House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent and Lord Wolfson of Tredegar

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I will be brief, because this is the fifth time I have spoken on this topic. The first time I spoke, when I advanced the proposition that the Lord Chancellor should come back to this House, Lord Judge—whom I think we all miss very much—inquired in that very gentle way of his whether I was making a job application on the Floor of the House of Lords. I confirmed that I was not and I declare the same non-interest in this speech today.

As my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie has made clear, the position of Lord Chancellor occupies a distinct role in our constitution. The Lord Chancellor is still the only Cabinet Minister who takes a distinct oath to uphold the rule of law, and while the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General and I have had some interesting debates about what is and what is not constituted within the term “the rule of law”, it is an important—indeed, a fundamental—part of our constitution, and I think it is undeniable that in moving the Lord Chancellor away from this House and allowing the position of Lord Chancellor to be held by a Member of the House of Commons, for whom, as my noble and learned friend indicated, it might be an intermediate station stop on a ministerial career, rather than a grand terminus, I think we have lost something.

We have also changed the position of Lord Chief Justice, because while formerly the Lord Chancellor was the person who would speak up for judges, that role now falls to the Lord—or now the Lady—Chief Justice. While there have been some excellent holders of that post—the current holder is particularly excellent —it is unfortunate that we have, in part, turned that post into something of a shop steward for the judges, whereas in the past they had a member of the Cabinet around the Cabinet table, speaking up for judges, for justice and for the rule of law.

I also think, finally, that there is considerable merit in what my noble and learned friend said about the Lord Chancellor heading a small but focused department. One could even call it the Department for Constitutional Affairs: I seem to remember that name being used in the past. That department could have responsibility for the rule of law, for devolution, for civil liberties, for treaties and for human rights—the very things that keep our society the sort of society that we want it to be. These things should not change; they should not come and go with Governments. Frankly, under the last Government as well, we had too many Secretaries of State for Justice, because it was treated as a Cabinet position like any other, but the reason it is treated as a Cabinet position like any other is because that is essentially what the 2005 Act did.

I do not want to go back. We cannot go back to the status quo ante, or to a situation where the Lord Chancellor was a Cabinet Minister and a judge and occupied the Woolsack here; but we can identify that there is something about the role of the Lord Chancellor that is different from all other Cabinet Ministers. For those reasons, I have put my name to this amendment, and I support it.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, it may be helpful if I inform your Lordships’ House that my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General also took an oath to uphold the rule of law when he took office.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

The point I was trying to make is that I think—the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General may correct me—that he took an oath because he wanted to. I think the only one that is based in statute is the Lord Chancellor’s. That is the point I was making.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

That is correct, but I think it is important to note that my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General chose to because he views that as part of his role.

Amendment 10, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, seeks to ensure that the Lord Chancellor is always a Member of the House of Lords rather than of the other place. It is the same amendment tabled previously by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, who, as ever, made an effective and articulate argument for the change, but, with the greatest respect, as my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General said in the previous debate on this matter, the amendment is more focused on unpicking the constitutional settlement agreed in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and recasting the role of Lord Chancellor as it currently stands than it is on the principle of the Bill before us. The noble and learned Lord made his case with his customary eloquence, but the Government are not persuaded of the constitutional or policy rationale for a return to the 2005 decision.

The 2005 Act rightly ended the mixing of the Executive and the judiciary, and this is not something that this Government wish to reverse. The amendment would, in effect, bind the hands of the Prime Minister over whom he can appoint to be Lord Chancellor, excluding Members of the other place from holding this role. This is unnecessarily restrictive. It would also have the practical effect of forcing the Prime Minister to appoint a new Lord Chancellor, either by appointing a new Peer to this place, choosing an existing Peer or triggering a by-election so as to appoint the present Lord Chancellor to your Lordships’ House.

As my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General said in Committee, the Constitution Committee noted that

“character, intellect and a commitment to the rule of law”

are the most important qualities of a Lord Chancellor. My right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor demonstrates these qualities in abundance, and the House she sits in does not hinder her from discharging her duties as Lord Chancellor. This amendment does nothing to safeguard such qualities in the role of the Lord Chancellor.

