Wednesday 9th July 2025
(2 days, 1 hour 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-II(a) Amendment for Report (Supplementary to the Second Marshalled List) - (8 Jul 2025)
22:18 - Division on Amendment 23A - Ayes: 139 / Noes: 158 - Amendment 23A disagreed.
23:11 - Division on Amendment 27 - Ayes: 11 / Noes: 126 - Amendment 27 disagreed.
Lord Burns
“Restriction on nominating new life peers(1) In the period between the commencement of this Act and the first General Election thereafter, the number of recommendations made to His Majesty for the granting of new life peerages under section 1 of the Life Peerages Act 1958 (power to confer life peerages) must not exceed one new peer for every life peer who leaves the House through retirement or death. (2) Following the first General Election after the commencement of this Act, and for as long as the membership of the House of Lords exceeds the membership of the House of Commons, the number of recommendations made to His Majesty for the granting of new life peerages under section 1 of the Life Peerages Act 1958 must not exceed one new peer for every two life peers who leave the House through retirement or death.(3) Once the membership of the House of Lords is equal to or less than the membership of the House of Commons, recommendations made to His Majesty for the granting of new life peerages under section 1 of that Act must not be such that they would cause the membership of the House of Lords to exceed the membership of the House of Commons.”
Lord Burns (CB)
My Lords, I welcomed the statement from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, at the beginning of Report and her proposal to establish a dedicated Select Committee to undertake future work once the Bill becomes law. She highlighted two specific proposals in the Government’s manifesto—on retirement and participation—on which she would like to make progress in the Select Committee. She suggested that there seemed to be consensus in the House on these issues and I think many of us would agree.
However, in response to a question from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, the Leader did not include controlling the size of the House as one of the topics that might be considered by this Select Committee. She suggested that it could possibly be covered by a subsequent committee. To me, this was surprising, as the manifesto also stated that the House of Lords is “too big”, which could, at a bit of a stretch, be interpreted as a commitment. I am grateful to the Leader for several useful conversations on this matter in recent weeks.
As the House knows, my view is that if we are to address the issue of the size of the House, we must address appointments as well as departures, either in this Bill or subsequently. Both matters are important. However, during the debate on the Bill, considerably more attention has been given to measures that would increase the number of Peers leaving than to the number of appointments. The cross-party committee which I chair for the Lord Speaker concluded that these measures to increase the numbers leaving may be in vain if no action is taken also to constrain the number of appointments.
The manifesto states that the reason the House is too big is that “appointments are for life”. However, an additional and more important reason for the present size of the House is the Prime Minister’s power of patronage in the appointment of Members. With rare exceptions, there has been a persistent tendency for the number of appointments to exceed the number of leavers, on occasions by very large amounts. There are no guardrails on appointments, as we seem to call them these days. Prime Ministers can make more appointments than Members who leave, and often do. To make matters worse, they can appoint disproportionately to their own party when in office, and often do. As the saying goes, you do not have to gaze into a crystal ball when you can read an open book—or even a Select Committee report.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 23, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and I will add a brief footnote to his speech.
When this country is confronted with a controversial issue, it frequently turns to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, for an answer. Those of us with long memories recall his Committee of Inquiry into Hunting with Dogs in 1999 and his Independent Commission on Freedom of Information in 2015. No sooner was that completed than we had the Burns commission on the size of the House in 2016. That followed a debate on 5 December 2016, in which the House agreed, without a Division, that
“its size should be reduced and method should be explored by which this should be achieved”.
The Burns report recommended that the size of the House should be reduced to that of the other place—then 600, now 650—and that the target should be achieved over time by a two out, one in rule. It suggested that, when it reached the cap, new appointments should reflect the result of the last election and be on a one in, one out principle. The report was welcomed by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in the other place.
We debated that on 19 December 2017; 72 noble Lords spoke and there was general approval. Winding up, the noble Lord, Lord Burns, said:
“The question I asked myself and members of the committee asked themselves was whether we should wait to make any progress on these other issues until we had a slot for legislation, or should try to put together a system that could be worked on on a non-legislative basis, but which legislation could be brought to bear on at a later point. That certainly remains my position, having heard the points that have been made today”.—[Official Report, 19/12/17; col. 2106.]
That is what then happened. We proceeded on a non-legislative basis and it clearly has not worked—the House is bigger now than it was then. That is not because noble Lords have not risen to the challenge by retiring—or, indeed, dying—but because, with the notable exception of my noble friend Lady May, Prime Ministers have been overgenerous with their appointments.
As the non-legislative option proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, has not worked, we are left with the other option—legislation—and that is now before us. Winding up for the Lib Dems, their then spokesman Lord Tyler confirmed his party’s support for legislation, if the voluntary scheme failed. He said:
“Unless the Prime Minister is willing to abide by this constraint, we might as well give up now, and without a statutory scheme her successors cannot be held to her agreement in law either”.—[Official Report, 19/12/17; col. 2098.]
I then looked up what the current Leader said in that debate, when she was Leader of the Opposition. I quote:
“are any of the objections that have been raised insurmountable?”
These are the objections to the Burns report. She went on:
“I do not consider that they are but there is one insurmountable issue: the role of the Prime Minister and of the Government. This will work only if the Government play their part. It is not about giving up patronage or appointments but about showing some restraint, as it used to be”.
Since then, there has been no restraint. She concluded:
“If the House and the Government are to show respect for the work they”—
the Burns committee—
“have done, we will take this forward. I noted that a number of noble Lords quoted from songs and plays. I will quote Elvis Presley, when he sang, ‘It’s now or never’”.—[Official Report, 19/12/17; col. 2104.]
Clearly, then it was not “now”, but nor need it be “never”. If we meant what we unanimously voted for in 2016, we should support Amendment 23. We may never get the opportunity again.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I rise to speak briefly in support of this amendment, to which I have added my name. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, has come up with an elegant formulation—as he did several years ago in the committee he chaired—for a way out of the conundrum that we have. However good our provisions in terms of people leaving the House are, if we do not have any constraint—any guardrails at all—on people coming into the House, when we have a general election where there is a large majority, we will always see the ratcheting effect. We have seen that recently; there is every possibility that we will see it again in the future. It is tremendously important that we try to take some steps now.
The size of the House overall does matter. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Gove, is in his place, and I am delighted that he obviously has become deeply affectionate and committed to the work of this House. I disagreed with most of his speech, but one thing he said that was incorrect was that the House was in danger of being bullied by those outside into thinking that it was too big and had to change. That is not the situation. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, just said, this House has repeatedly recognised the need for it not to grow exponentially, and has repeatedly recognised the danger of it being larger than the House of Commons. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Gove, that other second chambers across the world manage to find the right combination of expertise and experience without rising in their overall numbers to pretty near four figures—which is where we are in danger of going.
I believe it is tremendously important. There are those who say, “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Look at the average attendance figures. People aren’t claiming their allowances. None of this matters”. I spent five years as Lord Speaker and, in those five years, I do not know how many speeches I made about the House of Lords. The thing that most people knew about the House of Lords was not that it was brilliant at scrutiny, and not that it had fantastic Select Committees, but that only China’s National People’s Congress, in the whole world, had more members.
That issue of reputation should not be the only one that drives us; we should recognise that we need a House peopled with enough Members to do the job we ask it to do, but we do not have to have an expert on every single issue in the world. We have Select Committees that can call for evidence; we can hear that expertise. We need a House of a reasonable size and I suggest that it should be no larger than the House of Commons. Others have suggested much smaller Houses. They look at the United States Senate. They look across the world and say that other people manage with less. I believe that, as a part-time House, we need larger numbers because not everyone is here all the time and that is important—
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)
The noble Baroness saw me shaking my head. I was doing so only because I always refute that we are a part-time House. We are a full-time House with long hours, but many of our Members do not have to be here full-time.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
I am rightly castigated by the Leader of the House. I did not mean what I said about being a part-time House; I meant a House that does not have Members who are expected to be full-time in performing their parliamentary duties.
I very much believe that the elegant solution that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, has put before us is the right way forward. However, alongside other issues we have debated in the course of this narrow Bill, these are very wide and important issues. I also recognise that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House wants, to use her phrase, to take this in bite-size chunks, and I very much welcome the setting up of the Select Committee. But it is incumbent on us all to recognise that, with the effects of the Bill, which will reduce the numbers and the membership of the House, and the effects of anything done on retirement—whether that is based on 10%, 5% or 20% attendance, and whether it is done by age or by term limits—we will be reducing the size of the House. That is an opportunity to get down to a rational and defensible size while, at the same time, putting right the imbalance that currently exists between the opposition party and the government party in their party-political representation.
It is a big opportunity but it will be short-lived if we do not take on the responsibility of looking to the future and at how we stop ourselves getting into this situation again, whether by the unbridled use of the prerogative by a Prime Minister or because of the electoral effects of a big change at a single general election. It is incumbent on us to take that into account when we look at those other two measures that the noble Baroness has suggested the Select Committee consider. They will have an impact on the size of the House and that impact should not be short-term but enduring. We saw that the very principled and welcome attitude of the noble Baroness, Lady May, had a short-term effect, but it did not last because it could simply be reversed by the next incumbent. We need some guardrails, and I hope that if the House does not decide tonight to adopt the details of this amendment, the Select Committee will look at the issue in some detail.
Viscount Thurso (LD)
My Lords, briefly, I support the noble Lord, Lord Burns, having added my name to this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, expressed perfectly my views, therefore I will not rehearse them again.
On an earlier amendment I listened with interest to the noble Lord, Lord Gove, who expressed a view which, if taken to its logical conclusion, would mean that you could go on putting people into the House more or less for as long as you like. There has to be a limit at some point; we do not want a House of 1,000, 1,500 or 2,000. Therefore, at some point, there has to be a mechanism that puts some brake on, such that what goes out and what comes in are in balance.
As the noble Lord, Lord Burns, set out so well in introducing his amendment, the problem is that each incoming Government find themselves at a disadvantage, having been in opposition, compared with what has gone before. Therefore, they have to do something to restore that imbalance if they are to come remotely close to getting their business through. I therefore think that tackling the size of the House is one of the most important things we can do.
