House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, said that he was, in his humility, willing to yield to the mandate gained at the ballot box, but the mandate gained at the ballot box is what is in the Bill and not what is in his amendment.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I will make two very short points. First, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, knows the respect in which I hold him, but it is a subtle piece of advocacy to say that the hereditaries sit here purely because of the family they were born into, to use the noble Lord’s phrase. Since 2005, that has not been the case; it is the family plus an election. Indeed, some of them sit here on a firmer basis than many other Members of your Lordships’ House.

Secondly, on the “too late” argument, which seems to be the primary point put by the Government Front Bench, I have never quite understood why opposing a Private Member’s Bill, with all the legislative hurdles and difficulties that such Bills have, precludes you from later supporting an amendment to a government Bill which is bound to become law.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I am finding it difficult to compute exactly what is going on today, because Friday after Friday, Bill after Bill, to a three-quarters empty House, which is characteristic on a Friday, I have been faced with substantial opposition, not just from individual Members—not exclusively from the Tory party but overwhelmingly—but from the Government. The Bills got no further.

Here we are now, with a pretty full House, all agreed that these by-elections are farcical. The amendment gets rid of them; the Bill before the House—which I strongly support—gets rid of them. That was my motive for bringing the whole process in to begin with. Believe it or not, the primary motive was to stop this absurdity which the noble Lord, Lord Newby, described as the most offensive of the lot.

I did not think it would be a problem. I have been around quite a long time, but I thought, “Surely, there is no one in this House who thinks that a by-election to get into this House should be exclusively for men, both the electorate and the candidates, and it is feasible to have an electorate of three when you’ve got seven candidates”. By the way, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, did not mention the last line of that, which is that all three votes went to one of the seven candidates—so there was 100% turnout, with 100% of the vote going to the winning candidate. I mean, North Korea would not dare to do that.

I am flattered, I suppose, to find that everyone suddenly seems to be agreed on this. We could have saved ourselves so much time when I brought it in first in 2016—since when, 27 new hereditaries have come here. To those who say that we might as well do it now, I say a whole new generation has been elected since I first introduced the Bill. But I must be immodest about this—

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful that so many of your Lordships have remained in the Chamber for this particular amendment. I rise to move this amendment with due deference to successive Lord Chancellors, albeit I take no position as to their past suitability. This may appear to be a slight amendment, but it serves a serious purpose. There was a time when Lord Chancellors provided an authoritative senior legally qualified voice in Cabinet, as well as undertaking duties in your Lordships’ House. Today the post has been changed significantly, and of course we have had a number of Lords Chancellor who have not been lawyers.

I tabled this amendment to explore further the possible benefits of returning to the position where the Lord Chancellor sat in your Lordships’ House. My amendment is not, as I say, seeking to look backward. We of course should look forward to the contributions that future Lord Chancellors could make, not only in Cabinet but to your Lordships’ House.

Although we may not be able to return to the position before the role of Lord Chancellor was changed under the last Labour Government, we can place the role of Lord Chancellor on the same level of status as it previously held. If, as was discussed in Committee, the office of Lord Chancellor was to be seen once again as what might be termed a “destination” appointment, rather than one held by a politician on their progress through the Cabinet, we might gain a great deal.

I suggested in Committee that the Lord Chancellor, newly restored to your Lordships’ House, could also serve as a Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and thus as a guardian of our constitution. We lack that guardianship today, with responsibility for the constitution being divided between various government departments, without any clear insight as to who is responsible finally for important constitutional decisions.

The Bill is liable to set a dangerous constitutional precedent, and I wonder whether a distinguished Lord Chancellor in your Lordships’ House who was entrusted with the guardianship of our constitution and was sitting at the Cabinet table, might have offered a sage warning to the Government about the potential challenge that Bills such as this can present to our constitutional order. It is in these circumstances that I beg to move.

[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.

UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, although he will appreciate that I take a very different position in responding to this interesting and important debate.

Before I turn to the more controversial points, let me start with a point on which there is unanimity. I welcome my noble and learned friend Lady Prentis of Banbury, who gave a truly magnificent maiden speech. As an Attorney-General, she was respected across the whole of the other place, and I am sure that her contributions here will be similarly listened to with great care across the whole of your Lordships’ House.

In my tradition, when we finish the annual reading of the Pentateuch with the end of Deuteronomy, we immediately start again with the first chapter of Genesis. In that spirit of linking a beginning and an ending, I also take this opportunity to mark the valedictory speech of her father, the noble Lord, Lord Boswell of Aynho. I am sure that, as the noble Lord leaves this House, it must be an especial pleasure to see his noble kinswoman—as I believe she is known—make the first of what I hope will be many contributions to our work.

This debate is required by statute before a treaty is ratified. Normally, with a treaty under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, we just have a debate. This is a different case. A treaty that cedes British sovereign territory to a foreign power cannot be ratified without an Act of Parliament. Professor Richard Ekins, in a Policy Exchange paper, has set out how every concession of British territory since 1890 has been enabled by primary legislation, the most recent example being the surrender of Hong Kong to China. In addition, since 1945, whenever a colony has achieved independence, either within or without the Commonwealth, primary legislation has been passed to renounce UK sovereignty under those territories. Indeed, FA Mann, a leading authority on foreign relations and the legally applicable principles, regarded this not just as a constitutional convention but as a legal principle.

In the Explanatory Memorandum, the Government appear to confirm that this is the position. Can the Minister inform us when this primary legislation will be brought before Parliament? Can we have a clear assurance that the treaty will not be ratified unless and until that legislation has received Royal Assent?

That is a problem with the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, and why, in preference, I will support my noble friend Lord Callanan’s Motion. The former Motion states that the Government should not ratify the treaty until various matters have taken place, but the noble Lord has not included passing an Act to permit the cessation of British territory. I do not know whether it is now Liberal Democrat policy that a Government can give away sovereign territory without an Act of Parliament. It is a little odd. Those Benches are always so keen for Parliament to have a say before we even act in our own self-defence or support militarily our allies, but, apparently, they are keen now for Parliament to have no say before we cede sovereign territory.

In that respect, I regret the terms of Article 1 of the treaty, which states:

“Mauritius is sovereign over the Chagos Archipelago in its entirety, including Diego Garcia”.


