House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Howard of Rising Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I will be brief. I have very much enjoyed the last contribution. I am sure we all did. We are all encouraged to declare if we are hereditary Peers, so I do so. The irrelevance of this was brought home to me at breakfast today, when one of my life Peer colleagues said to me that they did not even realise I was a hereditary after all these years.

As the House has heard from me at each stage of the Bill, I am hesitant to speak again. Members will be comforted to know that I am not here next week, so this will be my last opportunity to contribute, assuming we pass the Bill this week.

I have great respect for and friendship with my Cross-Bench colleague the Lord Great Chamberlain, and have told him in advance what I propose to say: I am not clear why ceremonial duties should come with the ex officio right to legislate by sitting and voting in the House of Lords. Rather, I would point to his string of contributions and successful vote last evening as a better measure of his commitment and worth to the House. That is the same metric I would apply to any of our so-called hereditaries, regardless of their availability to perform royal or ceremonial duties. I only wish we were applying that metric to the life Peers.

To save time later, I add that I have the same, albeit milder, view of special pleading for other automatic ex officio appointments, such as the Lord Chancellor, as set out in Amendment 10 in group 9. They should be selected rather than have just the legal right to expect that they will come here.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, what an honour to follow on from my noble friend Lord Roberts, to whose amendment I have added my name. There is little I could possibly add to the noble Lord’s excellent remarks, so I will not waste your Lordships’ time in repeating the same arguments in a rather less erudite fashion. However, I emphasise that the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain are two essential components of the framework within which this country is governed. It will be a bad day for our Government if the holders of these offices are no longer able to carry out their duties freely and without impediment.

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly address Amendment 1 and will ask a couple of specific questions related to the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain.

First, in closing, can the noble Baroness the Leader of the House please confirm what discussions she might have had to confirm that their ceremonial roles will remain wholly unchanged following the passage of the Bill? As the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, stated, we owe them a huge debt of gratitude for their remarkable service during the recent succession of King Charles III.

Secondly, has anyone either proposing or opposing this amendment actually consulted with the present holders of these two high offices of state? I spoke this morning with the Earl Marshal; he was happy for me to confirm to the House that he insists upon his continued service in the role of Earl Marshal but does not think that a seat in this House should be reserved for his hereditary self. Perhaps it could be made available to someone of a more diverse background, he suggested. For hereditaries, our time, unfortunately, is up. We should perhaps accept that and go gracefully, albeit a bit reluctantly.