I would make one small suggestion—it is not a quibble—to the noble Lord, Lord Burns. I might have left out proposed new subsection (1) in his amendment, which is what is happening over this Parliament. That will not come as a surprise, since my previous amendment sought to put it into the next Parliament. As I said in that debate, it would be rather unfair if we were to change the rules at half-time, as it were. I think the current Government deserve to have a reasonable number of Peers, but that simply underlines the necessity of having the guard-rails in place to ensure that, going forward, the House cannot go beyond a certain size and should be reduced, with something like the size of the Commons being broadly appropriate.
I do not know whether the noble Lord will press his amendment. If he did, I would happily support him, but I suspect that, like me, he might take a more pragmatic decision. In that case, I very much hope the Select Committee will be able to do its job, although my doubts previously expressed—that it will not be able to do enough—remain.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, I will briefly add one argument in support of my noble friend’s amendment. There is widespread criticism of the competence and indeed the commitment of some of those who have been appointed to this House. Many of us think that some of those criticisms have been justified. If there is a limit on the size of the House, the leaders of the political parties will be concerned to ensure that the people whom they recommend for appointment will pull their weight in the House and do stuff for their party. That can be achieved only if there is a constraint on those appointments.
The criticisms of some of the appointments that have been made have been bad for the reputation of the House, as has been the concern about numbers. My noble friend’s amendment would deal with both these aspects, but the aspect of ensuring that party leaders want their appointments to be of good quality is another very important argument in favour of a constraint.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, it is quite clear that legislation is needed if we are to control people coming into the House. I support very much the line of thinking that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, outlined. There is just one point that troubles me, and perhaps I can dare to mention it. When this Government came in, the Prime Minister made a number of appointments to strengthen the Front Bench of the party, which was obviously going to have to deal with ministerial issues and represent the Government at various stages in both legislation and debates. It struck me that the appointments that were made—I will not mention names—were well chosen and that the Front Bench was strengthened, to the advantage of the House. The reason I say this is that there is great force in the point that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, is making: that we need to discuss this in more detail.
I am very much in support of the principle that lies behind this, and I did my very best to make it work, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, did in his case. It was, of course, ultimately the Prime Minister’s patronage that made it impossible to continue to make it work—that is the real issue we have to deal with. That brings me right back to the flexibility to strengthen the Front Bench. I am not talking about broader appointments, but is it right that the Prime Minister should not be able to appoint somebody from outside who has particular expertise to enable the Front Bench to perform its function to the best of its ability?
I mention this simply as a pointer towards the point that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, made at the beginning: this really does deserve discussion, and it would be very helpful, since all these issues are intertwined, if the Select Committee could discuss it as well.
Lord Beith (LD)
I draw to the attention of the noble and learned Lord, whose interest in this matter is much appreciated, the fact that, when we considered this in the Burns committee, it was clear that there needed to be some way in which Ministers could be brought to the Front Bench—by being admitted to a peerage—and that that could be done out of the quota their party ought to have been getting in any case; that is, they should be taken from that number. The other possibility that could be considered, of course, is that, as some of those who may take such appointments do not really wish to remain here for the rest of their lives, it might be appropriate for them to be time limited as well.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, I support this amendment; I feel that it is only fair to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, who is smiling because I have lobbied him on this issue on most of the opportunities when I have bumped into him in the corridors.
Whatever might be said about the number of Peers who have been appointed—it is very difficult; you feel rather impolite once you have been accepted into your Lordships’ House—we have never, thankfully, had a situation where the constitutional convention has been busted that the Government have the largest group but not an overall majority in this House. All of us here I think are believers in the parliamentary democratic system, but, if we were to have people involved in politics and, perhaps, in power who did not agree with that unwritten convention, we would be in a situation where the Prime Minister of the day could, within a few weeks of coming into office, appoint hundreds of Peers, placing the House of Lords Appointments Commission—and, potentially, even the monarch—in an unusual situation. We would therefore have a situation where the Executive would be in charge, having, obviously, not only a majority in the Commons but a commanding majority in the Lords. Of course, we have never before had the situation of having a Prime Minister who does not feel bound by that convention.
Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)
Can I ask the noble Baroness something? The most important reform that ever took place in the House of Lords was caused by the threat of the Liberal Government to create hundreds of Peers. They had that right and they knew that they had that right, and the King agreed that they had that right. Had they not had that right, they would not have been able to bring in the 1911 Act. Does the noble Baroness therefore think that nothing like that should ever be repeated?
Baroness Berridge (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for that, but we are now in the situation where we have the Parliament Act. I was just moving on to the point that any Prime Minister of the day could reform and make the situation a unicameral situation, but that would of course require the Parliament Act and would mean a delay of a couple of years. We all know how important it is to take your time in politics sometimes, particularly when you are doing constitutional change.
This is more analogous to the situation that happened in Hungary in 2010. Hungary set up its constitution with a President, obviously, but also with a unicameral situation, with a two-thirds supermajority needed to change the constitution. It never envisaged, of course, that one party would bust that majority, but it happened. Subsequently, the EU no longer fully regards Hungary as a democracy. It would be such a shame—I try not to use melodramatic language, but it would be a tragedy—if the Mother of Parliaments ended up in the situation of having what is described now in Hungary: you govern by law, so the Executive just bring their legislation to Parliament and rubber-stamp it.
I say this to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman: it really matters that we, as a Parliament—at a time when, for very sad reasons, we thankfully have primary legislation—might not be looking at the main thing that we need to ensure. So I fully support the noble Lord’s amendment.
Lord Gove (Con)
My Lords, I feel compelled to rise again on the principle that there is no argument so impeccable that it does not deserve to have at least one voice raised in opposition. Among your Lordships, there seems to be a consensus that the House is too large and that a variety of measures should be introduced—new guillotines and new tumbrils—to ensure that the numbers are limited. The arguments, put forward in good faith by many wiser figures than me, deserve to be opposed.
One reason why it is vital that we oppose them—following on from my noble friend Lord Young’s point about Elvis Presley, I suspect that I will find myself “lonesome tonight” in making this case—is that the arguments that have been advanced so far do not stand up to scrutiny. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, talked about the sometimes foolish use of the royal prerogative by Prime Ministers who appoint people to this House who may be ill-qualified or bring it into disrepute. I am not going to mention any names or speculate on whom he might be thinking of. However, if the Prime Minister acts in such a way, the sanction of a general election, the sanction of democracy punishing that Prime Minister—as it punishes any Prime Minister for any act of folly—is the appropriate way of checking any misuse of power or the Executive not behaving in a manner consistent with the dignity of their office or with the public will.
Lord Sentamu (CB)
I thank the noble Lord for giving way. First, was Elizabeth I wrong when she faced a huge Privy Council and said, “It is too large for good governance”, and immediately reduced it to 30? The noble Lord says that numbers do not matter and that what matters is what we do here, but out there they are all saying that we are too large. Sometimes you do not need big bodies to do the job efficiently. Was Queen Elizabeth I right?
Secondly, nobody has said that the Prime Minister could not vote. It is not in this amendment. As I understood it, particularly from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, these promises and views that we have heard unfortunately have become promissory notes on tissue paper, put into a Trojan horse which also is made of tissue paper.
Lord Gove (Con)
I am very grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord for his intervention, but I do not believe that if we reduce the size of the House to meet the criticisms of some, the fundamental opposition of many to the operation of the House would diminish. More importantly, the principal criticism that can be directed at any legislature is not about its size but its effectiveness and the willingness with which it operates to ensure that new laws that come there are properly scrutinised, and the more voices that are capable of being deployed in that debate and the more arguments that are effectively made, the better.
That takes me to my final point. I do not believe that there has ever been a recorded set of votes in this House where when you add a Division’s Contents and Not-Contents, they have been higher than the full composition of the other place. This House is flexible; our constitution is flexible. These attempts to impose external rigidities to meet some Charter 88 rationalist view of what we should be doing is an utterly mistaken course to go down, and I urge your Lordships to reject it.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
On the noble Lord’s last quip about some Charter 88, irrational view of the size of the House, I think that if he read the Burns report, he would learn how much thought went into choosing that size as providing enough person power to do exactly the jobs that he has discussed, to which I am as committed as he is. I believe that the size of the House, and the view outside of it, are not the most important factors, but they stand in the way of appreciation of what the House actually does and that it is not defensible to those who have not studied it in any detail.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, I am ever so sorry, but given the hour, I thought it would be helpful to remind noble Lords that this is Report and any interventions need to be short, please.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Burns, for his amendment and the way he introduced it. He raised four very substantial issues—much more substantial than most of the issues we have spent most of the day debating. Should there be a maximum size of the House? How do we get there? How do we then stop recidivist Governments breaching it? Once we have got there, how do we balance the new appointments between the various parties?
The first and third questions are very straightforward. Yes, there should be a limit. Yes, it will mean that no Prime Minister can then threaten to flood the House with 100 new Peers, but the last time that was tried was over 110 years ago, and it has not proved to be a necessary part of public policy-making in the interim. Is the noble Lord, Lord Gove, right when he says the more voices, the better? Clearly, there is a point at which that ceases to be the case, and what we are arguing about is where that should be. If there were 5,000 people here, there would clearly be too many voices, and we would not be able to do anything. Those of us who have spent many hours debating here, including everybody who has been involved with the Burns amendment, have formed the view that the place would be better if it had a cap on its numbers. So, yes, there should be a cap on the numbers. It should be a legislative cap. If we have that, it solves the problem of how we stop future Prime Ministers ratcheting up the numbers again—they will not be allowed to do it by law.
How do we get to that number, 650 or whatever it is? Actually, if we do what we say we are going to do in terms of retirement and participation, we get beyond that number; we get below it. In fact, one of the arguments about having a straightforward retirement age is that we are taking out too many people, so I do not think that the bit of the noble Lord’s amendment that deals with how we get to the number would be needed in practice.
If we agree that there should be a limit and that it means you cannot ratchet up again, and if we say that we get to the limit by the combination of retirement and participation limits, the difficult question that remains is: once you have got below the limit, how do you decide on the balance of appointments? The noble Lord says there is a convention that the Labour Party and the Conservative Party should have broad parity of numbers. That may be fine, but there are some others of us here, both on these Benches and the noble Lord’s. What are we going to do about all that?
In his original report, the noble Lord came up with an elegant proposal to deal with the balance that related to votes and seats over a period of three general elections. It would have had the advantage of being a stabilising force while still reflecting the fact that the House has to move with the country. I supported that at the time, as I think the Government did, and would support it again.