I am surprised that the Official Opposition have raised the creation of a department for constitutional affairs; they had 14 years in which to create such a department if they had chosen to do so, yet they did not. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, said that the Lord Chancellor should be in charge of a department for constitutional affairs. Such machinery of government changes are of course a matter for the Prime Minister, not for this Bill. Since the creation of the Ministry of Justice in 2007, different Government departments have seen value in a single officeholder having a more holistic oversight of the justice system, by virtue of their responsibility for prisons and probation, as well as for courts and tribunals.

I therefore respectfully request that the noble Lord withdraws his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, this is a short but focused amendment, which rightly addresses the issue of standards and trust in our House. Ultimately, this House rests on its integrity and reputation.

As my noble friend mentioned, the Labour Party’s manifesto committed to

“ensure all peers meet the high standards the public expect of them”,

and went on to say that they would do that by,

“strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced Members can be removed”.

During the debate we had on 12 November last year, my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie asked the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal why the Government were delaying their manifesto commitment to strengthen the circumstances in which disgraced Members could be removed. I have to say that a good reason was not provided. The only reason provided was the oft-repeated statement that the only way reform will be achieved is to do it in pieces. Obviously, we have heard that a number of times.

Although I accept that the precise way this House works is not the common currency in the Dog and Duck, and that people do not talk about it around the country, I suspect that the one thing people everywhere around the country would expect is that lawbreakers should not be lawmakers, and that if you break the law and you are convicted, you should not continue to sit in Parliament. That is the short point at the heart of this amendment. It is already the case, of course, that if you are convicted and you have your liberty taken away from you then you lose your right to be here. To that extent, this amendment is only therefore an extension of that principle.

I accept that there were discussions across the Dispatch Box and there was a general understanding that some complexities were involved; the noble Baroness also told us that there would be “further dialogue”. As it is now just after midnight and we come to the end of the first day on Report, can the Lord Privy Seal update us on the extent of that further dialogue and what the Government’s plans are in this regard? If the Government do not have anything really focused in this area, having thought about it, it might well be that my noble friend’s amendment is the way to go.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

To reassure noble Lords, the Government remain committed to strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced Members can be removed. Our position on this amendment has not changed, not least given that it is not a matter for the Bill.

It may be helpful to the House if I briefly set out the current arrangements regarding expulsion. There are two routes of suspension. At the moment, under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, a Member of the House ceases to be a Member if the Lord Speaker certifies that they are convicted of a serious offence—that is, they are convicted of a criminal offence and given a non-suspended prison sentence of more than a year.

Where a Member receives a prison sentence but not one long enough to engage the 2014 Act, the provisions of the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015 and Standing Orders will be engaged. Under these, a Member who has received a prison sentence of any length is deemed to have breached the Code of Conduct and may be referred to the Conduct Committee, which in turn may recommend a sanction up to and including expulsion from the House. The current statutory framework is a tightly bound one, where only Peers who have been sentenced to a period of imprisonment can be subject to the sanction of suspension, either on an automatic basis or by engaging the 2015 Act and the provisions in Standing Orders.

The noble Lord’s amendment, in setting the threshold at indictment, would have the effect of bringing into scope a much wider array of offences with significantly varying degrees of seriousness and sentencing. I would question whether that is necessarily the appropriate threshold for expulsion and whether this sanction should not be reserved for the most serious of offences.

The Government are committed to ensuring that those who work in public life maintain high standards of ethics and propriety, not just in this House, but across all public servants and officeholders.

As the House will be aware, the Conduct Committee has only recently concluded its review of the Code of Conduct, which made several recommendations relating to the process following a Peer being convicted of a criminal offence. Therefore, it would be right for the House to allow these changes to bed in before considering what further changes may be needed. But we are open to the idea of pursuing this further in the Conduct Committee.

