House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Viscount Thurso and Lord Butler of Brockwell

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

My Lords, briefly, I support the noble Lord, Lord Burns, having added my name to this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, expressed perfectly my views, therefore I will not rehearse them again.

On an earlier amendment I listened with interest to the noble Lord, Lord Gove, who expressed a view which, if taken to its logical conclusion, would mean that you could go on putting people into the House more or less for as long as you like. There has to be a limit at some point; we do not want a House of 1,000, 1,500 or 2,000. Therefore, at some point, there has to be a mechanism that puts some brake on, such that what goes out and what comes in are in balance.

As the noble Lord, Lord Burns, set out so well in introducing his amendment, the problem is that each incoming Government find themselves at a disadvantage, having been in opposition, compared with what has gone before. Therefore, they have to do something to restore that imbalance if they are to come remotely close to getting their business through. I therefore think that tackling the size of the House is one of the most important things we can do.

I would make one small suggestion—it is not a quibble—to the noble Lord, Lord Burns. I might have left out proposed new subsection (1) in his amendment, which is what is happening over this Parliament. That will not come as a surprise, since my previous amendment sought to put it into the next Parliament. As I said in that debate, it would be rather unfair if we were to change the rules at half-time, as it were. I think the current Government deserve to have a reasonable number of Peers, but that simply underlines the necessity of having the guard-rails in place to ensure that, going forward, the House cannot go beyond a certain size and should be reduced, with something like the size of the Commons being broadly appropriate.

I do not know whether the noble Lord will press his amendment. If he did, I would happily support him, but I suspect that, like me, he might take a more pragmatic decision. In that case, I very much hope the Select Committee will be able to do its job, although my doubts previously expressed—that it will not be able to do enough—remain.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly add one argument in support of my noble friend’s amendment. There is widespread criticism of the competence and indeed the commitment of some of those who have been appointed to this House. Many of us think that some of those criticisms have been justified. If there is a limit on the size of the House, the leaders of the political parties will be concerned to ensure that the people whom they recommend for appointment will pull their weight in the House and do stuff for their party. That can be achieved only if there is a constraint on those appointments.

The criticisms of some of the appointments that have been made have been bad for the reputation of the House, as has been the concern about numbers. My noble friend’s amendment would deal with both these aspects, but the aspect of ensuring that party leaders want their appointments to be of good quality is another very important argument in favour of a constraint.