On how we implement all this, if we could agree on it all, given that the debate about retirement is in part a debate about numbers, one of the issues will be how quickly we do it. If we require primary legislation to deal with retirement, I do not see why it would be illogical to include something about numbers in that.
How you deal with my point about how you rebalance over time once you have got below the cap, whether you do that by convention or statute, is a matter for another day. The only thing that worries me slightly is that framing a statute that could not be amended in the light of changing political circumstances might be quite difficult.
These are hugely important issues. There is quite a lot of consensus on some of them, but I hope we are able to debate them sensibly and make progress on them during the course of the Parliament and in the context of the other debates we are having, not least on retirement.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, in many ways this is the most important amendment we are considering today, because it is the only attempt to curb the power of the Executive over Parliament. The Bill, as the Government drafted it, shifts the scales rather dangerously in their favour. It leaves the Prime Minister the sole person responsible for deciding who comes to this House and who leaves it. If we were to throw out the small number of excepted hereditary Peers in the way that the Bill as originally drafted put it, which the House has now voted against, every Member of this House would be appointed by, or subject to the approval of, the Prime Minister of the day—a situation found in no other democratic Chamber.
As we have heard from our debates in Committee and last week, the House of Lords Appointments Commission, HOLAC, has no power to insist on the nominations it makes, and no guaranteed number or guaranteed timescale. While this Parliament has already seen the introduction of 45 Labour Peers, 21 Conservatives and three Liberal Democrats, the independent commission has not been permitted to make any nominations under the present Prime Minister.
In our debate last week, the Leader of the House confirmed that the four Cross-Bench Peers announced last month were people of the Prime Minister’s own selection, not the House of Lords Appointments Commission’s. Moreover, in the statement the Prime Minister made alongside that announcement, he made clear that, like his predecessors, he would be prepared to overrule HOLAC in exceptional circumstances if it objected to one of his nominations on the grounds of propriety.
Even the Lords spiritual, notwithstanding the changes made under that great Presbyterian Gordon Brown, pass through Downing Street on the way to their episcopal throne. Crucially, the procedural changes made by Mr Brown are not set in statute and so could be undone by a future Prime Minister with a snap of their fingers.
I have served in government in different capacities under four Prime Ministers. I have seen the power of patronage and the seductive temptations it offers to Prime Ministers as their other powers wane. We have seen the current Prime Minister wielding that power already—that is not new and not unique to him, but the Bill he has sent us would leave him more powerful than any of his predecessors and leave him and those who follow him free to succumb to those temptations without, as noble Lords have put it, any guard-rails.
At the beginning of his premiership, Sir Keir Starmer began by appointing new Peers at a faster rate than any Prime Minister for three decades. I am glad that he has now slowed down, but he could change speed again whenever he wants. The Leader of the House has argued, and I can see will argue again, that that is because of the profligacy of his predecessors—following the argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, about the ratchet effect that leaves us in this situation after every general election. In doing so, she and the Prime Minister have given the game away that the Bill is not just about ending the hereditary peerage but about removing a large number of Peers from beyond the Government Benches.
The Leader has told us repeatedly that, even with that excision, the Labour Party will form only 28% of the seats in your Lordships’ House. Can she tell us today, with the same clarity, that she expects and intends the Labour Party to form the same proportion by the end of this Parliament, or does she see why so many of us, like Elvis Presley, have “Suspicious Minds” about that?
More worryingly still, we have seen the power of executive patronage in action throughout our debates on the Bill. I am sure I am not the only one to have noticed the conspicuous number of abstentions in some of the Divisions so far, or to have been surprised by the arguments of noble Lords who are usually so robust in asserting our role as a revising Chamber advising that on this Bill, which has such profound consequences not just for your Lordships’ House but for our constitutional settlement, we should not make any amendment at all or disagree with the House of Commons, who have still—the majority of them—sat for only 170 days. I detect a certain nervousness, not just among our hereditary colleagues or those over or approaching the age of 80, about voting for things that might annoy the present Government. I know the Leader will want every Member of your Lordships’ House to know that they can and should perform their legislative scrutiny on this Bill, as on any other, without fear or favour, so I hope she can reassure us that no one, even those who would vote on the Bill in a way that she would rather they did not, will suffer any ill feeling or consequence from the Government.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
This is the first time I have been angry in this debate. The noble Lord is casting malign intent on me and others in my party about the Bill. I hope he will retract and rethink what he said.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I am sorry if I have angered the Leader, but this comes from conversations I have had with noble Lords in other corners of the House about amendments on the Bill. They worry—and I know she will take this seriously, because she will not want them to worry—about the consequences of how they vote and how they are perceived to vote, particularly hereditary Peers sitting on other Benches with their future uncertain. I am sorry if that has angered her. It should anger and concern us all. I know she will say it should not need saying, but I know she will also not want any noble Lord to have that fear as they approach this Bill or any other.
The noble Lord, Lord Burns—who, as my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham has pointed out, performs his duties here without any fear or favour—has been asked to look at many important issues for our nation. He has worked harder and longer than anyone to find a way to tackle the question of the size of your Lordships’ House, not least in chairing the Lord Speaker’s committee established by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. The recommendations that he and his colleagues from across the House made show that it is possible to address the size of the House without changing the law, and the Prime Minister at the time, my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead, showed that it was possible too with the restraint that she exercised. The actions of subsequent Prime Ministers of both parties show that not all occupants of No. 10 have been persuaded to do that, and the current occupant of No. 10 has not made any commitment, notwithstanding the words that the noble Baroness used when she was Leader of the Opposition in winding the debate on the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Burns.
If the House is serious about reducing its size and asserting its independence in the face of the Executive, I hope the noble Lord will continue to press the matter that he has been pressing on behalf of a House that asked him to do it for so long, and I hope the noble Baroness will be able to give us the reassurances that I know we all want to hear. I am sorry if it has angered her to ask for them, but I think it is important that she is able to reassure noble Lords on that point.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I can reassure noble Lords on a number of items, but I will say that that is the first time in this debate that we have had such discourtesy from a Member of the party opposite, with his allegation that somehow I will punish those who take a different view on this. He should look at his words again and rethink them, because the tone of the debate has not been like that throughout. I am sorry that he descended to that level.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Burns, for bringing this forward. He has been consistent throughout about the issues of the size of the House and prime ministerial patronage. Others are perhaps more recent converts on those issues, but he has had consistency. He and his committee looked at these issues forensically in a way that the House could respect, because it was based on facts and numbers, and they looked at this in a sensible way.
On hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, said earlier, I am tempted to ask whether perhaps he was thinking that I should say we should do it “My Way” and no other way. For the final time, to follow a theme, “A Little Less Conversation” sometimes could be more helpful—I just like to lighten the mood.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, in addressing some of the other comments that have been made, that I think it would be completely wrong if departures from this House, whether by hereditaries or due to retirements or participation, should merely create vacancies to be filled. We have manifesto commitments, and I think it has been the will of this House, that we should reduce the size of the House—not because of the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Gove, and the things he put forward, but because we are all looking at how we as a House do our best work. How do we properly contribute to debates? How do we ensure voices are heard around the House? When the House gets too large, there are concerns that not all Members are playing a role. When he talks about reducing the size of the House, he is right to say that temporary reductions are not what the House is looking for.
I have reflected on the comments I made when I responded to my noble friend Lady Hayter previously. I have a concern that if the Select Committee becomes a kitchen sink of issues, it becomes a talking shop and no progress is made. I think everybody is trying to avoid that happening. But I do think—and I spoke to her and the noble Lord, Lord Burns, on this—that retirement and participation are obviously two major drivers for reducing the size of the House. It is implicit in that that, if we are looking to reduce the size of the House, we do not then seek to merely create vacancies to be filled. It is an opportunity to reflect on the ideal size and look forward to that.
There is always an issue about how much you constrain the Prime Minister’s patronage, and that has to be taken into account in the committee as well. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, said the Prime Minister is the sole person who proposes Members for this House. He knows that is wrong, as I know that is wrong, as the Prime Minister passes on the nominations from other parties. It was made clear in the Statement—which I think the noble Lord was quite disparaging about—that the ability to nominate Cross-Benchers will remain and, through the Prime Minister, those nominations of people who have first-rate public service can also come to the Cross Benches as well.
I will address some of the other points. The noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, said—and I may have misunderstood her when she was speaking, so she can correct me—that it has always been accepted that the Government would be the largest party but not the overall majority. My party is not the largest party, though we are in government. I have used these figures before in your Lordships’ House, and I think it is part of the reason we are now discussing the size of the House. The relative size of the parties—the relative numbers across the board, including the Liberal Democrats—is as important as the size of the House. After about 12.5 years of a Labour Government, my party, the then government party, left office with, I think, fewer than 30 more Peers than the Conservative Party. When the Conservative Party left office in 2024, there were over 100 more Conservative Peers than Labour. I find that totally unacceptable. It has never happened before in that way, and the disparity between parties is partly why we are discussing these issues now.
The noble Lord made it as a party-political point about hereditary Peers; it long predates that. The Grocott Bill that we tried to put forward previously was rejected by the party opposite—not by everybody, as I had several noble Lords today ask why their party did not take advantage of this before. There has to be an issue about how you get a balance of numbers across the House. I have the view that this House does its best work when the two parties of government—the main party of government and the opposition party—have roughly equal numbers and we abide by the conventions of the House. That is when I think we have the most respect, we work at our best and that works well. The only other time—
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The Leader of the House has been consistent in saying this in opposition and in government. Is that therefore a firm commitment that she does not want to see the Labour Party outnumbering the main party of opposition in this Parliament?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I am not in a position to make a firm commitment. The House absolutely does its best work when the two main parties have roughly equal numbers, but it also depends on the House fulfilling its responsibilities and abiding by the conventions of the House. The noble Lord will know that, when we were in opposition, we would never have got up to the shenanigans that we have seen from the party opposite. I do not think, for example, that we ever proposed a closure Motion halfway through discussing an amendment—that was the first time I had seen that happen—so we do abide by the conventions. The noble Lord, Lord True, used to say to me regularly that what goes around comes around; I think he was right in principle, but perhaps not in action these days.