That purports to accept that Mauritius is already the sovereign power. That is not the case in international law, as the UK has said repeatedly and consistently until this Government took office. It is also not the case in domestic law. Schedule 6 to the British Nationality Act 1981 includes the British Indian Ocean Territory as one of the British Overseas Territories—and that is also reflected elsewhere in the Act. All of that can be amended only by domestic legislation and an Act of Parliament. If the Act is not passed and the treaty is therefore not ratified, the effect in international law of the Government even agreeing a treaty in these terms will be to weaken our legal position over the Chagos Islands, even before the Bill has been laid before Parliament, which is to be regretted.

Why are we here at all? We are here because Mauritius has claimed sovereignty since 1981, despite decades of Mauritian Governments saying that they did not make any such claim. As we have heard, an ICJ advisory opinion in 2019 opined against the UK’s administration of the islands. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, referred to that as a “ruling” in a rare, but perhaps Freudian, slip. I suggest that it is not a ruling at all; it did not, in terms, talk about the sovereignty of the islands at all. An advisory opinion is not a ruling, a judgment or a binding decision of any sort. The clue is in the name: it is an advisory opinion.

The United Kingdom would have to agree for the International Court of Justice to deliver a binding opinion or judgment. We would have to agree to submit the question of jurisdiction to the ICJ. We have not. I would hope that, even under this Government, we would not. Without that, there would be no binding ruling from the ICJ. While I recognise the political force of advisory opinions, we need to be clear-eyed about them: they are not binding.

We as a country have never accepted that we would always act in accordance with advisory opinions. Indeed, in 1996, an advisory opinion came within one vote of holding that the use of nuclear weapons would nearly always be illegal. Would we, if that vote had gone the other way, have unilaterally disarmed ourselves of all or most of our nuclear arsenal? Perhaps we would have done if this Government, with this Attorney-General advising them, were in charge; I just do not know.

The Government appear to accept that the advisory opinion is not binding, but they say, “Oh, ITLOS—the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea—may assume that the advisory opinion is binding and that Mauritius is sovereign and exercise its own jurisdiction on that false premise”. But there are two problems with that: ITLOS has no jurisdiction to adjudicate a territorial dispute, nor can it properly take it that the question of sovereignty has been decided by an advisory opinion.

To respond to a point from the noble Lord, Lord McDonald of Salford, the advisory opinion is not binding—to use the noble Lord’s words—on ITLOS. An advisory opinion, as is made clear on the website of the ICJ itself, is not even binding on the particular agency which has asked for the advisory opinion, so it is certainly not binding on ITLOS. Secondly and relatedly, the United Kingdom should not accept that its sovereign rights can be taken away from it by one tribunal, ITLOS, misreading and misunderstanding the advisory opinion from the ICJ.

To pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, ITLOS has no jurisdiction in relation to this dispute and we should not accept any ruling that takes for granted that the ICJ has established authoritatively that Mauritius is sovereign, first, because it has not and, secondly, because we would not give our consent to any such judicial determination. We should not, I suggest, give up our sovereign territory because of a fear that ITLOS might wrongly issue some order for some vague protective or provisional measures against us at some future, indeterminate date.

Of course I recognise that an advisory opinion gives the risk that future legal proceedings could be brought against us, but it is a terrible precedent, I suggest, for us to give up territory because we are worried that an international tribunal might in the future reach a conclusion which we regard as legally flawed. I have to say that, if British foreign policy is henceforth to be at the mercy of the vote of the United Nations General Assembly, then it really is game over.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, referred to the—excellent, if I may say so—report from his committee, which I enjoyed reading. In that report, there is a reference to the fact that if we were to stand in the face of an advisory opinion by the ICJ, we would somehow be in the same position as Russia is in relation to the invasion of Ukraine. I hasten to add that that is not the view of the committee, but it was the view ascribed in its report to evidence it took from Professor Sands. The notion that standing on our legal rights in the face of a non-binding advisory opinion makes us like Russia invading Ukraine is less a piece of considered legal analysis and more a piece of advocacy. My late father used to say about one partisan newspaper that it was difficult to see where the news ended and the comment began. When reading Professor Sands’ evidence to the committee, it was very difficult to see where the analysis ended and the advocacy began.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I am listening attentively to what the noble Lord is saying. If he has time, could he outline a little more of the background to the decision James Cleverly made in November 2022 to open negotiations on the exercise of sovereignty?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I am going to deal with the legal issues affecting this because the Government are saying to us, “We have no choice: we have to sign this because we have legal risk”. There is no point the noble Lord muttering from a sedentary position.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I will finish the point and give way. This Government are trying to dress up a political decision as a legal decision. Now, of course, I am happy to give way.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

I just wanted to ask the noble Lord to address the testimony given to the committee by Sir Christopher Greenwood, rather than having a lot of fun at the expense of Mr Philippe Sands.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I have. Sir Christopher Greenwood made the point that we have legal risk. He is absolutely right: there is legal risk. But I am suggesting that we need to analyse that legal risk carefully.

There has been very little reference in the debate so far to the other evidence taken by the committee from Professor Ekins. Indeed, it is a shame that we have not been able to hear from the noble Lord, Professor Lord Verdirame, this afternoon because I would be very interested to hear his view on this issue. Ultimately, the committee heard from three lawyers. There is a difference of legal opinion on this issue, and that is because, ultimately, this is a political and not a legal decision.

Let me turn now to Article 4 of the treaty, which has not yet been raised. The premise of the agreement rests on the proposition that our interests will align with those of Mauritius for the next 99 years to the extent that there is no appreciable risk that Mauritius—and it has, of course, retained lawyers of the highest calibre—will seek to leverage the terms of the treaty for its own benefit. Merely to state that assumption is to show how unsafe it is.

I say 99 years; I was very surprised that the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, referred to 140 years. The ability in the treaty to extend it for 40 years is really not worth the paper it is not written on. There is simply no legal right to extend. There is an ability to negotiate, and the idea that there will be an extension, absent perhaps another huge payment of money, really is for the birds.

Article 4 provides:

“Each Party agrees to ensure that in the implementation and application of this Agreement, including activities in relation to the Base, there shall be compliance with international law”.


No court or body is appointed to deal with that issue. If Mauritius, advised by its eminent lawyers, took the view that UK or US operations out of Diego Garcia are not in accordance with international law, then it could allege the UK was in breach. That would not entitle Mauritius to terminate the treaty—the rights of termination are limited in Article 15—but it would entitle it to take countermeasures which would otherwise be prohibited under the treaty, such as allowing the presence of armed forces of other countries or constructing installations elsewhere on the islands that might adversely affect the security of Diego Gracia. Let us be clear: if Mauritius took that action, there would be nothing that we could do and we would not be entitled to stop paying the sums that we have promised to pay under the treaty.

