which we achieve our present democratic freedoms, which I think would be a great loss to the country as a whole.
My promise, when I was appointed to this House by the leader of the Labour Party, was to vote for the abolition of this House, and I am still of that opinion—the sooner the better. Unfortunately, in making the promise I was not told exactly what should replace the House, but I am in favour of abolition and I think the power of the Prime Minister and the royal prerogative are important and certainly should not be lost, because we would end up with either a fully democratic House—which I oppose, because of its effect on the Commons—or this House, which is subject to democratic control through the Prime Minister.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, this has been a short but important debate and I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for bringing the House’s attention once again to an unavoidable consequence of this legislation. We are heading towards a fully appointed House, with all the appointments made by the Prime Minister. I appreciate that political parties nominate, but the ability to decide the number and timing of appointments rests solely with the Prime Minister. It is therefore of some concern that the Prime Minister, with such powers of patronage, is attempting to remove more than 80 parliamentarian opponents through the Bill.
We will have a debate—another one—on the size of the House next week, so I will not comment specifically on numbers at this point. However, when the Lord Privy Seal spoke on this amendment in Committee, she was critical of the “We have the numbers and can get this through” approach that she felt previous Governments had taken, and encouraged the House of Lords to adopt a more deliberative approach. That is exactly the approach that we are seeking to take with this Bill and others, and we should not be criticised for doing so.
Having heard me speak in the HOLAC debate, noble Lords will be aware of my views on retaining the discretion that Prime Ministers have to appoint the Peers they wish to appoint. But my noble friend Lord Lucas is right to bring back this important issue of the balance between the parties and to seek further assurances about the responsibility of the Prime Minister to behave reasonably.
I am sure that the current Prime Minister will continue to do so, and I hope that this amendment will never be necessary, but legislation should seek to look to the future and anticipate that future Prime Ministers might not behave in such an appropriate way in terms of appointments. It is a shame that we find ourselves in this position, but I look forward to hearing the Leader’s response.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I listened to the noble Baroness with increasing incredulity. Even she had a smile on her face as she came up with some of that. I thank my noble friend for his points. In terms of history, he did not go back nearly as far as many other Members of the House have this evening, but it is always worth looking back at the Great Reform Act 1832 and what was achieved for this country by that legislation.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and I are very much of the same mind on this one, but I do not agree with his mechanism for getting there. He talked earlier about the relative proportions of the House. He is absolutely right. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, talked about the Cross Benches. This is probably about right. But to put into legislation a proportion for just one group of the whole House is not necessarily talking about relative proportions. I know that he understands that. I stand by previous comments that I have made. This House works at its best when both parties have roughly equal numbers. This depends very much on the normal conventions applying and the way the House operates, but that is when the House does its best work.
The noble Baroness talked about “holding the noble Baroness to that kind of view”. I remind her of the last Government’s actions on this. Even with this Bill, the Government will comprise only 28% of your Lordships’ House. Part of the reason for that is that when we left office in 2010, we had 25 more Members of the House than the Conservative Party; I used these figures earlier in the debate. At the end of the parliamentary Session before the election, before we came into office, there were over 100 more Members of the Conservative Government than of my party. That does not serve this House well.
The noble Baroness is right that I said that the House should be more deliberative. That is when the House does its best work. A couple of weeks after I became Leader of the Opposition, about 10 years ago, I was in Victoria Street having a pizza when I got word that Jacob Rees-Mogg, as Leader of the House of Commons, had issued a statement that he intended to appoint 100 Members to this House to force the Brexit legislation through. That is not in the best interests of this House. He did not do it in the end.
I stand by the House being more deliberative in its approach. Members should be more active, participate properly and not just turn up to vote when they have not been around and participating in the work of the House. There is a better way forward on this. Even if the party opposite has come to this lately, I genuinely welcome that conversion. We should operate in a more collaborative way. I agree about the relative proportions, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, but I ask him respectfully to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lucas (Con)
Does the Leader intend this to be a subject for her Select Committee?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I do not think so, not directly. However, if the committee is looking at retirement and participation, we would want to ensure that, post any decisions that it takes and actions that this House might take on legislation, we maintain a balance around the House. It would be completely inappropriate to say, “This group is losing more than that group”, and for any party to use that as a way to gain a political advantage. Maintaining the proportions must always be in the minds of the Government and the Opposition, and I would ensure that.
Lord Lucas (Con)
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for her reply and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Blencathra
“Removal of peers with a criminal convictionAny peer convicted of a criminal offence on indictment ceases to be a member of the House of Lords within seven days of the conviction, or the loss of appeal if the peer appeals the conviction.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment intends to ensure that peers who have committed a serious offence are removed from the House, using an indictable offence to provide a clear threshold.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I have shortened my remarks, hoping that we could crack this by midnight, but it may be five past midnight before we finish. My Amendment 12 states simply:
“Any peer convicted of a criminal offence on indictment ceases to be a member of the House of Lords within seven days of the conviction, or the loss of appeal if the peer appeals the conviction”.