Lord True (Con)
The Minister loves this word “shenanigans”; whenever I see a briefing in the newspapers, I know where it has come from. She cited one shenanigan; can she give another? The Opposition have made repeated offers, and we are negotiating in the usual channels to deliver the Government’s legislation. The Minister knows the commitments that we have given. We do not discuss usual channels on the Floor, but can we please put “shenanigans” to bed and get back to good relations?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I am afraid that my use of the word “shenanigans” has been copied by many others since, and it was not original on my part. To go down a bit of a rabbit hole, we have seen a lot of raw degrouping of amendments in this Session of Parliament. That aside, we are all looking for the House to do its best work, and to be treated responsibly, listened to and engaged in legislation.
The only time I recall a threat of introducing so many new Peers—we have talked about in the past—was when Jacob Rees-Mogg was Leader of the House of Commons. I had just become Leader of the Opposition, and we were threatened with 1,000 new Peers on the Brexit issue, but it never materialised. It was recognised then that the best way of dealing with things is in the way that the House normally does.
The noble Lord, Lord Butler, made a very good point about quality. Appointments should consider quality and commitment. We are not just a House of the great and the good; we are people who are committed to the work that we do, and we bring judgment to the issues we debate. The noble Lord is right to look at that. The comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, on Front-Bench appointments in particular is one of the issues that deserves further consideration. This is an issue that the Select Committee would look at more broadly to ensure that we do not just create vacancies to go back to a larger House.
I understand the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and I completely accept the purpose of putting it forward. I would say that one flaw in it is that his proposals—and I think this might have been the point that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, was making—do not take into account the relative strength of political parties. Under this proposal, when a Peer departs, the party of government could always appoint a member of their party and not look at the balance of the House overall, and we do need to look at the balance of the House overall. Therefore, I understand the sentiment and I think the noble Lord is right to say that this needs further consideration, but I would ask that he withdraw his amendment. This is something that merits further discussion.
Lord Burns (CB)
My Lords, I am very grateful to all those who have taken part in this debate, and indeed for the degree of support for the principle of constraints on appointments and the need for guard-rails. I appreciate the remarks of the Leader of the House, who I think indicated, as I hoped, that we would be in a position with the Select Committee to discuss the issue of the relative size of appointments and those who are leaving. I do not want to press this to a Division today, as it is not the right vehicle for such a change. The amendment also needs to be considered in the context of other proposals to encourage departures and allocate appointments, as the Leader of the House has said.
Although I did refer to it in my remarks, at this stage I have not tried to deal with the issue of the allocation of vacancies to the different parties. That was set out in the Lord Speaker’s committee report, which said that the allocation between the parties should be made according to the number of votes and seats that they achieved at the previous general election. I still believe that that is a very effective mechanism. It is one that stabilises the numbers and allows for a shift in the proportions depending upon the political success of the parties during an election, so you get movement.
Lord Blencathra
“House of Lords select committee: implementing recommendations(1) Where a select committee of the House of Lords has been established for the purpose of reporting on possible retirement ages for peers, minimum attendance and participation thresholds, and that committee makes recommendations to establish or change—(a) the age at which peers must retire,(b) a minimum attendance requirement, or(c) a participation requirement,a relevant Minister must, within 12 months of the committee reporting, take the action set out in subsection (2).(2) The Secretary of State must, by regulations made by statutory instrument, amend the following Acts, as appropriate, in order to give effect to the recommendations in statute —(a) this Act;(b) the Life Peerage Act 1958;(c) the House of Lords Reform Act 2014.(3) The recommendations in this section include a motion to approve the recommendations of a select committee, including any amendments to this.(4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to place changes to the composition of the House recommended by any new select committee on a statutory footing.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, despite the late hour, I make no apologies for returning to the subject of implementing any conclusions reached by the new House of Lords Select Committee in considering possible retirement ages, attendance thresholds and participation rates. The excellent announcement of this Select Committee by the Leader last week was welcomed by all sides, and I am certain that it will provide workable solutions. My amendment would ensure that these solutions are delivered into law expeditiously and without the need for new primary legislation.
The Leader said that she hoped the committee would be up and running by October and would probably report by the end of July 2026, but let us say September 2026 to be on the safe side. We all know that our Select Committees excel in what they do, and I am absolutely certain that this committee will have firm recommendations on some sort of retirement regime, possibly around the age of 85 but with various tweaks. It will most likely recommend an attendance threshold of some sort. Attendance is about those Peers who may turn up for fewer than a set threshold of 5%, 10% or 15%, whatever it might be.
Participation rates are far more difficult. Participation will need to tackle the abuse of those who may turn up for 20%, 25% or 50% of the time and then do absolutely nothing or very little. Determining what and how many contributions will be adequate will be very difficult, and the committee may not reach any conclusions or may have various options for this House to consider as a whole.
However, I believe that, by the autumn of 2026, this House will have before it a report with recommendations, which we will debate and possibly amend, so that by the end of 2026 or early 2027, this House will have agreed by a majority a way forward on retirements and attendance, and possibly participation.
I ask my noble friends not to tell the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, but I may on this occasion be in full agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Newby. If we get attendance, participation and retirements right, we may not need a fancy formula to reduce overall numbers—but that is an aside.
What will the noble Baroness the Leader do with those decisions of this House? She and her noble friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, said in our debates before dinner that we will attempt to use in-house measures—that is, Standing Orders—where we possibly can, and we all agree with that. They also said that we will need to consider the best legislative route for those issues where Standing Orders were not sufficient and legislation would be required. The subtext was that that legislation would be primary.
The noble Baroness would be faced with two options for primary legislation. One is that she could say to the Select Committee, “Thank you very much—very good work. We will now consult on the second stage of Lords reform, maybe consider a partly elected Chamber, possibly with regional elements, and we will add those conclusions to a Bill in due course”. We all know that, if the noble Baroness says that, the whole thing will be kicked into the long grass. The second option is that she could say, “Thank you very much. I will now go to the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee and seek approval for a specific Bill to deliver these recommendations”. For noble Lords who are not familiar with the PBL, it is a committee of the most powerful Cabinet business managers who decide which bids from departments get approval for the next stage—that is, putting a Bill team together then briefing the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, which will draft the Bill. I can tell those noble Lords who have never appeared before it that it can be quite scary at times. It is currently and usually chaired by the Leader of the Commons, with both Chief Whips, the Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the Attorney-General, the Leader of the House and the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
The first question that the committee will ask the Leader will be whether the Bill is a manifesto commitment. Yes. That is a good. Is it short? Yes. That is also good. Can it be easily amended? Yes, because the Lords is much more flexible and can permit a wide range of amendments. The committee will then say, “So, Lord Privy Seal, are you telling us that all this Bill does is put a retirement age and an attendance threshold on Peers, and that they could debate a wide range of amendments in primary legislation?” The noble Baroness, being honest, will say that that could happen. The committee will ask whether there are any votes in it, and the answer will be no, not really.
We all know that the Leader is very able and persuasive, but I suggest that, with possibly just 18 months to go before a general election, she will have no hope whatever of the PBL approving a Bill to implement what our Select Committee decides, at a time when there will inevitably be the annual Home Office criminal justice Christmas tree Bill in the wings, and maybe something on health, employment, immigration and all the other big political issues that will take priority. Does anyone in this House seriously think that any Government would introduce a Bill on changes in the Lords in a King’s Speech in 2027, to be debated in 2028, maybe months or a year before a general election? I simply do not think so. That is why we need my Amendment 23A.
The amendment is self-explanatory. It would simply build in a statutory instrument power enabling the Government to implement any Lords Select Committee recommendations voted through by this House. It would provide that, if this House amends any of the Lords Select Committee recommendations, we can vote that through. It would enable the Government to amend this Bill when it is an Act, the Life Peerages Act 1958 and the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, should that be necessary. I do not know if it will be, but the Public Bill Office thought that we should have the power to do so, just in case it should prove necessary. Of course, amending those Acts is a Henry VIII power, but I do not think that any Government can complain about Henry VIII powers, since all Governments use them excessively in all Bills.
While it may be possible to deal with attendance through Standing Orders, as I think was hinted at earlier, I have not heard any suggestion from any noble Lord that we could invent a retirement or participation regime that we could implement by Standing Orders alone. If that were the case, the Government would have been shouting about it from the rooftops from Committee onwards. It is assumed that these things will require some form of legislation.
Without my simple amendment, we could find ourselves in the ridiculous position of having proposals on which the majority of this House agrees, and with which the Government also agree, but we can only deliver bits of them through standing orders, and have to wait for primary legislation to do the rest—primary legislation that might never come. It will be fascinating to see what reasons the Government use to reject this new clause. It does nothing to undermine the thrust of the Bill. The noble Baroness the Leader introduced the idea of a Lords Select Committee to come up with recommendations. How can the Government possibly reject this simple solution to deliver into law the recommendations of the committee she has proposed? I beg to move.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord will not be surprised to know I do not agree with him. We discussed this before and my view, oft repeated, is that we should, wherever we can, proceed without legislation. We can do that with a number of the issues we are debating. As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, pointed out, the minimum age at which a person can be a Peer was never legislated on—admittedly, it was a bit ago that that was introduced. We need to look at whether it might be possible to introduce a retirement age without fresh legislation. Either way, I do not want to commit to giving the House of Commons the whip hand over what we do about our own rules when we can change those rules ourselves.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
My Lords, I am intrigued by my noble friend’s amendment. Yes, it would make good some of the failings of the Government, who have not honoured their 1998 pledge to bring forward their proposals for reform before they remove the hereditary Peers. Nor have they delivered on their promise in the manifesto of 2024 to bring forward proposals for reform on composition, in terms of retirement age, participation obligations and so on. It would perhaps be a good way of making good the problem we face, which is the removal of over 80 of the Peers who are most effective in scrutinising the Government and holding them to account. One cannot help but agree with those who see this Bill as vindictive for that reason, and a partisan attack on the ability of this House to fulfil its constitutional function.
However, dare I part company with my noble friend Lord Blencathra? I feel it is a very bad move to have government by committee—even a Select Committee of this House. By their very nature, committees do not have a sense of the feeling of the whole House, or indeed of the country, which is more important. For this reason, I would worry about such powers for a Select Committee.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I am always very touched when people call for the Front Bench. I am very happy, if I am so popular, to go over to the other side, if that is what the other side would like.