There is a similar legal risk under Annexe 1. It was mentioned earlier that we have to inform Mauritius about the use of force originating from the base at Diego Garcia “expeditiously”. I have three questions for the Minister in this regard. First, my understanding is that the UK’s position is that this provision requires notice only after an operation is launched. Is that correct? Secondly, assuming that it is only after an operation is launched, what do we consider “expeditiously” means? Does it mean that we have to inform Mauritius as soon as the planes take off, or can we deliberately decide to delay informing it, even though we could inform it, until the operation has been completed? Thirdly, whatever our interpretation of that word might be, have we agreed that interpretation with Mauritius? If we have not, I can give the Minister some free legal advice: all of this is very ripe for a further dispute, which would likely result in Mauritius not abiding by its obligations under the treaty.

[Lord Goldsmith (Lab)]

Has the noble Lord considered the evidence given by Sir Christopher Greenwood, former judge at the International Court of Justice—in a sense, our former judge—who dealt with specifically that point, as well as other points that have been discussed?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I have; I read absolutely what Sir Christopher said about Article 4, but it did not find his way into the final report.

[Lord Goldsmith (Lab)]

It did.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

Well, it touched on it.

[Lord Goldsmith (Lab)]

It is in the final report.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

The point I have made about Article 4 is absolutely right. Mauritius can take measures in response.

I will wrap up because of the time. My noble friend Lord Callanan reminded us of the price we will have to pay for this legal farrago. Thanks to the approach taken by the Attorney-General, whose advice, properly, cannot be disclosed, the ultimate position is that we are not just giving up the Chagos Islands to a country which never owned them and is thousands of miles away but are paying it handsomely for the privilege.

I do not know whether my friend, the Attorney-General, is thinking about doing his bit to get our sluggish economy going by deciding to move home and increase transactions by putting his property on the market, but if he does, I hope that he might allow me to enter negotiations with him about the ownership of his house. I suspect that the result might be that I end up as the owner of his house having used his own money to pay for it.

The truth is that this is a legally unnecessary and badly drafted treaty. It is a treaty with holes in, and which contains within it the seeds of further disputes. It is a treaty under which we are paying Mauritius to take our sovereign territory off our hands, and we are paying it very handsomely for that purpose. For those reasons, I urge the House to support the Motion in the name of my noble friend Lord Callanan.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar]

93: Clause 2, page 1, line 8, at end insert—
“(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 seeks to clarify the future of claims to a hereditary peerage as originally drafted by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel for the House of Lords Reform Bill 2012.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 93 would put the process for dealing with peerage claims into the hands of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. When the Bill was published, many people noted that Clause 2 abolishes the role of the House of Lords in peerage claims, expressly including claims to peerages that are in abeyance. However, it does not replace that system; in other words, the clause abolishes but does not also replace.

I appreciate that, three weeks ago in this Committee, the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General, whom I am delighted to see here, appeared somewhat surprised to find that there are many Peers who do not sit in your Lordships’ House but are Peers none the less. That is a fact. We must have an effective system in place to determine peerage claims.

The Explanatory Notes to the Bill set out how this process is to work in future. I will quote them, because this is short and clear:

“As well as removing the final link between hereditary peerage and membership of the House of Lords, the Bill also abolishes the jurisdiction of the House of Lords in hereditary peerage claims. The intention is that: a. any complex or disputed peerage claims that would have otherwise been considered by the House of Lords will instead be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council by way of section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833; and b. claimants to a peerage of Ireland will no longer petition the House of Lords to confirm their succession”.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 93A (to Amendment 93) withdrawn.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I will of course withdraw the amendment. Before I do, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General for answering the question about the Irish peerages. I will look very carefully at what he said in response to the rest.

I had a wry smile when the noble and learned Lord said that it is unnecessary to duplicate legislation. I started off with that aim as well and I ended up with the Pet Abduction Act 2024. It is all very well when you are faced with a lawyer across the Dispatch Box here, but when you are faced with a group from the House of Commons with the wind in their sails, it may be more difficult to hold to that. I used to tell people that the statute book was not a form of semaphore to send signals, but that often fell on deaf ears.

I am grateful for the support I had en passant from my noble friend Lord Northbrook. Respectfully, I fundamentally disagree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham. There is an interesting—by which commercial lawyers normally mean expensive—legal question raised by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, as to whether a peerage is a matter of property or not. Quite beyond that, we do not want these cases starting in the county court and going all the way up. We need somewhere to resolve them, and the Privy Council is the obvious place. It resolves other sorts of disputes to do with universities and things like that. It would be a bit of fun for it, in between all the other difficult jurisdictional work that it does. My noble friend Lord Moynihan gave a good example of a disputed peerage.

My answer to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher—who was obviously satisfied with the Attorney-General’s answer, because she has now gone—was going to be slightly different. I was going to encourage the noble Baroness to stay for groups 5 and 7, when the questions of commencement and when we will have the last hereditary Peer will be before the Committee. I was not going to give an answer now, so that she would stay and listen to the debates on those groups. I hope that she comes back.

On a more serious note, if there are discussions, as we have heard, through the usual channels on the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, the answer given might be that it will be when one of the current hereditary Peers in the House reaches the ripe old age of 120. Subject to that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 93 withdrawn.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Leader says two and a half days, and I always bow to her suggestions. And let us put some perspective into this. The image we present through the discussions that we have been, and are still, having—that this is the single most important issue facing this House this Session, and that we need to debate it at huge length, which we do not give to every other subject that comes along—is not the best of public relations as far as this House is concerned. I shall not be tempted to get up again, but I did want to inject a bit of realism into our debate.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, the nature of this amendment has been clearly set out by my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lady Seccombe. My noble friend Lord Forsyth explained what the amendment actually does, and he made us confront the reality of what the amendment purports to do. I heard my noble friend Lady Seccombe say that she was ashamed to have to speak to the amendment, because it is so brutal—and brutal it is.

Therefore, one wonders why this amendment has been brought forward by the noble Baroness. The reason she gave was an odd one. The reason she gave was that, when the House adjourned at 10 pm, as it customarily does, light descended on her and she just had to put down this amendment.

