House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

This system, in which Ministers are expected to rush here to get their £371, is ridiculous. How can this work for Foreign Office Ministers—such as the noble Baroness, who may be doing important work overseas and is completely unpaid, as in the last Government with the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon—or Defence Ministers? It is completely unacceptable and is yet another example of how the other place shows a lack of respect for this place in how it receives and considers our amendments, and how it treats our Ministers and people in Parliament. I hope that the Leader will be able to persuade her colleagues to find a way of finally sorting this out, so that people can see that this House is respected and treated properly.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, as probably the most recently retired unpaid Minister, I acknowledge the shop stewarding role of the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Forsyth. Clearly, they raise an issue of principle. As they have set out, the issue is around a Prime Minister’s management of MPs in the Commons and both Acts of 1975. Although I do not think this amendment is really appropriate in this Bill, it is a substantive issue and it is clearly unacceptable that Ministers of the Crown are unpaid. It reduces the talent pool from which to choose, and it has a flavour of cricket 50 years ago and gentlefolk amateurs. That is quite unfair, but it gives a flavour of those compared with professional politicians.

How can this be solved? Of course, Prime Ministers could exercise rather more restraint over the number of Commons Ministers who are appointed—good luck with that. As the noble Lord, Lord True, said, we could also bring forward a little Bill to increase the number of paid Ministers allowed. I cannot believe—and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, put his finger on it—that a Government would ever increase the number of paid Ministers in the febrile atmosphere in which we currently operate.

It is worth acknowledging that the inflation has gone down a bit. Research from the Library shows that in 2010, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, had 118 Ministers, which, by my reckoning, means at least nine were unpaid. The noble Baroness, Lady May, had a similar figure in 2015. Mr Johnson had nine unpaid in December 2019, according to a Parliamentary Answer. My figures show that Mr Sunak increased it to 17 unpaid Ministers, 15 of whom were in your Lordships’ House.

Frankly, I am very dubious that we will see any improvement until we come back to the fundamental issue of substantive reform of your Lordships’ House. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, may shake his head, but the reality is that the Lords is treated in the way that it is because we are not legitimate at the moment. I am afraid that the sorts of amendments from the Lib Dems on an elected House, and even tinkering around in terms of the numbers, is not going to cut the cake until we decide what the role of the second Chamber should be, its powers, how its membership is arrived at and whether Ministers would be appropriate to serve in such a reformed second Chamber.

Finally, the question which noble Lords and all other commentators will never answer is: what are the respective powers and relationships between the Lords and Commons, and how do you resolve differences? Let us get down to the real business and not go ahead with this proposal, which, I am afraid, is for the birds.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I support these amendments because arrangements in a free economy involve an exchange of labour in return for payment. Since time immemorial, we have accepted that the labourer is worthy of his hire. Not only does payment represent a benefit to him for work done, but it reflects the obligations on the employer to meet certain conditions and take certain responsibilities, as it does on him.

In the case of ministerial salaries, as my noble friends have pointed out, this has long been recognised in law, with limits put on the number of Ministers, of course. The Ministers of the Crown Act 1937 regulated the salaries payable to Ministers. As we have heard today, the 1975 Act expanded on that and on the limits on numbers.

Unpaid Ministers in the House of Lords should indeed be entitled to claim parliamentary allowances under the prevailing rules of Parliament, but they are not. As we have heard, many lose out even on the attendance allowance if they are on business abroad. There is good reason to pay people for work expected of them and done. In my view, it is thrice blessed. It blesses he or she who gives their labour, he or she who takes the money and he or she who benefits from the labour.

I am in no doubt that without payment—I speak as a former director of a think tank and an employer—we cannot expect clear responsibilities to be fulfilled without Lords Ministers and the public being clear about the obligations on all Ministers, including those in the Lords. Parliament and the Executive will not be seen to be responsible to their paymasters.

We need to be clear about what the duties are in this Chamber. We know what they are, but the public are not aware of them. We have heard today about the long hours and the serious grind that is put in by Ministers of the Crown. Therefore, it is in my view very important that this work and this contract of employment—for that is what it is, even if it is not stated—should be set out. People should freely see what is expected of Ministers and that they fulfil their duties. It is very good for democracy, for our constitution and for accountability, so I support the amendments. I also echo what was said by my noble friend Lord True, that they can denounce the payment—I add that they could give it to charity—but the principle should be implemented.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

That was also incorrect; it need not necessarily do that at all. I must say that I was surprised when I heard the strictures from the Liberal Democrat Benches—“We cannot support this because this is a very narrow Bill”. Were those not the Benches that pressed two Divisions on the Bill to redesign the House on a democratic basis? They have the gall to now come forward and say that your Lordships should not ask that our Ministers be paid. The intervention was even more startling having heard the explanation from the Liberal Democrat Benches.

The intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who is universally respected in this House, was germane, and I thank him too. I had not realised that he was also on the list of unpaid Ministers, which would have been 10 up until a few weeks ago. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, immediately and skilfully picked up the key point that he made. He said that there is never going to be a Bill that comes along to deal with this. Frankly, as I said, we have had the Employment Rights Bill—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I served as Whip on the Bill in 1999 and I was present for every session. I keep the flame that, one day, we will deal with these issues in a substantive way. I still stick to my point that we will make no progress in this area whatever. I know that the Leader may not agree with me but the idea that a Government would bring forward a Bill to say that we are going to increase the number of paid Ministers is completely naive. That is why, in the end, we should get down to the real business of sorting out what this place should really be for.

[Lord True (Con)]

The noble Lord absolutely makes my point for me. When an opportunity arises, let us put aside all the ardour of this and that, and whether or not we like hereditary Peers. We have a Bill that concerns our House and the better workings of this House. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, if there is a mischief that might be addressed, let us use this opportunity to address it. The Bill has already been amended. It is not a Bill that is intacta. It is not a Bill that is not going back to the House of Commons.

Under successive Governments, for all the striving of the noble Baroness opposite, the House of Commons has continued, and will continue, to ignore the voice of the House of Lords in respect of our request. If we support my amendment, it will force the House of Commons to consider this point and to consider whether there should be a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work in the House of Lords. It will force the House of Commons to consider whether meritocracy should apply and whether the absence of wealth should not deny one the opportunity to serve one’s country in Parliament. It will force the House of Commons to consider the principle that no one should be prevented from serving their party or this House for the lack of private means. Those are critical principles that should be laid before the House of Commons. This amendment would enable that to be done.

I beg Peers from all sides to stand up for their fellows—perhaps silent fellows—in this House who secretly would like to come forward and serve but, as we have heard from these Benches and the Benches opposite, have to look at their bank balances and say that they cannot. Yes, we can. I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 21 is substantially the same amendment that I tabled in Committee and seeks to achieve the same purpose but with one substantive difference, which is in timing. The amendment I tabled in Committee would have come into effect during this Parliament, whereas this amendment would come into effect in the next Parliament. I will explain briefly in a moment why I came to the decision to change that.

The amendment itself is the same, so I will not repeat the explanation, save that it seeks to create term limits of 20 years. I am not hugely hung up on 20 years, 15 years or 25 years. I am concerned with the principle that nobody should have the right to sit in this place for ever. There is obviously a discussion to be had around retirement, which we have had. I listened very carefully to the comments of the Lord Privy Seal in that debate last week, and think that around that the Select Committee will do a good job. However, I am not sure that it will entirely be able to do the job that is required.

The reasons why I have gone for a new timing are, first, that it would be only fair to allow the current Government the freedom to do what they wish during the lifetime of this Parliament and to perhaps make up for some of the more egregious excesses that happened in the last Parliament. It is a little unfair to remove the current system and, as it were, at half-time change all the rules. That was the first reason, which may just be me being a bit overly fair, but I thought that it was. Secondly, if during this Parliament there is further reform, and if the Government are able to take through legislation which gives us a different landscape, this amendment coming into force in the next Parliament could be got rid of or scrapped.

I want to make it clear at the outset that my primary choice would be a democratically constituted House of Lords, which is what I have said in many of our debates and, on and off, in different guises for the best part of 30 years. I took part in the debates in the other place in 2012 and the consideration of the draft legislation and was happy to vote with the majority in the House of Commons for that Bill to achieve a Second Reading. But I recognise that having got that far up to the hill and been marched back down again by our then leader, there is little chance of anything substantive happening. I rather suspect that the Select Committee will do its work and discussions will continue, but that at the end of this Parliament we will not be greatly further forward than we are now.