This has been an important debate, although brief, on the next stage of reform. It is really a coda to the very interesting debate provoked by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. All this flows from the firm promise in the Labour manifesto that another Bill would be enacted in this Parliament to exclude Peers who reach the age of 80 before the end of this Parliament, and other promises in the manifesto to address issues of participation and conduct.
In Committee, my noble friend Lord Blencathra was tirelessly ingenious in the proposals for improvement that he put before the House. He spoke from his great creative experience as Chief Whip in another place, his knowledge, which he alluded to again today, of the often unintended, unbankability of government promises, and also his profound love of Parliament. So, I was surprised—but actually, on reflection, I was not—when the noble Lord’s carefully thought out and clever amendment suddenly appeared on our Order Paper following our debates last week.
Many noble Lords who heard the statement of the Leader of the House last week wanted to hear more detail of the scope of what is planned, and also to have more security in what will be the role of this House in determining what happens next. We have had a few advances on that, but no conclusion. My noble friend’s amendment actually offers the House a route to do that.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, it has been an interesting debate. I will start with the basis of why I first suggested the Select Committee, as it may help your Lordships. The noble Lord is right that it is always difficult to get extra time for legislation, but it is important that this House has an opportunity to consider how we as a House might want to implement the two proposals—I have always referred to three stages; this was the second—on a retirement age and participation.
I will not repeat things that I have said in the past, but if there is an opportunity for the House to come forward with a view, and a Select Committee to bring forward proposals to your Lordships’ House for consideration, that does not make those proposals easier. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, helpfully interjected earlier and asked me whether there were things we could do more quickly by standing orders, as indicated by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. That would be something for the committee to look at.
There is an opportunity for a Select Committee to look at those issues, to come forward with proposals for your Lordships’ House, and for us to consider those proposals and decide whether some could be taken forward more quickly. Where it requires legislation, if the House has a view on something on which all noble Lords agree, it would be much easier to persuade the Government by saying, “There’s agreement on this and we want to bring forward a focused Bill to deliver something that the House of Lords broadly agrees with”. That is why it was proposed in the first place.
The noble Lord opposite said that we may not co-operate because there are lots of other things around the issue. I am not quite sure what he means; perhaps we will debate that later. I was clear to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that it is implicit that, if we are looking to reduce the size of the House—if we are looking at exits—considerations need to be made about size. That was clear.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, implied that this is being done for political reasons, to make it more difficult for the party opposite to hold the Government to account when hereditary Peers have left your Lordships’ House. Even after the hereditary Peers depart, there will still be 243 Members of her party in this House. My party before the election had 171 Members here, and my colleagues held the Government to account very effectively with that number. I am disappointed if the noble Baroness thinks that—
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
May I finish my point? Do not get too excited—I will give way soon. I am surprised that the noble Baroness thinks that with those additional Members—some 70 more Members than we had when we were in opposition—her party would find it very difficult to hold my Government to account.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for letting me put my point again. I was referring to all the contributions of the hereditaries on all Benches. I am talking about effective contributions that will now be silenced. I fear that will affect the House.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
That is actually not the point that the noble Baroness made at the time. Many Members of your Lordships’ House make effective contributions, and she should recognise those as well.
I enjoyed the speech from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra; he is always inventive and engages well on these issues. However, I say to him that I do not recognise the veto that the noble Lord, Lord True, referred to. My reading of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is that if a Select Committee makes recommendations:
“The Secretary of State must, by regulations made by statutory instrument, amend the following Acts, as appropriate … to give effect to the recommendations in statute”.
The Government must then lay those regulations. In practical terms, if a Select Committee were to charge the House with something—if it said, “We would like the House to consider the following options”—how on earth do a Government legislate for all the options a Select Committee may recommend? That is what he would have in his—
Lord Blencathra (Con)
I hope I made it clear in my speech that the House would consider the options. The House would then come up with a firm vote on what they may be, and not give the Government a range of options to legislate on. It would be the decision of the House on the retirement age, the participation rates or the threshold. We would consider the options and end up with firm recommendations.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
The noble Lord’s amendment is uncertain, because I did not read it like that. It says:
“Where a select committee of the House … has been established for the purpose of reporting on possible retirement ages … and that committee makes recommendations to establish or change”
certain conventions,
“a relevant Minister must, within 12 months of the committee reporting, take the action set out in subsection (2)”.
Therefore, the noble Lord will not be empowering the House; he will undermine the House by removing it as a body from the equation. Even aside from that point, however, I disagree that matters of this importance should merely be considered by the Select Committee through a statutory instrument. I am sure our statutory instruments committee would have quite a bit to say about that power and whether it was relevant at all.
The establishment of a Select Committee is a matter for the House; if the House does not want it, it will not be set up. It seems to me that it is a good way forward for the House to provide a view on these issues. Where we can take things forward more quickly, we will do so. Where we can act prior to legislation, we could do so. Where legislation is required, an agreement from your Lordships’ House makes that a smoother process. I think the amendment before us today is unworkable in practice and risks undermining the very role of this House by trying to bypass the House. It may not be what the noble Lord intended, but it is what his amendment would do. It would bypass the House; what happens in a Select Committee is then enacted by secondary legislation. That would be an extraordinary move and one that this House has never seen before. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, in view of the hour and the mood of the House, I intend to be brief. I merely say to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, who said we should pass our own rules where we could, that I agree entirely. My amendment deals with those areas where we cannot pass our own rules.
Lord Newby (LD)
Surely the noble Lord’s amendment requires a statutory instrument to cover every single recommendation of the Select Committee.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
Yes, it is one way to guarantee that it happens, but if this House can bring about some of the rules we want through our own Standing Orders, so be it. The legislative power is there; it does not have to be implemented if the House has done it its own way.
It simply comes down to this: are we going to implement the recommendations of the Lords Select Committee that the noble Baroness herself has created, as we may amend them, or are going to hang around hoping we will get a government Bill in due course to do it sometime? I have said before, and I need not repeat it: I simply do not see that happening.
It was rather disingenuous of the noble Baroness to say the amendment is not technically perfect. I am talking about the general concept here of implementing what this House decides through a statutory instrument, and if the amendment is not technically correct, it is a simple—
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
Statutory instruments are not amendable; that is to say that this House would not be able to change whatever was in the statutory instrument.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
Of course, my noble friend is right. I was not suggesting that we would wish to amend the statutory instrument. My amendment seeks to say that when this House votes on proposals on retirement, possibly on participation and possibly on attendance, the Government would then be under an obligation to bring forward a statutory instrument to implement those proposals. My noble friend may ask what would happen if the Government did not do what we asked for. In that case, this House would vote it down.
It is nonsense to suspect that a Government will bring forward primary legislation to deal with little things such as the age at which Peers should retire, and how often they must turn up before they will be slung out of this House. I cannot see that being in a Labour election grid for the next election; it is not going to happen. I also disagree with the noble Baroness because, in a normal Bill, these two little things would be statutory instruments. They would be secondary legislation, and the secondary legislation committee would certainly not disapprove of them. These things are important to us, and I am still convinced that my original assertion is right: the only way we will get these changes through, if this House approves them, is to have my innocuous new clause on a statutory instrument. I cannot understand why the Government are opposed to it, and therefore I intend to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar
“(3) Any peerage claim is to be made to His Majesty in Council.(4) A claim under this section must be made in accordance with such rules as His Majesty may by Order in Council prescribe.(5) Section 3 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833 (reference to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of appeals to His Majesty in Council) applies to a claim under this section as it applies to an appeal to His Majesty in Council from a court.(6) The Judicial Committee may require an applicant to give such security for the costs of the proceedings as the Judicial Committee may direct.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment clarifies the future of claims to a hereditary peerage as it was originally drafted by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel for the House of Lords Reform Bill 2012.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 24 seeks to place in the Bill the Government’s intentions in respect of the determination of peerage claims. Can I say what a pleasure it is to see such a large turnout from the Government Benches when we are discussing the role of the Privy Council? It is heartwarming to see what a focus the Government Benches have on this important matter.
As I explained in Committee, the Bill removes the role of your Lordships’ House in determining peerage claims, but it leaves behind a statutory lacuna. My amendment—I emphasise this point—does not depart at all from the Government’s intentions as set out in the Explanatory Notes. It would put those intentions in the Bill. If we do not add this amendment to the Bill, the peerage claims determination process will still be undertaken by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council where the case is complicated, but it is possible that other arrangements may be made by future Governments. We need an effective system for peerage claims. Since this House has had a role in this process up to this point, it is only right that we in this House should be concerned about this debate, and we should seek to secure a proper future for that process.
Given the hour, I will not say any more about the Irish peerage issue—I made this point in Committee, and I know that the Government Benches are very focused on this—save to say that I am very pleased that we could get a confirmation from the Government that, as the Attorney-General said in Committee,
“the position will be precisely the same in respect of disputed Irish peerages”.—[Official Report, 1/4/25; col. 177.]
I am grateful to him for that confirmation.
In responding to my amendments in Committee, the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General also told your Lordships that the
“power to refer claims to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council … already exists in Section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833”.
I accept that he is right about that, of course, but, with respect, I do not think that that counters the case for my amendment.
More convincingly, the Government made the case that requiring
“all peerage claims to be made to His Majesty in Council … would therefore result in a significant increase in claims already considered beyond the stage of consideration by the Lord Chancellor to be entered on the Roll of the Peerage”.—[Official Report, 1/4/25; col. 177.]
Given that question of proportionality and the impact on the work of the Privy Council, I am not going to seek to divide the House on my amendment today. However, I will take this opportunity to ask—I do not know who will be responding for the Government; it looks as though it will be the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson—whether the Minister can foresee circumstances where a body other than the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council could take over the role of determining complex peerage claims. Can she confirm whether Parliament would be consulted on that matter before any changes are made? I hope that that confirmation can be given; it would be extremely helpful.
