House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I would say to my noble friend that we all have an interest in the retirement age because we all hope to approach one at some point in our lives. He is right. I am not going to set any preconditions on that. The manifesto at the last election said that someone would retire at the end of the Parliament after their 80th birthday. I have said repeatedly that I think a cut-off would create problems for the House when lots of Members reach that age at the same time and retire. If there are better suggestions, I would be happy to consider them. I am not going to put any parameters on what can be discussed within those two areas. I wanted to give the House the opportunity, when we come to discuss these issues, to consider what I have said and see whether noble Lords think it is helpful when we get to those amendments.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, will the new committee consider the whole question of the relative powers of both Houses? There is no point in talking about changing the membership unless you decide what they are going to do.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

No, my Lords, that would not be in the remit. It would be purely on the issues of participation and retirement age.

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[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Will the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, tell us who elected him to come to this House?

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

As far as I know, although I do not know the intricacies of the mechanism that brought me here, there were probably more than three people who thought that it was okay.

I would be dishonest to the House if I did not admit to being flattered that it seems to be universally described as the “Grocott Bill”. It is lovely to have a Bill named after you, even if it was rejected time after time. It is no longer the “Grocott Bill”. I liked the ring of that, but I very much like the ring of the new, improved Bill before the House today, so I think we ought to call the original one the “House of Lords (Grocott No. 1) Bill” and the one before the House now the “House of Lords (Grocott No. 2) Bill”. Why do I support the “House of Lords (Grocott No. 2) Bill”? It is because it is better, it does the job more effectively and it means that we can move on from this endless debate to discuss other aspects of reform.

However, I really despair at times about the inability of this House to deal with such a simple proposition: a two-clause Bill. It would have cost nothing—it might have saved money—and upset no one, but time and time again it was rejected. It was filibustered—I will not mention all the Peers who opposed it. In anticipation of this debate, I checked who had spoken against it at Second Reading on its various outings. There were two culprits—I will not embarrass them now—who were worse than any others and who persistently put down 60 or 70 amendments the day before Committee. We are powerless in this place if there are people determined to wreck a Bill in that way. Perhaps they can reflect, in the quietness of their own souls, on what might have been if they had not done that, because I believe that if a Bill like this had been passed —if not mine, then certainly Lord Steel’s Bill—most of the hereditaries now would have peacefully moved on, by whatever mechanism, from membership of this House.

It has been a bit of fun, this somersaulting by sundry Members opposite, but thank heaven that we are removing the hereditary principle as a mechanism for membership of this House. It is long, long, long overdue. It could have been dealt with much earlier, but let us not cry over spilt milk; let us just get on with this and quickly.

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[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support, with one qualification, the observations of my noble friend Lord Brady. I have always been a strong supporter of the concept of an elected second Chamber. My real reason is that I want to see a second Chamber being more than a revising Chamber; I want to see it as a determinative Chamber with powers commensurate with the House of Commons. I accept, however, that in the modern world it has to be legitimate, and the only legitimacy that this country—indeed the world—recognises is an election. Therefore, having settled on the view that I think the second Chamber should be a determinative Chamber with substantial powers, I favour an elected Chamber.

I accept that there are problems about deadlock and this and that, but I do not think that they are insuperable. They are in fact addressed in many other jurisdictions in other parts of the world. I think that we would need staggered elections and that—here I disagree with my noble friend—the method of election should be some form of proportional representation. I am very much against party lists. I think too that there should be constituencies, probably similar to the European constituencies that existed in 1979—very large county-based constituencies. The fundamental justification is that we would be able to face down the “elective dictatorship” to which my noble friend referred.

I agree that, after the chaos of yesterday in the House of Commons, one wonders whether we have an over-mighty Government, but we can have such Governments. My experience is very similar to my noble friend’s experience in the House of Commons, where I was for 30 years. I find the power of the House of Commons, when it controls its Back-Benchers, a deeply worrying fact. That is why I want to see an elected second Chamber.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend said that he was concerned about gridlock. What would he do about it?

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

We need to have anti-deadlock mechanisms. That is perfectly right. I think that you could have qualified voting, but there are a variety of measures that you could put in place. My noble friend is right to say that there are problems and that they would have to be addressed, but they are not insuperable and they would be addressed in the context of any debate on the legislation setting up an elected second Chamber.