The amendment is a real longstop in the sense of if we arrive at that situation, and if, as has been pointed out by a number of noble Lords, the electoral results for the next Parliament are somewhat more surprising than they might have been at the last general election. Indeed, one poll I saw showed that what would be the largest party in the House of Commons would have no representation in this House—although there were one or two speeches last week that sounded remarkably like a job application from the Benches across—while the largest party in this House would be the fourth party in the Commons, which is a completely ridiculous situation. My amendment does not solve that in any way, shape or form, but it would put a burr under the saddle and make sure that if we were in that circumstance, the Government of the day would need to do something about it.

My amendment very much ties in with Amendment 23 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, which I hope to speak to briefly later, with one exception which I will leave to that point. However, there is an opportunity in this legislation, which may be the only legislation that would affect no one in your Lordships’ House during this Parliament or any of the operation of this Parliament or fetter the Prime Minister in any way during this Parliament but that, if none of the hoped-for reforms came through, would in the next Parliament take effect and oblige, I rather suspect, some action.

I will say two other things in moving the amendment. The first is in response to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and his comments earlier about how function should come before form. I take the diametrically opposite view and always have done, and it was a point that was thrashed out in the Committee of both Houses when we looked at it in 2012. I think the function comes from the form; if you introduce a democratic element, the form will change. That also follows the history of what has happened in the relationship between the two Houses over the years. If you have long discussions about the function, you will end up never changing anything and never changing the form. But, most of all, what I would say is—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I cannot resist intervening. How on earth can one go ahead and say we will elect the House of Lords without looking at the powers the House would have? We have the conventions, which, in essence, are voluntary constraints on what we do. The conventions would not last one second with an elected House. It would be wholly irresponsible to simply go ahead with an elected House without sorting out the powers, and particularly what we do when there is a dispute between the two Houses. Would the courts have to be involved? What other mechanism would you have to decide on? You cannot go for an elected House without sorting that out.

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

My Lords, one of the great joys of being a chalk stream trout fisherman is to land a fly on top of the fish and watch it take with such vigour. I am very grateful to the noble Lord for having done so. I am not going to engage with him in this debate on my amendment, because it is not part of it, as I did not engage when he made the point earlier. If he would like to meet me in the Bishops’ Bar at any time, I will take him through the detail with the greatest of pleasure.

I say to the Lord Privy Seal that if by any chance she were to make me an offer as generous as that which she made to the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, earlier, she would not have to repeat it and I would grab it with both hands. I genuinely hope that the Government might reflect on this. It has been put to me that this is not necessary because if we get our elected House, we will not need to have this form of term limit. That is absolutely true, but my amendment is not about if we get an elected House; it is about if we do not get an elected House.

Finally, I agreed with the Lord Privy Seal when she said, as she once agreed with me when I said it, that we are here not for our expertise but for our judgment. I do not have vast expertise other than in running hotels and trout fishing, but I think I have good judgment. My judgment is that if we fail to do this at this juncture, we may well end up regretting it and not having the kind of reform that we all really would want to have. I beg to move.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[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.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord said that we are now removing the hereditary principle. It is accepted, on this side, that we are removing the hereditary principle. His speeches are very entertaining, mocking the system that was brought in by his own party in government.

My difficulty is that the Leader of the House has repeatedly told us, both publicly and privately, that, had we not opposed what is called the “Grocott Bill”, this would not be necessary. I therefore have to ask: what is the principle that we are discussing? It appears to be that the hereditary principle should be got rid of—that has been accepted. However, I am concerned by the idea that we should pluck out of this House hard-working Members, who are mainly Conservatives. We heard from the Liberal Benches that they are worried about numbers. On my count, 45 new Labour Peers have been appointed since the general election. That does not strike me as being the activities of a party that is concerned about the size of the House; it strikes me as being a party that is concerned about the number of people who will go through the Lobbies in support of it. Therefore, one is left with a terrible suspicion that what is going on here is taking a group of people out of this House, who happen to have come into it as hereditaries, for party-political reasons. That is a very dangerous—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I will give way in a second.

That is a very dangerous precedent to accept. How soon will it be before people arguing for this precedent argue that other groups of people can be taken out, because they are not convenient?