Noble Lords will say, “So what? We already have in the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 a power to remove Peers if convicted of a serious offence”. However, that kicks only in if the Peer has been sentenced to be imprisoned or detained indefinitely or sentenced to more than one year in prison; nor does it apply if that sentence is suspended.
However, the Labour manifesto did say that Labour would strengthen
“the circumstances in which disgraced members can be removed”.
I am looking forward to hearing exactly what that means. Surely it is talking about Peers who have committed a criminal offence, or is it suggesting that we will permanently remove Peers who have had to apologise for inappropriate or “un-woke” comments—which might also be considered disgraceful?
Where my amendment, to use the Government’s own words, strengthens
“the circumstances in which disgraced members can be removed”
is that it would remove all Peers who are convicted of an indictable offence—which are, of course, the most serious ones—irrespective of the length of prison sentence they get. Nor would I permit Peers to stay just because the sentence is suspended. In my opinion, if a Peer is found guilty of an indictable offence, he is guilty and should be removed irrespective of whether the sentence has been suspended. I beg to move.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, this is a short but focused amendment, which rightly addresses the issue of standards and trust in our House. Ultimately, this House rests on its integrity and reputation.
As my noble friend mentioned, the Labour Party’s manifesto committed to
“ensure all peers meet the high standards the public expect of them”,
and went on to say that they would do that by,
“strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced Members can be removed”.
During the debate we had on 12 November last year, my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie asked the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal why the Government were delaying their manifesto commitment to strengthen the circumstances in which disgraced Members could be removed. I have to say that a good reason was not provided. The only reason provided was the oft-repeated statement that the only way reform will be achieved is to do it in pieces. Obviously, we have heard that a number of times.
Although I accept that the precise way this House works is not the common currency in the Dog and Duck, and that people do not talk about it around the country, I suspect that the one thing people everywhere around the country would expect is that lawbreakers should not be lawmakers, and that if you break the law and you are convicted, you should not continue to sit in Parliament. That is the short point at the heart of this amendment. It is already the case, of course, that if you are convicted and you have your liberty taken away from you then you lose your right to be here. To that extent, this amendment is only therefore an extension of that principle.
I accept that there were discussions across the Dispatch Box and there was a general understanding that some complexities were involved; the noble Baroness also told us that there would be “further dialogue”. As it is now just after midnight and we come to the end of the first day on Report, can the Lord Privy Seal update us on the extent of that further dialogue and what the Government’s plans are in this regard? If the Government do not have anything really focused in this area, having thought about it, it might well be that my noble friend’s amendment is the way to go.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
To reassure noble Lords, the Government remain committed to strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced Members can be removed. Our position on this amendment has not changed, not least given that it is not a matter for the Bill.
It may be helpful to the House if I briefly set out the current arrangements regarding expulsion. There are two routes of suspension. At the moment, under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, a Member of the House ceases to be a Member if the Lord Speaker certifies that they are convicted of a serious offence—that is, they are convicted of a criminal offence and given a non-suspended prison sentence of more than a year.
Where a Member receives a prison sentence but not one long enough to engage the 2014 Act, the provisions of the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015 and Standing Orders will be engaged. Under these, a Member who has received a prison sentence of any length is deemed to have breached the Code of Conduct and may be referred to the Conduct Committee, which in turn may recommend a sanction up to and including expulsion from the House. The current statutory framework is a tightly bound one, where only Peers who have been sentenced to a period of imprisonment can be subject to the sanction of suspension, either on an automatic basis or by engaging the 2015 Act and the provisions in Standing Orders.
The noble Lord’s amendment, in setting the threshold at indictment, would have the effect of bringing into scope a much wider array of offences with significantly varying degrees of seriousness and sentencing. I would question whether that is necessarily the appropriate threshold for expulsion and whether this sanction should not be reserved for the most serious of offences.
The Government are committed to ensuring that those who work in public life maintain high standards of ethics and propriety, not just in this House, but across all public servants and officeholders.
As the House will be aware, the Conduct Committee has only recently concluded its review of the Code of Conduct, which made several recommendations relating to the process following a Peer being convicted of a criminal offence. Therefore, it would be right for the House to allow these changes to bed in before considering what further changes may be needed. But we are open to the idea of pursuing this further in the Conduct Committee.
Given that the hour is late, I plan on finishing my comments there, but I am happy to continue discussions outside your Lordships’ House on this area. I therefore respectfully request that the noble Lord withdraw his amendment.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
I do not think the Minister answered the question of my noble friend. What do the Government have in mind when they talk about strengthening the ways of getting rid of disgraced Members? What sort of offences would those be?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I am ever so sorry: I thought I had answered the question. We are working with the Conduct Committee to bed in what has just been changed and to see if further change is required after we have seen whether the most recent changes have worked.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for her response. In view of what she has said, let us hope that the changes that the Conduct Committee has proposed are effective. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.