While I am on my feet, to save time, if I may—I know that the noble Earl, Lord Devon, will soon speak to his amendments—I will say something more. Obviously, I recognise the complexity and strength of feeling that arise in any debate on primogeniture. I am aware of families that are at risk of losing their family home as a result of the rules of succession, as well as entails attached to certain properties. I am not going to explain at this hour what an entail is—Wikipedia is available—but this is a serious issue that needs to be looked at. I should say that I am grateful for the conversations that the noble Earl, Lord Devon, has had with me and with others, and grateful that he has taken a circumspect approach to these amendments in seeking to initiate a report on gender equality in the inheritance of peerages. I hope that the Minister will be able to give the House greater clarity on the Government’s position on this issue but, so far as the amendment in my name is concerned, I beg to move.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson. I applaud his efforts to formalise the procedure regarding the determination of peerage claims, which I broadly support.
I shall speak to the two amendments in my name in this group, Amendments 25 and 27, which seek to ensure equality in that process. They would address gender parity in hereditary peerages once Clause 2 of this Bill for ever ends our jurisdiction to determine such claims. As I explained in Committee, equality of succession is an issue about which I care deeply, both for personal reasons and because it is a principle that Earls of Devon have championed since our inception.
Given the late hour, your Lordships will be pleased to hear that I am sparing the House my stories of the Empress Matilda and Queen Mary I, in the service of whom the earldom was first earned, then lost and recovered. We were addressing and fighting real Henry VIII powers in those days, not the fantasy ones we talk about today. Nearly 500 years later, there is still so much work to do on gender parity and I would be failing in my inherited duty if I did not pursue these amendments. I had hoped to change the law to remove the deeply embedded discrimination in the vast majority of hereditary titles, while I enjoyed the privilege of a seat in your Lordships’ House, but that is no longer possible with my pending abolition. The best that I can therefore offer is these two amendments.
Amendment 25 directs the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to exercise the functions that this Bill transfers to it in a non-discriminatory manner. Amendment 27, which I am minded to push to a vote, requires the Secretary of State to consult on the challenges that the JCPC faces in doing that and to recommend legislative changes accordingly. When we debated similar amendments in Committee, the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General generously indicated that the Government approved the rationale of these amendments. He stated that the Government very much share my
“unease at the inequality baked in to so many hereditary peerages”.—[Official Report, 25/3/25; col. 1558.]
However, he raised a number of specific objections to the form of the amendments as originally drafted, not least the unconstitutional burdens that they placed upon the JCPC. I have taken those form objections on board and revised the proposed amendments, in the faint hope that the Government will accept them this time around. I fear that they may not, and that the Minister will probably revert to the Government’s oft-stated objections that this Bill is not the place to address the question of female succession, that they are not minded to amend the Bill in any form and that the issues raised are far too complex for us to address in this or any other legislation.
The Government are wrong, for a number of reasons. First, this is exactly the Bill in which to address the exercise of jurisdiction over hereditary succession, as it is the Bill that removes that power once and for all from your Lordships. If we do not legislate for gender parity in this Bill, Parliament is proactively passing to the JCPC a power and jurisdiction that all agree to be discriminatory, validating and therefore approving the ongoing exclusion of women from hereditary titles. This Bill bakes in gender discrimination.
Secondly, this is the very last chance for hereditary Members of your Lordships’ House to opine on this issue before their abolition, and thus for Parliament to benefit from the views of those directly impacted by this deep-rooted cultural misogyny. It is also therefore highly likely to be the last time that anyone will be sufficiently motivated to pursue this issue. If we do not address it now, it will be left to fester as a stain on our national culture.
As to the complexity of this issue, Amendment 27 seeks to require the Secretary of State to consult and to review how principles of gender equality should be applied when determining such claims, and to recommend legislative solutions. Any complexities will be consulted on and remedies proposed. Just because the matter is complex does not mean that it should not be addressed. As I stated before, patriarchy puts up many barriers to its dismantlement, but that should not deter us. Noble Lords may recall that the Crown once passed under the principle of male-preference primogeniture. Indeed, it did so for centuries, until the law was changed in 2013 with the Succession to the Crown Act, which altered the method of royal succession to gender-neutral primogeniture. If we can do it for the Crown, with all the complex traditions, conventions and rights inherent therein, surely we can do the same for our simple hereditary peerage. It simply cannot be that complicated.
However, this issue goes much wider than the gender of those who succeed to hereditary titles, as it is a point of general and important principle. Since the debate in Committee, in which a number of noble Lords spoke in support of my amendments, I have been contacted by an array of campaigners for equal rights, who have pointed out that our country will never have gender parity while we preserve privilege and property rights within the upper reaches of our society only for men. Those who campaign tirelessly to end violence against women and gender-based discrimination of all types note that, if we are unwilling to remove gender discrimination everywhere, we will never remove it anywhere.
By passing the Bill with Clause 2 unamended, this Government, who, allegedly, are committed to the principle of gender equality, are simply condoning gender-based discrimination at the top of our society, in effect, saying that it is okay to deny women the right to bear titles and the property rights, privileges and status inherent therein, solely on account of their gender. Is that really what the Government stand for?
As stated, I am minded therefore to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 27. It is a modest amendment that simply calls for a report into the application of gender equality. It may be that this is a quixotic campaign and that I am tilting at windmills to call a vote so late at night on the last day we debate the Bill, but if we do not seek to make a change now, it will never happen and the hereditary system will for ever remain biased. I will reflect on the debate before determining whether to move the amendment to a vote, and I particularly look forward to the Minister’s response. I once more challenge the Government to be brave, to channel Baldwin, the first Earl of Devon, who stood up for the rights of women to succeed and to lead. Please support these amendments. After 900 years, it is about time.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, on a debate such as this, the House really misses the Countess of Mar—if only she was still here. I can recall her one day bringing a delegation to a department where I was a Minister, and after she left, I told the civil servants, “One day, I will be a Back-Bencher and she is my model”. That is what I have tried to do. As the noble Earl, Lord Devon, spoke, I thought back to the one-woman awkward squad in this House—the Countess of Mar. She is much missed in a debate like this.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, if I could share my recollection of the Countess of Mar, I was Agriculture spokesman for the last Government, and she had some strong opinions. Whenever I received my brief in answer to her questions, I would sit with her and she would point out where the brief was wrong, and then I could get it right before I had to answer. That made it much easier. She was a great power.
I honour the noble Earl, Lord Devon, for bringing these amendments forward. Lord Diamond was in the lists on the Labour Benches when I first joined the House. I took my turn at it. My noble friend Lord Northbrook has done the same. We have been trying for a long time to get this dealt with, never with any success. I do not share the noble Earl’s opinion that we are the upper reaches of society. None the less, I do not think that this kind of gender discrimination should be allowed to persist anywhere. That it is a tiresome, small, insignificant but none the less continually noticed bit of gender discrimination ought to allow the Government to give the issue some time to get rid of it.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Wolfson. He has already made the case about the need to clarify the process for future claims to a hereditary peerage when hereditary Peers no longer sit in your Lordships’ House. My noble friend highlighted the complexity of this process in Committee and even went as far as questioning whether the House currently has to resolve a claim in line with the recommendation of the Procedure and Privileges Committee.
From my own experience, I can assure him that the House of Lords can overturn a recommendation from the Privileges Committee. The House of Lords has the power to debate and vote on the recommendations of all its committees, including the Privileges Committee. This means that the House can ultimately choose to accept, reject or modify any recommendation made by the committee.
The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, will no doubt want to understand exactly what I am talking about, so, in 30 seconds, I will give him a brief example of evidence in the Moynihan case, which was a comparison of the DNA of my late Liberal Party member half-brother who, while alive, personally left a sample of his blood with a Harley Street physician, despite not legally being allowed in the UK. This in turn needed to be released and his DNA matched to a blood sample I witnessed being taken from his alleged young son from his fourth wife, a young boy who I had no proof was the boy in question when he arrived to give a sample at the dust-filled clinic of the Makati Medical Centre in Manila. One of the three phials of blood taken stayed in my briefcase as I continued to travel to China on business, making the most of fridges in my hotel rooms. It could be argued that that became contaminated, and I am sure that had the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, sat on the Committee for Privileges at the time, he may well have raised that issue.
The fact is that the House of Lords, as a sovereign body with the power to regulate its own affairs, including the ability to review and decide on its reports and the reports of its committees, could have challenged that process. While the Privileges Committee’s recommendations are taken seriously, they are not binding on the House. The House ultimately retains the authority to decide on the course of action, including its consideration of the publication of the Privileges Committee’s report. In the Moynihan case, the House accepted the committee’s report without debate.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
Noble Lords will be disappointed that I do not have a line from the Box on one thing, so they may have to bear with me.
I thank noble Lords for this surprisingly short debate on some very important issues. To clarify, as we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and as he so entertained us in Committee about his family’s stories, the last complex case to be discussed by the JCPC was in 1997. There have been fewer than 10 complex cases in the last 50 years and routine claims are around 12 cases a year, which I hope gives noble Lords some context to what we are discussing.
On Amendment 24, from the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General set out the Government’s position on peerage claims in great detail in Committee. To put it briefly, Clause 2 abolishes the jurisdiction of this House in relation to hereditary peerage claims. In future, it is intended that any complex or disputed claims that would have been referred to this House by the Crown will instead be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
To reiterate the statement made by my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General, under the power in Section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833, as was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, His Majesty may already refer matters to the judicial committee for consideration and advice. I am sure that noble Lords would agree that where it is necessary to duplicate legislative provisions, we should avoid doing so. Notwithstanding the way in which the noble Lord regaled us in Committee with his bitter experience of the Pet Abduction Act 2024, I expect the other place will be some somewhat less exercised by this matter.
The noble Lord’s amendment would result in all cases, including straightforward cases, which are usually dealt with only by way of application to the Lord Chancellor, being referred to the JCPC. This would not be the best use of its time, as there is no dispute or legal complexity in these claims. The amendment is therefore unnecessary.
The noble Lord asked me a very important question, which was whether I could foresee circumstances other than the use of the JCPC and, if we did, whether Parliament would be consulted. Having consulted my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General, who thankfully was sitting to my left, I can say that we do not foresee this moving away from the JCPC, but my noble and learned friend assures me that although this issue has not been raised before—so we would have to consider it in more detail—we would seek to consult on principle if there was going to be a move away from the JCPC. If, on reflection that is not the case, we would inform your Lordships’ House at the earliest opportunity. That is as far as I can assist the noble Lord.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
To be clear, when the Minister says that the Government would seek to consult, is that consult generally at large, so to speak, or consult with Parliament? Obviously there is a difference.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
With Parliament. I am glad to be able to assist, even at this hour.