Given that the hour is late, I plan on finishing my comments there, but I am happy to continue discussions outside your Lordships’ House on this area. I therefore respectfully request that the noble Lord withdraw his amendment.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent and Lord Wolfson of Tredegar

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, given the hour, I can also be brief, because the essential points have been made by the Convenor and by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. In essence, what lies behind all these proposed amendments is the question of effectiveness and the importance of putting in place some transitional arrangements to make sure that we do not face the cliff edge, to pick up that phrase from the Convenor, which would be to the detriment of all of us in this House and, indeed, to Parliament generally. We have, as my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay reminded us, a bicameral Parliament and we have to make sure that both Houses work well together. So, the critical point here is that of effectiveness.

This group shows again why analogies are dangerous in this area. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, spoke in the last group and we had, yet again, the analogy with MPs. It is not a good analogy. The problem with analogies, as a Court of Appeal judge once put it to me, is that they are different, and we are dealing with a vastly different circumstance here: hereditary Peers leaving this House as against MPs leaving the House of Commons in a general election.

The central issue here is one of effectiveness and proper transitional arrangements. Therefore, I look forward to the response of the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal to these various options as to how we might best proceed here.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

I am afraid I start by disappointing the noble Lord.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

Forgive me—I apologise.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

As long as it is not a disappointment, my Lord. It would have been a disappointing end to Committee—although we have one more group to go—if we had got to the final groupings without reference to the now famous spreadsheets of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. So, I thank him for that.

With regard to some of the comments, before I move on to the substance, I just want to correct for the record a couple of things. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, underestimates the interest of our colleagues at the other end of the building: not least, I believe that my fiancé is watching on television, so I am pretty sure that some Members of the other the other place are interested.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent and Lord Wolfson of Tredegar

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of the Government, I thank the noble Lord for his question. Obviously, it is not appropriate for the Government Benches to respond. The clerks have been clear, and we are discussing all amendments as laid out. We are on the second group of 12 today, so I beg we move forward.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I am going to move forward by thanking everybody who contributed to that very interesting and informative debate. I did not declare an interest as a practising barrister—although of course I am—because I do not have any outstanding cases from the Supreme Court. The reason for that is that I received judgment in my last case in the Supreme Court only last week. Full disclosure—I lost. I knew things were bad when I saw in the draft judgment that the court had been very kind about how well I had argued it. That is always fatal; when the court is nice about the way you argue a case, it is going to decide against you. It is an immutable rule of English jurisprudence.

I am grateful for all the support I received on these points from various parts of the House, particularly from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, who brought his experience to bear. I listened extremely carefully to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, said about participation; that is a real issue. However, I was somewhat alarmed to hear that the first the Law Lords heard of the demise of that venerable institution was on the TV and that they had not been told in advance. I would have thought that a Labour Government would have wanted to tell people about any change in their—so to speak—employment status. Again, it is such a shame that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, is not among us.

As far as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, is concerned, the answer to the point he gave about individuals was precisely the point that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and that was made thereafter by my noble friend Lord Murray. I confess that whenever it comes to a bust-up between Gladstone and Disraeli, I will invariably be on the side of Disraeli.

I am grateful for the support from my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie, both by way of him adding his name to my amendments and from his position on the Front Bench. I wonder whether the reason I received the advice that I would be effectively barred from becoming a judge—although the prospect of Wolfson J was always somewhat theoretical—was because I was becoming a Minister and not a law officer. I was a little surprised, but there we are.

I am extremely grateful to the Attorney-General for his response. He is right that there appears to be a consensus across the Committee that we need to find a way to have more judicial Members here, at the right time. I therefore look forward to continuing the conversation. I would make only one final point: my understanding is that so far as unamended Bills are concerned, in the previous Session only four Bills went through entirely without amendment. Two were money Bills, one was an emergency Bill and one was a Bill on animal welfare that had cross-party support. It is a somewhat worrying approach for a Government to say, ab initio, and before listening to the debate, that they will brook no amendments at all, even if they have cross-party support in principle, as this one has. With that caveat, I will withdraw my amendment.