I have not been here as long as the noble Baroness, but my understanding is that the House generally adjourns at 10 pm unless there is an arrangement between the usual channels for a later sitting. I understand that there was no such arrangement and that was why the House came to an end and adjourned at 10 pm. In any event, the idea that that is a reason to go further than the Government’s own Bill in respect of the date by which the hereditaries leave this place is, as a reason, not a reason at all. It is a fig leaf. There must be else something behind it. One wonders, what is that something else? I look forward, as I always do, to the words of the Leader, but especially on this, because this amendment contravenes, in terms, the Bill. It goes well beyond the Bill.

We have been hearing this evening that, when the Front Bench responds to amendments, the Minister should respond to the amendment and not to the debate. Therefore, I look forward to the Leader saying in unequivocal terms that she is opposed to this amendment. Otherwise, there will be a concern that—in a series of groups where very few people have spoken, and very few amendments have been put forward, from the government Benches—this amendment and this speech have been singled out above all else to be made and to be said.

We of course oppose this amendment, for the reasons already set out. However, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, who spoke in this House on one of the various Private Members’ Bills put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. I see that he got in early with the Government’s excuse as to why they cannot do second-stage reform: because it will be so amended and will take up so much time. That was very useful. I do that when I am in court. If I think that point is going to come up in six months’ time, I just put down a “sleeper”, as I call it. That was a good, old-fashioned sleeper as an excuse for no second-stage reform. But I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, who said in your Lordships’ House on 3 December 2021:

“We are not seeking to say farewell to any hereditary already here; indeed, we look forward to their contributions for many more years”.—[Official Report, 3/12/21; col. 1569.]


What has changed to make the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, not content with her own Government’s Bill but seek to accelerate the expulsion of the hereditaries? There seems to be no reason for it at all. I do hope that the Leader of the House will join me in our forthright opposition to this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[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

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar]

56: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“President and Deputy President of the Supreme Court(1) Omit subsection (3) of section 137 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 (parliamentary disqualification for holders of disqualifying judicial offices).(2) On the day on which this Act is passed, the Prime Minister must recommend to His Majesty the King that the President and Deputy President of the Supreme Court be granted a life peerage under section 1 of the Life Peerages Act 1958 (power to confer life peerages).(3) When a person is appointed as President or Deputy President of the Supreme Court, the Prime Minister must recommend to His Majesty the King that the person be granted a life peerage under section 1 of the Life Peerages Act 1958.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure the President and Deputy President of the Supreme Court are granted life peerages.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 56, I will speak also to Amendment 57. Both seek to ensure that senior members of the judiciary are appointed as life Peers with the right to sit and vote in your Lordships’ House. I will declare an interest— and a non-interest.

First, the non-interest: I have no intention of becoming a judge. Indeed, when I became a Minister, I received advice from the propriety and ethics committee of the Cabinet Office that, having been a Minister, I had probably rendered myself unable to accept an appointment as a judge. I thought that was a little odd. I am not sure whether the noble Baroness, Lady Gray of Tottenham, was involved in that decision or warning; we all know that the Cabinet Office at that time kept a very close eye on the impropriety of people moving from non-political posts into others in our constitution. The interest I have is as a lawyer; I want to make this House work as well as it possibly can.

The historical position is this: for over 600 years, from 1399 to October 2009, the House of Lords was the highest appeal court in the land. This House had a vital judicial function. Between 1876 and 2009, that function was served by the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary. From 2009, the Supreme Court of the UK assumed that jurisdiction; the then 12 Lords of Appeal in Ordinary —the Law Lords, as they were colloquially called—were the first Justices of the 12-member Supreme Court, and they were disqualified from sitting or voting in your Lordships’ House.

When they retired from the Supreme Court, they could return to the House of Lords as full Members, which they were, but—and this is the point—newly appointed Justices of the Supreme Court do not have seats in your Lordships’ House. From that point on, apart from the grandfather rights—if, in light of the debate on the previous group of amendments, I can use a sexist term—given to existing Lords of Appeal in Ordinary created under the 1876 Act, the long link between this House and the judiciary was severed. Indeed, the last Law Lord was created in 2009.

It is important to appreciate that the old system preserved a clear distinction between the Law Lords’ role as judges and as legislators. I will give a simple example of that. When Lord Lyndhurst, as Lord High Chancellor, considered himself bound in his judicial capacity to decide the famous Lady Hewley’s charity appeal—Attorney-General v Wilson 1848—it turned on the difference between trinitarianism and unitarianism for the purposes of charity law, a topic into which I fear to venture. While he held himself responsible to decide that point in accordance with legal orthodoxy, which he did, he then introduced, as Leader of the House of Lords, a Bill—which became the Nonconformists’ Chapels Act 1844—to remedy, and indeed to overturn, the perceived injustice consequential on his own judicial decision.

Why are we in this position? The great absence today is that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. His Constitutional Reform Act—I will have more to say about that Act in the next group—is, frankly, responsible for quite a lot of the constitutional mess that we now find ourselves in.

The basis for my amendment is this: your Lordships’ House has been deprived of the experience of many Supreme Court Justices who could and would contribute a great deal to the work of this House in the way—if I may say this without nominating myself for Private Eye’s “Order Of The Brown Nose”—that the current former judicial Members of this House play such an important part and lend their expertise.

When I sat on the Government Benches as a Minister, I was not worried about the barrage that I might receive from the Opposition Benches, and I certainly was not concerned about the occasional small-arms fire from the Liberal Democrat Benches; I was worried about the incoming missile from my right—from the judicial Members of the Cross Benches. Without this amendment, it will be unclear on what basis peerages will be awarded to those who reach those lofty judicial heights. What we must avoid at all costs is any impression that peerages are given or withheld by the Prime Minister of the day to senior judges, depending on how particular cases have been decided. The only way to avoid that is to have clear rules as to when a peerage will be awarded. That is why I have sought, in my amendments, to highlight the highest judicial offices and to attach a peerage to those offices.

I see that the impressive legal twin strike force of my noble friends Lord Banner and Lord Murray of Blidworth has taken my amendment and added “all Supreme Court Justices”. I will listen carefully to what they have to say, but the principle underlying our amendments is the same.

Finally, the amendment also disapplies Section 137(3) of the Constitutional Reform Act, which disqualifies a holder of relevant judicial offices from sitting or voting in your Lordships’ House. We do not need that provision; we managed perfectly well under the old system. The problem we have now is that, although we have a wealth of judicial experience, it is not as current as it used to be when we had the Law Lords here. I know this may be shocking to many Members of your Lordships’ House, but even the law moves on and changes. The way law is done—and what the law is—is simply not the same now as it was five, 10 or 20 years ago. That is especially the case in areas such as family law.