I turn to the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Devon. The noble Earl has raised an important point that was touched on in Committee by my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General. Noble Lords will not be surprised that the Government’s approach has not changed on this issue since Committee, and I will briefly reiterate the rationale for that. While I am sympathetic to the noble Earl’s concerns, as is the Lord Privy Seal, the Bill deals only with the membership of this House. The Leader of the House has written to him to explain some of the complexities of addressing that.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
The Bill addresses the determination of hereditary peerages and transfers that power to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, so it is not accurate to say that it addresses only membership of your Lordships’ House.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I am not sure that I completely agree with the noble Earl but, in order to continue at this point and to give him the answers that he seeks from the Government, I am going to move forward. As I was about to say, my personal view is that those complexities should not stop us addressing the issue, but it is not an issue for this Bill, which is about membership of your Lordships’ House.
I note that Amendment 25 has been refined by the noble Earl since Committee, but it still seeks to assert how the Judicial Committee should exercise its jurisdiction.
On Amendment 27, while the Government may consult on how the principles of gender equality should apply to determining hereditary peerage claims, without legislative changes the law as it stands distinguishes between sexes, as the noble Earl is clearly aware, in the case of succession to hereditary titles, and it is the duty of the courts to give effect to it. As I have said, that is something that many Members in both Houses, including me, are not comfortable with, but I do not believe that to be a matter for this Bill. The role of the courts is to apply the law, and in doing so they treat all litigants equally. However, the law itself distinguishes between sexes, as the noble Earl is clearly aware, and in the case of succession to regulatory titles it is the duty of the courts to give effect to it.
In summary, the amendment on peerage claims is unnecessary and the amendments on primogeniture are not for this Bill. I therefore respectfully request that the noble Lord withdraws his amendment.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, especially for her reassurances. I think Moses spoke to the Almighty face to face, but I interact with the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General through the Minister, so I thank the noble and learned Lord via her. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
The Earl of Dundee
“Review: impact on the effectiveness of the House of LordsWithin 12 months of the day on which this Act comes into force, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament the report of a review detailing the effect of this Act on the ability of the House of Lords to scrutinise legislation and hold the Government to account.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to require a review of the impact of this Act on the ability of the House of Lords to scrutinise legislation and hold the Government to account.
The Earl of Dundee (Con)
My Lords, within this grouping, Amendment 26 would enable a review of the impact of this Act on the ability of the House of Lords to scrutinise legislation and hold the Government to account.
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 that priority aim.
If, within the temporal membership of a reformed House of 600, the political Members were to be 450, the non-political representation appointed either by HOLAC or by Parliament itself would then be 150 Cross-Bench Peers.
As a result, within that total of 600 temporal Members, 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 carrying out our present high standard of legislative scrutiny in a reformed House.
Your Lordships may well additionally consider that, rather than direct public elections, indirect elections of 450 political Members would, in the first place, the better ensure continuity of high standards of legislative scrutiny.
That is because direct elections of 450 political Members would instead lead to conflict and jockeying for position between the House of Commons and a reformed House of Lords.
In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, the Leader of the House, favoured parity of numbers between the government and opposition parties, such as perhaps 175 each; while the Leader of the Opposition, my noble friend Lord True, observed that each of the Government and Opposition should have more political Members than the Cross-Benchers would have non-political Members, such as maybe reflecting an appropriate respective ratio of 175 for each of the government and main opposition party to 150 for non-political Cross Bench membership.
Also in Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, pointed out in particular that a reformed House must be properly representative of the regions and nations of the UK; and that, in general, the public ought to be consulted on different options for House of Lords reform.
Does the Minister therefore concur that a key option to be put forward for public approval or otherwise should be the implied prescriptions of Amendment 26?
These comprise, first, that the high standard of legislative scrutiny demonstrated by the present House should continue in a reformed House; if so, and secondly, that indirect elections would assist that purpose better than direct elections.
Thirdly, that also assisting this aim is parity of numbers between the government and main opposition parties at perhaps 175 each; fourthly, that equally sustaining legislative scrutiny quality as well is the inclusion of independent non-political Cross-Benchers at 150, thus at one-third of all temporal and political members at 450. I beg to move.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, it is always a privilege to follow the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, and it is nice to see Devon and Dundee legislating until the end.
I will speak to Amendment 28 in my name. It once more considers whether the name “House of Lords” remains appropriate once we have removed the hereditary Lords from these red Benches.
Over recent months, during the passage of this Bill, we have heard from all sides of this House how indefensible is the hereditary principle within a modern parliamentary democracy. We have heard criticism of hereditary Peers, their predominantly male gender and their relatively privileged birth, and heard particular disparagement of their feudal roots. Mine has been one the few voices raised in defence of the indefensible, but, if we are to accept, as reluctantly I do, that the 1,000 years or so of hereditary presence within our legislature should draw to a close, should we not remove the gendered, privileged and feudal name of the House itself?
I am concerned that, in keeping the name “House of Lords”, along with its aristocratic nomenclature and the traditions and pretentions that go with it, we are removing the best bits—the hereditary Members of your Lordships’ House, who contribute so much—and keeping the worst bits: namely, the gendered, discriminatory name and intentions. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, stated in Committee,
“Words have power and names shape perceptions”.—[Official Report, 25/3/25; cols. 1554-55.]
The noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General criticised my citation of a dictionary reference for “Lord”, suggesting it could do with some updating. In preparation for this debate, I therefore consulted the Oxford English Dictionary, which confirms the definition of a Lord as a title of nobility or high rank often associated with land ownership and power, particularly in feudal contexts. It can also refer to a man who has achieved mastery or leadership in a particular field, or can be used as a term of respect. In Christianity, Lord is a title for God or Christ—in other words, a deity. Given that names shape perception, and the disparity that has been noted throughout Report between the excellent work that takes place in this House and the terrible public opinion we suffer, should we not be looking at the departure of the hereditary Peers—the Lords, as the Oxford English Dictionary defines them—as an opportunity for a rebrand? Surely it provides the perfect chance to step away from the negative associations of nobility and high rank with land and power; an opportunity to remove the rich aroma of feudal and patriarchal privilege that pervades many aspects of this venerable institution.
Lord True (Con)
I am enjoying listening to the noble Earl, although I find it hard to forgive the fact that his collateral ancestors participated in the deplorable and bogus Latin Empire of Constantinople. Some of us remember that, so he should be careful.
On a serious point, we heard earlier the great scale of confusion on the Benches opposite at the different uses of the word “Lord”. Has the noble Earl considered that a better argument for his amendment—which would appeal to the confused elements on the other side who we heard from earlier—is that it would help lift the confusion on the Labour Benches?
The Earl of Devon (CB)
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention, and I agree. There are many reasons why the nomenclature that we use is very significant. Perhaps, by way of concession, this issue of nomenclature could be considered by the special Select Committee that is being established to consider the constitution of your Lordships’ House. On that basis, and with that invitation to address the issue, I commend my amendment to the House.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, these amendments call for a review of your Lordships’ House to consider the effect of the expulsion of our hereditary colleagues, and indeed to consider its very name. I thank noble Lords for their thoughtful contributions. The need to reflect, scrutinise and reassess is a defining virtue of this House, and our duty is to test, examine and refine.
The amendment from my noble friend Lord Dundee seeks a review of the impact of the Bill on the effectiveness of your Lordships’ House. This is a fair challenge. If this House is to be judged, let it be judged on its ability to scrutinise legislation, revise policy and hold the Government to account. We have consistently warned of the danger of excluding in one stroke so many active, knowledgeable and experienced Members—individuals whose contributions have been vital to this House’s effectiveness.
The strength of this House has always been that it evolves over time and reflects experience and judgment. Its legitimacy is grounded in the capability and dedication of our Members. This is why we have argued throughout that it is critical that reform and review should be carried out through consensus and with full discussion, and why we seek to retain the wisdom and experience of long-serving hereditary colleagues who have brought unparalleled insight to our deliberations over the years.
Amendment 28 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, invites review and consultation on the appropriateness of the name “House of Lords”. As I have said before, this is an intriguing suggestion. I was interested to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott—who is not in his place—was toying with this in our debate on Amendment 17 earlier, and that the former Lord Speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, also brought it up in the course of today’s deliberations.
As the noble Earl says, the title of this House evokes centuries of history and tradition, and it is certainly reasonable to ask whether it still reflects the institution as it is today, but the reputation, credibility and authority of this House will never be determined by its name alone. They will be determined by its actions, the quality of its debates, the sharpness of its scrutiny and the seriousness of its deliberations. Scrutiny must lead to improvement and must not be a distraction, and I am afraid there is a danger that such a review would become a distraction from the important work of your Lordships’ House.
In conclusion, I recognise the intent behind the amendments to assess the consequences of the Bill. However, if we are serious about the future of this House, let us focus on what really matters: scrutiny, legislation and the real business of holding the Government to account.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, from Devon to Dundee: as we approach Recess, it suggests a delightful holiday we may all want to consider.
Both amendments in this group seek, in different ways, to place a duty on the Government to review the impact of legislation after it receives Royal Assent. Amendment 26, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, seeks to place a duty on the Secretary of State to produce a report before both Houses, detailing the effects of the Bill within 12 months of it coming into force. Much like the noble Earl’s Amendment 96 in Committee, albeit more focused, this would place a duty on the Government to conduct post-legislative scrutiny on the Bill.
Amendment 28, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, seeks to place a duty on the Secretary of State to consult with the public on the implications of the provision in the Bill on the appropriateness of the name of the House of Lords. This amendment is identical to his amendment in Committee. In Committee, my noble friend Lord Collins of Highbury observed that amendments to require a formal review of the Bill were unnecessary and disproportionate. It will not surprise noble Lords to learn that the Government have not altered their view of these new amendments.
With respect to Amendment 26, we agree that post-legislative scrutiny or reviews can add value to the legislative process, but it would be of limited value in this case. Ultimately, the Bill does not alter any functions of your Lordships’ House; nor does it make a fundamental change to how we operate as a House.
In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, described the Bill as a “tidying-up measure”. On these Benches, we agree. Given the approach taken with the 1999 Act, which removed a far higher number of Members from your Lordships’ House and did not have any post-legislative scrutiny, I cannot see the case for post-legislative scrutiny of this Bill.