I am trying not to be too partisan today, so I will appeal to the Government. To put it gently, the Government are in a certain amount of difficulty on a number of issues. The one thing I learned when I was in Government was that having a good and effective Opposition is a really good thing for a Government, because it makes you avoid making the kind of mistakes that Governments make. Therefore, it is very important—especially in this House, where we simply ask the Government to think again and we have no ability to force them to do otherwise by force of argument—to have an effective Opposition.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I will give way to the noble Lord when I have finished my point.

One-third of the Opposition Front Bench are hereditaries. They are people of enormous experience and dedication. By not accepting this amendment, the Government are damaging not only the House by creating a terrible precedent but the Opposition, as well as the number of Tory Peers that there are. That is a disgraceful thing to do.

What is the argument? I know that people on the Benches opposite have sought to argue, “Can’t you get other people to sit on your Front Bench?” I say to the Leader of the House: she should try using that argument. It is very hard, especially if they are not paid—I will come to that later—to ask people to give up the time and for them to have the expertise. You can bring in new people, but it takes a very long time to get used to the way this place operates—it has taken me a very long time.

If we do not accept the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, we are talking about disabling the Opposition and gerrymandering the composition of the House. That is a disgraceful thing to do.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for finally giving way. He talks about the disabling of the Opposition. Would he like to explain to the House what his party did in Government from 2010 to last year in terms of the numbers they appointed? I excuse the noble Baroness, Lady May, because she took the issue of the size of this House very seriously but, alas, her predecessors and those who succeeded her did not. As a party, we have put new Members of the House in since the election to try to get ourselves a reasonable balance after the disgraceful approach of so many Conservative Prime Ministers over those years.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

There are a lot of things that we did in Government that I would not like to defend. I do not disagree with the noble Lord. I understand why a number of very good and excellent appointments have been made to the Benches opposite. I understand the reason why they wish to make up the numbers. All I am saying is that to argue that the Government are not going to accept the amendment from my noble friend because they are worried about the size of the House is ridiculous when, at the same time, they are increasing the size of the House. Have a care here for the importance of Parliament, of effective opposition and of not disabling the ability of this House to carry out its constitutional duties. In the end, it will be to the disadvantage of the Government and the House.

I support my noble friend’s amendment. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Hailsham is going to vote for it, but I do not see any conditionality about it. I am going to support it because it is in the interests of our country, democracy and this splendid institution—the House of Lords—which all of us should hold in the highest regard.

--- Later in debate ---

I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Brady of Altrincham, is also in favour of an elected Lords, as set out in his Amendment 22. I am afraid, however, that there are two elements of that amendment with which I cannot agree. First, I do not think that the Lords should be elected on the first past the post system. His amendment would potentially replicate the Commons in terms of both constituencies and method of election. This is a recipe for maximum conflict. Although our amendment does not specifically explain the electoral basis that we prefer, I believe people know that we have consistently—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

I note what the noble Lord says about the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Brady, and the risk of first past the post in two Chambers. Although I agree with the principle of what he is arguing, why does his amendment say nothing about how the powers of the two Houses are to be resolved in the event of both being elected? Does he accept that one of the great failures of the Clegg Bill was the fact that Mr Clegg refused to have any debate at all about what the respective powers should be?

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, this is the main argument that has been used consistently by people who do not want this place elected. It is based on a false premise, which is that, if both Houses are completely or largely elected, it will lead to persistent and irresolvable conflict. If the noble Lord looks at the work that the convener has instituted, which compares second chambers around the world, he will find that there are many that are wholly or partially elected, in countries that have mature democracies, in which there is not persistent stasis because they cannot agree. There may be arguments about the relative powers of the House, but I simply do not believe that having the sorts of elections that I am talking about will lead to the complexities that many noble Lords raised and that, in many cases, are raised as a basis for opposing a principle to which they object.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt again, but this is a really important point. We have conventions. We voluntarily decide not to exercise all the powers that are given to us. Why on earth would an elected second Chamber keep to those conventions?

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches have argued consistently for a written constitution, which has been opposed by the rest of the political establishment. We would definitely support a written constitution, but, in the absence of a written constitution, Parliament operates in a manner based on conventions. If the rest of Parliament—the other parties—will not have a written constitution, there is no reason why a new basis of election here should lead to the tearing up of all the conventions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, when I am at a college in the Midlands this Friday morning with the Learn with the Lords programme, the first thing I will say is that the House of Lords is nothing more than a large sub-committee of the House of Commons with the power to ask it to think again. That being so, it does not matter how its composition is arrived at.