I remember taking the Domestic Abuse Bill through this House—I pick a topic which was taken on a total cross-party basis. Family law in 2025 is radically different from family law in 2000, and certainly family law in 1980. So I suggest that this House would benefit from the presence of judges who either are sitting or who have very recently sat. My submission to this Committee is that these amendments will improve our debates and our membership, and I therefore beg to move.

[Lord Banner (Con)]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 68, which, as my noble friend Lord Wolfson indicated, takes the premise of his Amendment 56 and rolls it out to all Supreme Court justices. I declare an interest as a practising King’s Counsel who fairly frequently appears before the Supreme Court, including in one appeal where judgment is still pending.

I supported the replacement of the Appellate Committee with the new UK Supreme Court, and I still believe that was the right decision. In a modern democracy, all courts, and in particular the final court of appeal, must not just be but be seen to be separate and independent from the other branches of the state.

However, a collateral and I think probably unintended effect of this, as my noble friend Lord Wolfson outlined, has been significantly to reduce the pool of Cross-Bench legal expertise in this House. By convention, certainly by the turn of the millennium, sitting Members on the Appellate Committee did not speak in debates and did not otherwise participate in relation to controversial matters, although they did sit in committees to some degree. However, upon their retirement they invariably would—and those who remain still do—make an invaluable contribution to the work of this House.

It is also the case that, prior to retirement and while in office as judges, by virtue of being Members of this House, those on the Appellate Committee would have a fuller and further first-hand understanding of the procedures of Parliament, which, as my noble friend Lord Wolfson indicated in his excellent lecture at Policy Exchange earlier this afternoon, may have assisted the judges in their consideration of the Prorogation issue in the second Miller litigation.

Now that the final court is outside this House, its members no longer need to receive a peerage upon being appointed and, contrary to what had been advocated in some quarters, no convention to that effect has been established. In recent years, among full-time Supreme Court justices, only the President has been by convention awarded a peerage—albeit that the Lord Chief Justice, who occasionally sits in that court, has also by convention been awarded a peerage.

The result of all this has been significantly to reduce the pipeline of top-tier judges able to contribute to the work of this House. Amendment 68 would rectify that by requiring all current and future Supreme Court justices to be awarded a peerage. I myself would envisage that, during their tenure on the court, they would follow the Appellate Committee’s former convention that sitting judges do not speak in debates and do not otherwise participate in controversial matters, but, upon retirement, they would be able fully to engage and thus continue the long-established and invaluable tradition of our most senior judges contributing to the work of this House on their retirement from the Bench.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My noble friend was obviously a keener member of APPGs than I was, but I am sure he is entirely right.

None the less, I think it important that we in this House, and the Supreme Court, for its part, should mutually benefit from each other’s membership. I hope the Government will accede to my noble friend Lord Banner’s amendment, even if it does not go as far as my noble friend Lord Wolfson asked for in his.

I heard two particularly hurtful and outrageous suggestions this afternoon. One was from my noble friend Lord Wolfson: that he was not in the least bit bothered by the submissions from Members of his own Back Benches when he was a Minister.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

When I said, “the Opposition”, I meant the Opposition as then constituted; anything that came from our own side was obviously of the highest quality.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

I was fishing for that compliment —and it does take a lot of effort. Anyhow, the other outrageous thing was my noble friend Lord Parkinson claiming that exceptionalism from lawyers was something to be criticised; I find that very distressing.

I will finish on this point. I cannot compete with my noble friends Lord Wolfson and Lord Banner, or indeed the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, on the number of times I have appeared in the Supreme Court, and I am certainly not awaiting a judgment now, but the last time I appeared there was in 2019, when I had the joy and honour of being against my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie. He was acting for the Government and I was not. I had the advantage of being able to describe his client, the Prime Minister, very frequently as “the defendant”.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Amendment 56 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar]

60: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Lord ChancellorIn the case of any person who holds the office of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain who is not currently a member of the House of Lords, the Prime Minister must recommend to His Majesty the King that the person be granted a life peerage under section 1 of the Life Peerages Act 1958 (power to confer life peerages).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure that the Lord Chancellor is a member of the House of Lords, as was the case for over two centuries leading up to the passage of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 60 seeks to ensure that,

“any person who holds the office of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain who is not currently a member”

of your Lordships’ House must be recommended by the Prime Minister for a life peerage under the 1958 Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hermer (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, and other noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. We do not accept Amendment 60 for three reasons, beyond the fact that it falls outside the intended scope of this single-issue Bill.

First, the amendment seeks to fetter the power of a Prime Minister to shape the Cabinet according to his or her own choosing. Under this amendment, if the Prime Minister wished to choose a sitting MP to be Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, as has been the case for every Lord Chancellor since 2007, that person would have to vacate their seat and trigger a by-election; or, if this amendment were to be accepted, the Prime Minister would be required to separate the roles of Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. In the Government’s view, that would be a constitutionally inappropriate fettering of the Prime Minister’s discretion to pick a Cabinet of his or her own choosing.

Secondly, there is no constitutional or public policy rationale to justify taking us back to the position that we were in before 2005. One cannot, for the reasons set out by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, simply pick and choose without going wholesale back to the 2005 position—putting the Lord Chancellor back on the Woolsack and as the senior judge—because what else is left of the Lord Chancellor’s role? It cannot simply be a rationale driven by nothing more than to have a member of the Cabinet committed to upholding the rule of law. That should be a commitment consistent with the ministerial code for all members of the Cabinet but, if I may say so, I also see it quite properly as a role for an Attorney-General. As the House will be aware, with the Prime Minister’s and the monarch’s grateful permission, the oath of the Attorney-General was changed when I took it to include an express commitment—although it would always have been implicit—to the rule of law.

Thirdly, the amendments fail to address what we would respectfully say are the most important attributes for a Lord Chancellor in the post-2005 age. Those attributes were identified by the Constitution Committee, which considered the Lord Chancellor’s role in a report two years ago—and I acknowledge the committee’s current chair, who is not in his place, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. In its final analysis, the report said that

“character, intellect and a commitment to the rule of law are the most important attributes for a Lord Chancellor to possess”.