On Amendment 28 from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, my response will be the same as the one my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General gave the noble Lord in Committee:
“The House of Lords will continue to be called the House of Lords following the passage of the Bill”.—[Official Report, 25/3/25; col. 1556.]
Save for the Lords spiritual, this House will still consist of Peers of the realm once the hereditary Peers have left.
While I acknowledge that, as the noble Lord describes, the language we use to describe ourselves can seem anachronistic to some, particularly given that neither I, nor my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal, nor the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, are Lords. But we need to appreciate that, outside your Lordships’ House, it is very clear what the House of Lords is and how it relates to the other House.
The purpose of the Bill is clear and uncomplicated, and I do not believe that post-legislative scrutiny or reviews would provide the House with any further insight. Therefore, I respectfully request that the noble Lord withdraws his amendment.
The Earl of Dundee (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her remarks. On legislative scrutiny and holding Governments to account, perhaps there may be consensus in three major respects.
First, the high standard of the present House in achieving legislative scrutiny should carry on in a reformed House. Secondly, and conversely, if possible, future membership composition ought to be designed to serve that priority aim. Thirdly, following this consideration, our present high-quality function of legislative scrutiny should still be able to be performed by a revised House of 600 temporal Members, whether wholly elected or through some combination of being appointed directly and elected.
Beyond this consensus, there are differing views on how the reformed House could achieve desirable democratic effects in different ways.
Such divergence of opinion may be illustrated by the case for having direct elections. This was advanced with conviction by my noble friend Lord Hailsham, in the context of seeking to reduce the unwelcome effects of elective dictatorship. For direct elections to a reformed House of Lords would certainly enable it to stand up much more to the House of Commons, not least when Governments of the day there might happen to have very large party-political majorities.
However, in association with Amendment 26, as already indicated, indirect elections are advocated instead. These would be for 450 political Members within a reformed House of 600 temporal Members, of whom 150 would be non-political, independent Cross-Benchers, either appointed by HOLAC or else indirectly elected by Parliament itself. As already alleged, these respective proportions would then provide a good balance for sustaining and carrying on our present high standards—
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I am ever so sorry. Can the noble Lord clarify what is happening in terms of the next stage of the Bill? I think the noble Lord might be repeating some of his opening remarks.
The Earl of Dundee (Con)
I was hoping to put this in context; my noble friend Lady Finn in her remarks did just that too, saying that we really want to make sure that we can continue the very high standard of legislative scrutiny of our present House in a reformed House.
I will just finish my remarks. As already alleged, these respective portions would provide a good balance for sustaining and carrying on our present high standards. This formula could also seek the backing of public consultation and approval to which the noble Baroness very helpfully referred in Committee.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Earl, but the debate has concluded and I think he is just about to say whether he wishes to press his amendment to the vote.
The Earl of Dundee (Con)
I am grateful to the Leader of the House for her interest. I am not going to be tempted to press to a vote, but if I could possibly finish my remarks, we may be able to round off the context.
I am grateful too for the contribution from the Opposition Front Bench and from my noble friend Lady Finn, and within this grouping for the useful amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, on post-reform House of Lords nomenclature. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 26.
The Earl of Devon
“Report: principles of gender equality(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the day on which this Act comes into force, undertake a consultation on how principles of gender equality should be applied when determining hereditary peerage claims which were formerly determined by the House of Lords.(2) The Secretary of State must publish a report following the conclusion of the consultation which must address—(a) the expectations of existing heirs;(b) heirs born to unmarried parents;(c) families with adopted children.”Member’s explanatory statement
In the light of the fact that hereditary peerages often pass to eldest sons, this amendment requires that the Secretary of State must, within six months of the commencement of this Act, consult on how principles of gender equality should be applied when determining hereditary peerage claims.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, given that so many have remained until this stage of the evening, I would hate to disappoint, as well as given how many resounding words of support I heard for my Amendment 27 when we debated it, including I think from the Government Front Bench. On that basis, I would like to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 27.
Lord Strathclyde
“Whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation:”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is copied from the preamble to the 1911 Parliament Act to highlight that Labour's plans for “an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations” constitutes the same ambition for a popular basis for the House of Lords and that this Bill, like the 1911 Act, is another holding position because the intended substitution still “cannot be immediately brought into operation”.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, I think that some of my noble friends have been waiting a long time for this moment. It is late at night, so I assure noble Lords that I will not test the opinion of the House.
I move this amendment with a certain amount of humility, which some may feel is not my natural state, but it really is on this occasion. The words of the amendment are taken from the original Parliament Act 1911 and its preamble, and it is worth reading it to your Lordships:
“And whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation”.
Those are fine words and a fine aspiration.
I said at an earlier stage that the difference existed less between the parties than within the parties, which is why I suspect that the ambition of the 1911 preamble has never been enacted. However, I rather wish that, in 1999, when we passed the House of Lords Act, that I had thought of this amendment then and sought to replicate it in the 1999 Act. I did not do so then, but I am making up for it today.
The beauty of this amendment is that it does not actually ask the Government to do anything; in fact, it does not ask anybody to do anything. Instead, it is a reminder of the original intention behind the 1911 Act. I understand that the Prime Minister has said that he is keen on an elected House in due course; he has mentioned that on several occasions. Certainly my party, over the last 20 years, has also mentioned that, both officially in manifestos and by supporting the 2012 Bill. Of course, the Liberal Democrats have stated that as well. I feel that there is plenty of support for the fundamental idea that lies behind this preamble, even though it cannot be immediately brought into operation.
So I hope that, at this last amendment, on the last day of Report on this Bill, the Government and the noble Baroness can perhaps smile beneficially on the amendment and accept it. As I said, it is moved with due humility as a humble amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, may I follow the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and thank him for that unusual and welcome display of humility?
I will put a question to him. He knows that, following the 1911 Act, the Bryce Commission was set up in 1917. It was essentially a conference of both the Lords and the Commons, and a large number of Members took part. The recommendation was that the Lords should be indirectly elected through regional meetings of Members of Parliament in the Commons, who would nominate people coming to the House of Lords. That died a death, and nothing happened. Does the noble Lord think that we could reconstitute the Bryce Commission in current circumstances?
Secondly, if the preamble was so helpful and successful in 1911, what makes him think that putting it in this Bill will lead to any substantive reform at all? I would observe that, in the interventions I have made arguing for substantive reform, I seem to have lacked a certain degree of support among Members of your Lordships’ House.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, described the preamble as “fine words”. He will know the saying, “Fine words butter no parsnips”. Well, these words have buttered no parsnips for over a hundred years and, personally, I have had enough of fine words on their own.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I am slightly disappointed that this is the second time this evening that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, has failed to put the case for election when he was talking about the best way to deal with limiting the size of the House and prevent it growing. The best way is to have a constituted, elected House where the people decide how the numbers in the House change. Now, again, he has failed to align himself with the long-held wish of his party to see election. At this late hour, my noble friend has elicited a notable reticence from the party opposite in pursuing its electoral objectives.
Lord Newby (LD)
The noble Lord seems to forget that I moved an amendment for an elected House of Lords and, unless my recollection is faulty, he chose not to support it.
Lord True (Con)
Well, that is true. The elements are greatly mixed in us, as Shakespeare taught us. There is that terrible duo word of “PR” that always lurks around in any proposition that comes from the noble Lord, Lord Newby.
I do not think that this is a time for reflection on the progress of this Bill. We will have a chance for that next week on “Bill do now pass”. I am pleased that, in general, the conduct of the debates has been good and important issues have been raised. I fear that a more appropriate preamble for this Bill would be something along the lines of, “Whereas it is desired to create an all-appointed House, and no proposals have yet been presented to restrict growth in the power of the Executive over such a House, it is politically expedient to exclude immediately over 80 Members of Parliament who do not support the Executive”. I think that would probably be a reasonably accurate preamble.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the patience and willingness to engage with the House that she has again shown in the Chamber this evening. I liked my noble friend’s impish and humble address to the House, but I think that, when the time comes, he should probably withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord—I think it has been good natured generally, apart from one slip-up that I referred to earlier. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, is not in his place—I have scared him off. He will not do that again.
I am grateful to the noble Lord for introducing his amendment. It was the most unusual introduction I have ever heard to an amendment in your Lordships’ House. He started by saying that it does not do anything and does not ask the Government to do anything. That is an unusual way to introduce an amendment to any legislation. He seeks to put a preamble at the start of the Bill, as he said.
The substantive issue that he addresses here is introducing an elected element into a second Chamber. The recollection of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, does not fail him: only last week the House rejected that proposal, although the proposals in the Labour Party manifesto for an alternative second Chamber do not mention elections, so I fear that putting something like this in—although it would make no difference—seeks to pre-empt any outcome of further discussions.
This kind of preamble is now obsolete—although it may have happened in 1911, and I know there is a tendency in your Lordships’ House to look backwards at what happened. There have been some excellent historical references in the House this evening and indeed last week. There is a good reason why this has become largely obsolete: it is completely unnecessary, because the Long Title indicates the purpose and substantive clauses are provided in the legislation. The noble Baroness, Lady Jay, who took similar legislation through your Lordships’ House in 1999, said:
“Words that do not mean anything have no place in modern legislation”.—[Official Report, 26/10/1999; col. 276.]
Taking the noble Lord’s own introduction—saying that it does not do anything and does not mean anything—I ask that he withdraws his amendment.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, I cannot hide my disappointment that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith—the Leader of the House—have not accepted my words. But I am pleased to have heard the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, ask some totally appropriate questions and remind us of what happened at the end of the First World War with the Bryce Commission. Of course it would be possible to recreate a Bryce Commission and, under the Labour Government that ended in 2010, a Joint Committee of both Houses sat and discussed this. Prior to that, there had been a royal commission. There have been many occasions over the last 100 or so years when people have referred to this preamble and looked at what could be done to put in place some kind of elected House—and none of them has come to anything.
My purpose was simply to continue that historical reminder that this was the broad intention. This is an echo of the noble and learned Lords, Lord Irvine of Lairg and Lord Falconer of Thoroton. So many other Peers have referred to it over the last 115 years. However, I recognise that I am beaten on this one. I said I would not call a Division on it and I will not. Therefore, on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.