The legislation that would be required by the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, must by definition reduce the powers of this House. It would have to remove the right to chuck out a Bill. We have the right but do not use it, for self-evident reasons, but what is to stop a troublesome elected second Chamber throwing out a Bill before it even revises it? That would be chaos. That would have to be put in the legislation before the new Chamber arrives. Would the Prime Minister down the other end appoint the leader of this new Chamber? Of course not. Self-evidently, that could not happen. So would there be Ministers in the second Chamber? There do not have to be; Ministers can be summoned by this Chamber from the other place to Select Committees and to explain Bills.

There are a few issues to be raised here that are not being talked about, which is why this idea is a bit more complicated than people think. I fully accept that the Chamber should be half the size of the Commons and should not have any Ministers. I have formed that view since I first came here. Noble Lords talk about the House of Commons as it is now, but I can tell them that between 1974 and 1979 we Back-Benchers had a lot more power, because the Government did not have it. The Lib-Lab pact was there. We have the problem of the current situation; we should not form ourselves on the basis that it will always be the same. There are a few more questions to be asked of the noble Lord, Lord Newby—which I do not expect him to answer—than have been asked so far today.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is nothing if not consistent on this issue. We voted together on the seven options that your Lordships’ House was presented with in February 2003 following the royal commission. The noble Lord will recall that, in the Commons, none of the options got a majority and the whole thing failed.

If I am to be critical of what happened with the original proposals put forward by the Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, the royal commission and the various proposals put forward since, including Mr Clegg’s Bill, the proponents of an elected House—of which I am one—need to do the work on the powers and relationship. You cannot get away with simply saying, “We should have an elected House”. I absolutely agree with this, but my noble friend is right that, to make it work, you would have to constrain the current powers of the Lords to make the relationship work effectively.

You would also have to tackle secondary legislation. You could not leave an elected second Chamber with a veto power—which we have used six or seven times in our whole history—particularly if it was elected under proportional representation. Clearly, a second Chamber elected under proportional representation is bound to claim greater legitimacy in the end than the Commons; the claim would always be that we represent the voters much more accurately than a first past the post system.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, may not realise this, but I am very sympathetic to what he seeks to do. But, for goodness’ sake, let us do the work on what the relationship between two elected Houses should be.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

Does the noble Lord agree that this House prides itself on being a Chamber that gives excellent views and expertise? In general, people of expertise tend not to stand for election. They tend to be chosen, for whatever reason. Is that not rather relevant to how this Chamber is supposed to work? Maybe we ought to have more experts in the House of Lords and fewer politicians.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend, whom I respect greatly and have worked with over many years, underestimates the calibre of many Members of Parliament. I take his point that many of the people who come forward in relation to an appointed House might not put their names forward for an elected second Chamber. But at the end of the day, as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said, it is very hard to justify a second Chamber of Parliament that does not have electoral legitimacy. My plea is that we make sure that that legitimacy is produced in a way that does not bring us to conflict.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am very torn on this. I favour a unicameral approach and a lot of the arguments against the elected second Chamber have been made very well, even though I want a more democratic way of making decisions.

There is a crisis of democracy at present that expands far beyond this debate. What really struck me in the debate on assisted dying in the other place was the number of times that MPs effectively said, “Let’s leave it up to the House of Lords to sort out”. That is a disaster, because it is anti-democratic. It worries me, as we increasingly watch a certain implosion happening at the other end, that the House of Lords is given far too much credit for being able to sort that out. The unelected House being the ones who are trusted is the profound crisis of democratic accountability in this country. That is what we should be debating. I feel very self-conscious about being in an unelected House of Lords debating the survival of an unelected House of Lords—which people stay and which people go. It is so self-regarding.

As for the notion of a House full of experts—philosopher kings and all that—I cannot imagine anything more off-putting to the British public than us patting ourselves on the back and saying that we know more than anyone else. I appreciate that is fashionable, but it should not be something we embrace. That is not to undermine the expertise that is here, but please do not try to make it a virtue in terms of democratic decision-making.

However, to go back to the spirit of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, one problem with the discussion on hereditary Peers is that it is too limited. It suggests that it is revolutionary and reforming; in fact, it is just going for low-hanging fruit when we should be having a proper discussion about a democratic shake-up at both ends of this Westminster Palace. I feel that we are wasting an awful lot of time while Rome burns.