We agree, and we do not consider that the acid test of those attributes is the House in which a Lord Chancellor should sit.

My right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor exemplifies the qualities of a great officeholder committed to the rule of law. More widely, as she has made clear, this entire Government see the rule of law as our lodestar. I have no doubt that the Prime Minister has appointed my right honourable friend in the confidence that the House in which she sits is no hindrance to her in discharging her vital constitutional responsibilities. For those three reasons, I respectfully request that the noble Lord withdraws his amendment.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions in this short but important debate. I make the point, although it really ought to go without saying—but I say it for the avoidance of doubt—that none of this is any reflection on the current occupant of the role, for whom I have the greatest personal respect. What we have to do when we consider constitutional matters is to move away from the personal and to the principled, and that is what my amendment is directed at.

The noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General has identified three reasons why this amendment cannot be accepted by the Government. First, he said, it would fetter the PM’s choice of who to have in the Cabinet, but it does not; the PM can still appoint anybody to the role of Lord Chancellor. In fact, the Prime Minister is able to appoint anybody and is not limited to Members of the House of Commons, because somebody could be parachuted in, as has happened on previous occasions. There is no fetter at all—that is a good red herring.

The second point is about what the Lord Chancellor would do. That was the point made by my noble friend Lord Hailsham—and the noble Lord, Lord Murray, gave the short answer. The Lord Chancellor would be there to oversee the really important parts of our constitution: constitutional affairs, devolution, human rights and international treaties. We should therefore go back to the Lord Chancellor being in charge of a Department for Constitutional Affairs.

As to the last point, that the current Attorney-General is the first one to add into the oath a commitment to the rule of law, of course I share that commitment to the rule of law with him—although I think that our interpretation of what it contains may sometimes differ, but that is not a matter for now. With regard to statute, the Lord Chancellor is in a sui generis position. I continue to think that we have lost something important in the 2005 Act, and I hope that this conversation may continue, but of course I beg leave to withdraw the amendment this evening.

Amendment 60 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of my noble friend Lady Laing’s amendment.

I begin by pointing out two problems with her proposal before I give her my unwavering support. I call the first the “Wolfson problem”, or perhaps the “Timpson problem”, whereby we appoint extremely experienced and able people to fill a ministerial role and then discover, when they leave that ministerial role, that they will be extremely distinguished and able Members of our House for the rest of their lives.

I gave three cheers when my noble friend Lord Wolfson came into this House, and I gave three cheers for the three excellent Ministers appointed by the new Government to the Front Bench, each with huge expertise in their areas. I invidiously agree with my noble friend Lord Attlee that one of them is the noble Lord, Lord Timpson. I have absolutely no doubt that they will continue to make extremely distinguished contributions to the House long after they have left their ministerial posts. The “Wolfson problem” is easily solved by converting those temporary Ministers into full-time life Peers at the discretion of the Prime Minister of the day.

The second issue is the element of—

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

The only problem with that is that I left my ministerial office because I resigned from it. The prospect of the Prime Minister of the day thereafter appointing me as a life Peer might be regarded as somewhat remote.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

As somebody who left the Whip because of the capriciousness of the then Prime Minister, and then managed to get the Whip restored and to be put into this House, I know that there are ways around the problem, particularly with extremely clever arguments put forward on one’s own behalf. But I digress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his assessment of the amendment that I have put before the Committee. It had not been my intention to have any argument ad hominem. I was not looking backwards in my tabling of this amendment in order to eject from the House any particular former Minister—and certainly not any sitting here.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I just make it clear, as far as I am concerned, that a copy of today’s Hansard is going directly to my mother, and I am very grateful for what my noble friend said.

[Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Con)]

In consideration of the feelings of the noble Lord’s mother, let me make it absolutely clear that I share the Minister’s admiration for recent Ministers on both sides of the House, and, indeed, those who are now shadow Ministers and those who were previously shadow Ministers. The quality of the personnel who take charge of this House is exemplary and magnificent. Does the noble Lord think that that will be enough for his mother?

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[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, all these amendments are unnecessary as, in my opinion, there will be no next stage of reform at any time soon—certainly not in this Parliament. The drivers for this Bill are class-based and a need to reduce overall numbers, thanks—wait for it—to the mismanagement of various Conservative Prime Ministers. The only one of them who seemed to grasp the need for restraint was my noble friend Lady May.

The evidence for my statement is that Sir Tony Blair had two successive, clear election victories after the 1999 Act, as well as the benefit of the very carefully thought-out royal commission report chaired by my noble friend Lord Wakeham. He did nothing; I suspect that was because he could not be sure that any further reform would result in a better arrangement than what we already have. My question for the Minister is: why not just implement the Wakeham reforms?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I will respond from these Benches to these three amendments, which all seek to hold the Government to their manifesto commitment to deliver “immediate”—that was the word used—reform of the House of Lords. I mentioned that commitment in my Second Reading speech on this Bill.

I can be brief this evening as the essential points have been made by, in particular, the three noble Lords who tabled these amendments. We have heard much of the Government’s plans, and there has been much talk in these debates of the importance of punctuation in the Government’s manifesto, but the central point on these amendments is this: the Government ought to give the Committee reassurance that the wider reform will come and, importantly, that it will come soon.

When the House of Lords Reform Act 1999 was passed, the Government claimed that the compromise as to some hereditary Peers remaining in your Lordships’ House would act as an encouragement to the Government to complete their reform of the House. However, we are now more than two decades on and still the Government have not brought forward to this House—as opposed to a few sentences in a manifesto—anything approaching proper reform. The obvious question is: why?

The Government often say that, if we seek to change everything, we run the risk of changing nothing, but the truth is, as we all know, that legislative time is precious. In SW1, the most valuable commodity is parliamentary time on the Floor of a House. We have seen Governments fail to deliver second-stage reform before, so why would it be different this time? As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, rightly pointed out, the noises off—if we can call them that—are not encouraging at all.

Therefore, I completely understand the concerns of the noble Baroness and noble Lords who have brought these amendments. We should reasonably expect the Government to give the Committee a much clearer sense of when, in their already busy legislative timetable, they intend to bring forward the next stage of reform. This House, on this issue, is very much once bitten, twice shy. I look forward to hearing from the Leader of the House on this important issue. I hope that she can be more definite than saying, “At some time in this Parliament”.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I smiled at the point where the noble Lord said that “the party opposite” had done nothing for two decades. I just have to remind him that, for 14 years of those two decades, he was in government and we were not, which did hamper our ability to take action.

I want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, and the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for their amendments. What seems clear—and I welcome this—is that there is a bit of momentum about change, which has been lacking for a very long time. I seem to remember that the only proposal the party opposite came forward with about the House of Lords in its time in government was to move this House to York while the rest of Parliament stayed in London, which was not a particularly helpful or constructive suggestion. We seem to be moving now towards a much more collegiate way of doing things and seeing some way forward. I am grateful for that; it is very helpful.

Several times in the debate, noble Lords have raised the question: why this particular proposal first? I have explained that this is the first stage, and the reason that this is the first stage of reform is that it is the one described as “immediate” in the manifesto, but it also completes the start of something that started 25 years ago. The principle of removing the hereditary Peers was established 25 years ago. It seemed very straight- forward, even though we have had very long debates about other issues around it. I am not criticising that; it is just a matter of fact. That principle was established, and this completes that principle.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, the difficulty with the noble Lord’s suggestion, in my case, is that I would be relying upon knowing the leader of my party. I do not properly know any of the party leaders, and they do not know me either, so I would have as much chance as a snowflake in a blast furnace of getting a life peerage.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Newby, but I am responding on Amendment 5, moved by my noble friend Lord Soames of Fletching from these Benches. In speaking to this amendment, I take the opportunity to recognise the significant and invaluable contribution that hereditary Peers have made to your Lordships’ House. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, this amendment is a different point conceptually from Amendment 9, tabled by my noble friend Lord True, which is essentially, if I may put it without any disrespect, the Grocott approach.

As my noble friend Lord True said earlier this evening, if we are to exclude anyone from the House, it should be those who do not contribute rather than those who have contributed and do contribute. To introduce a personal perspective, I say that as someone who makes every effort to play a proper part in the business of your Lordships’ House while maintaining a full practice at the Bar. That sometimes means that I miss the odd vote—may I record in Hansard for posterity my entirely sycophantic and appallingly oleaginous thanks to my Whip for his constant understanding? More seriously, that cuts into my downtime. I do not really have any downtime because of my work at the Bar and my obligations here. If I can use this rather demotic phrase, it does hack me off when some people do not contribute at all.

I therefore share the concern of my noble friend Lord Soames that we are removing people who contribute while leaving people who play very little, if any, part in the House. The key to a sensible approach, I suggest, while recognising that the hereditary principle has come to an end—like the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, I also enjoyed “Tomorrow’s World” in its day, and what was innovative then is commonplace now—is to retain those who have demonstrated over many years their commitment to public service and duty to the House. She is no longer in her place, but I respect fully agree with what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said in an earlier group. She expressly invited the Government to just look, to use what I think was her phrase, at those whom the Government are removing. She said that the approach in this Bill, which removes the fully involved and the truly indolent alike, was “profoundly wrong”. She is right about that.

Turning to the text of this amendment, I know that there are many ways in which noble Lords can contribute to the business of the House, but those who currently serve or have previously served as Ministers and Whips, Deputy Speakers, chairs of committees or as Convenor of the Cross Benches have made a determined and determinable contribution. Their institutional knowledge and dedication to public service has made them indispensable, I suggest, to the functioning of the House and thus to the functioning of Parliament. The positions which they have undertaken in the House have been earned through merit and service. To remove these noble Lords would be to discard a wealth of experience that simply cannot be replaced. I therefore agree with the points made by my noble friend Lady Finn in that regard.

We have had some stats thrown at us; let me try to identify what the position actually is. During the 2019-24 Parliament, 168 Members had official roles. This includes government and Opposition ministerial posts and parliamentary positions such as the Lord Speaker and Deputy Speakers. Life Peers filled 143 of these roles, 23 were filled by hereditary Peers and two by Bishops. About 18% of life Peers served in an official role compared with 26% of hereditary Peers. Despite making up only 12% of the total membership of the House, in the last Session hereditary Peers made up 20% of government posts and 26% of Deputy Speakers. My noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom rightly made the point that hereditary Peers as a group have contributed very significantly.

I will not read out my Excel spreadsheet, but do we really want, I ask rhetorically, to lose people such as my noble friends Lord Courtown and Lord Howe—who, as your Lordships have heard, has provided simply incredible service to the House? My noble friend Lord Strathclyde serves as chair of our Constitution Committee is a former Leader of the House and a former Chief Whip. He has served as a Minister over four departments. The noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde, is a serving Deputy Speaker and Deputy Chair of Committees. His CV in the House reads for several pages.

I am not sufficiently brave to stand for much longer between your Lordships and your Lordships’ dinners, so I will not refer to every hereditary Peer, but I trust that noble Lords recognise the expertise, experience and dedication that those individuals have brought to our parliamentary system.

I make one final point. Some years ago, the House removed a number of Peers. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, gave us the correct figure, which I think was 667. Yes, I was listening. I always do to the noble Lord, indeed to all noble Lords but especially the noble Lord, Lord Grocott on this topic. Does removing the final 88, or however many are left now, make any difference? Of course, the difference goes to the heart of this amendment. Those who remained some years ago were chosen wholly, or in the vast majority of cases, because they were contributing. That is why they remained. That is what this amendment seeks to do.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

They were actually elected; they were not chosen.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

Sorry, I was using “chosen” as a short form for “elected”. They were elected. My noble friend was here, and I was not, but when the elections took place, the electorate was keen to ensure that experience was not lost. That is exactly the point of this amendment—to retain those who have contributed, are contributing and will undoubtedly contribute more in the future.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for this debate and to the noble Lord, Lord Soames of Fletching, for raising these issues. One thing that concerns me is that, although I do not think that anyone in this Chamber would deny the valuable work of individuals, particularly of the hereditary Peers, the problem with this debate is that it is about selecting people for congratulations on their hard work. That diminishes the work of some of the others. The noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, talked about the period from 2019 to 2024, when 143 of the officeholders that the noble Lord, Lord Soames, talked about were life Peers and 23 were hereditaries, so a huge amount of the work that kept this House going was undertaken by life Peers.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, as we come to the end of a debate with many fine speeches—I mention in particular the contributions of my noble friend Lord Brady of Altrincham, whom I welcome, and the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, whom I wish a long, happy and healthy retirement—I begin with a declaration of non-interest and a declaration of interest.

First, I declare the non-interest. Unlike my noble friend who it is a pleasure to follow, I am not a hereditary Peer. Although I am the fourth Lord Wolfson in this House, I do not think I am related to any of the other three, despite sharing a forename with the late Lord Wolfson of Sunningdale and having enjoyed a long and close friendship with his son, my noble friend Lord Simon Wolfson of Aspley Guise, the CEO of Next—and they both arrived here as life Peers. “Wolfson” followed by an “S” and “Wolfson” followed by a “D” are next to each other on the keyboard, so when it comes to parliamentary emails, he often receives emails asking for advice on points of law and I get emails complaining that trousers do not fit.

Secondly, I declare the interest. Even a few years back, I do not think I would have believed that I would be uttering these words, but I now confess that some of my best friends are hereditary Peers. But that is not why I am opposing this short, focused and very partisan Bill. The fact that I—I think this goes for everybody in this House—have friends who are hereditary Peers is not a good enough reason to oppose the Bill; nor is the fact that the hereditary Peers, as a group, comprise many of the most talented and hard-working Peers, or that the House would miss both them and their contribution. All of that is true—as we have heard today, the evidence supporting those propositions is unanswerable—but that is not why I am opposing the Bill.

I oppose the Bill for a simple reason. To explain why, I quote the Labour manifesto on which the Government fought and won the election:

“Although Labour recognises the good work of many peers who scrutinise the government and improve the quality of legislation passed in Parliament, reform is long over-due and essential. Too many peers do not play a proper role in our democracy. Hereditary peers remain indefensible. And because appointments are for life, the second chamber of Parliament has become too big”.


So here we have three points: too many play no part; hereditary Peers are indefensible; and there are too many Peers, which is what led to the age limit of 80. There are three points, but we do not have a three-clause Bill; we have a one-clause Bill, for material purposes. Indeed, if you take out the explanatory parentheses, you have a 10-word Bill—removed if not quite in one stroke of the pen then certainly with one flourish on the word processor.

My question, and the reason I oppose this Bill, is: why? Let me explain. On Monday, my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition asked the noble Baroness the Leader of the House when the Government would be bringing forward the other two parts of their manifesto commitment: the participation requirement and the age limit. The answer he got—I have paraphrased, but not, I hope, unfairly—was that it is a matter for the Government to decide when to bring forward their manifesto promises. I respectfully agree with the Leader about that. That is absolutely right. I am not asking when, I am asking her to deal with why. That is the point that has been unanswered throughout this debate. What is the answer to the question of why? Why are the Government bringing forward only this slice of their triple-decker package of reform, leaving to some indefinite, unplanned, unscheduled future moment of parliamentary time the other two parts?

The only answer we have had so far from the Leader of the House is that it all rests on the full stop, and you have to read the manifesto in a particular way. She warned this morning of,

“a wilful misinterpretation of the manifesto”,

which is why I read out what it actually says.

The Lords spiritual, who have been sadly mute today, I have noticed, might be the experts here as to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin; but it seems that the Lords temporal on the Government Benches are now experts on how many manifesto commitments can dangle on the head of a full stop. I respectfully suggest to the Leader of the House—for whom, as she knows, I have deep personal respect—that, just as in the law courts, if the best answer one has is to seek refuge in punctuation, it is because the case has been punctured.

There is not, and there cannot possibly be, any answer to the question of why the Bill does not also deal with the age point, which would fulfil an express manifesto commitment, or the participation point, which plainly commands wide support across the House. If the Government were to bring forward a Bill that truly encompassed their manifesto commitments, they would have an argument that deserved the conventional respect—and also the respect for conventions—which this House gives to such Bills. This is not such a Bill, and for that reason, I will be opposing it.

Iran and Israel

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for his remarks and I repeat what I said about the role of the Royal Air Force. The defence of the realm remains, obviously, one of the prime duties and responsibilities of His Majesty’s Government. Defence spending has been increased substantially in the various reviews since 2020, and I can certainly assure the noble and gallant Lord that the most careful consideration has been given to the continuing air defence, of all types, of our United Kingdom.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, on Saturday night, I experienced three emotions: fear, pride and hope—fear, because I have close family in Israel and I was worried for them and about them; pride, when I heard that our planes, with their brave pilots, had taken part in protecting Israel from Iranian attacks; and hope, when I heard that the royal air force of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan had also participated. Does my noble friend agree with me that that last point is absolutely key? If we want to see peace in the Middle East, which we all pray for and work for, we should be supporting those bilateral alliances between Israel and Jordan and Israel and Egypt, and multilateral groupings such as the Abraham accords, because that is the way, in the long run, to bring peace to this region. -

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I certainly sympathise with my noble friend. I do not have the direct engagement that he does, but it so happens that, because of family reasons—some Members of the House will know that I have connections in Egypt—a number of members of my family are in the Middle East at the moment, so I do understand those personal feelings.

The fundamental point that my noble friend makes is absolutely right: ultimately, this great region of the world, the cradle of human culture and so much of our spiritual and historic strength, needs peace. It needs people who wish for peace, and the vast majority in that part of the world crave peace. The evil people who wish to unleash violence are in a minority—and, unfortunately, in powerful positions in some places. But I wholly agree with him that the evidence of growing understanding and friendship between Israel and partner nations in the Middle East is a great sign of hope in these times.

Israel and Gaza

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the position that the Prime Minister expressed was that the United Kingdom would of course wish to see humanitarian aid flowing. I think the phrase that the Prime Minister used was “a stream of trucks”. But I repeat that the difficult and delicate situation arises from the activities of the people who have power in Gaza, who started this terrible war. The United Kingdom will support every effort to get supplies of humanitarian aid flowing for the people who are suffering—not from Israel but, ultimately, from Hamas.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, we have heard a lot about moral clarity and we have also heard some references to the United Nations. I suggest that the United Nations finds a little moral clarity. On the Monday afternoon—and I mean the Monday afternoon after the massacre, so 48 hours later, while the bodies were still warm—the United Nations Human Rights Council observed a minute’s silence. It observed that minute’s silence, to quote the council itself, for the

“loss of innocent lives in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere”.

For 2,000 years, the Jewish people had nowhere. Now it would appear, according to the United Nations Human Rights Council, that they have an “elsewhere”. Does my noble friend the Leader of the House think that some moral clarity is also needed on the part of the United Nations?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I had not seen those particular remarks. To say that they were disappointing would be a bit of an understatement. However, I repeat that there are many working with United Nations aid agencies who are doing outstanding and brave work for people in all parts of this crisis.