House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

It is probably more of a question for the Cross-Benchers than me, and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, is ready to leap to his feet.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

I thank the noble Baroness very much. This is obviously an issue that has arisen and has been the source of considerable correspondence, which predates me—Lord Judge began it. It would obviously not be proper for the Cross Benches to be part of some approval process, but we have been able to lay out sufficient rail track so that, certainly for my part, I feel very comfortable that the Prime Minister is going to appoint only people suitable for the Cross Benches and have no recent record of involvement in party processes.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

The noble Earl will know more about the history of non-aligned appointments. I do not think we have appointed anybody who is not aligned at all.

Interesting points have been made about accountability and suitability. Political parties must be responsible for the suitability of those whom they put forward, just as HOLAC is responsible for the suitability of its appointments. Partly because they are largely my idea, I think citations are a good thing because there is more information in the public domain about why somebody has been appointed. However, it would be a regrettable situation if a political party was then to say, “Oh, we don’t test suitability. That’s a matter for HOLAC; we don’t take responsibility for our appointments”. All political parties should take that responsibility rather than pass it on to HOLAC.

--- Later in debate ---

Of course, I take the Leader at her word—she is a thoroughly honourable and noble lady—but I do not think that any Government will implement a new Bill on changes to the House of Lords because of the experience they have had with this one. Any new Bill seeking to limit it to a few things can be amended for a whole range of things. I also believe it would be wrong to set these things in stone in primary legislation when it would be impossible to amend them until we got another Bill. Therefore, I suggest that we will need a Bill with a special power, whereby we can introduce rules on retirement, attendance and participation, and then amend them when circumstances change. I will address that point in Amendment 14.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I observed in Committee that everything in life tends to have a retirement age, so I feel that it is vital to bring in Amendment 20, or something like it, as part of the modernisation of the House.

I will make only two points. The first is in respect of the cliff edge. In organisations that I have worked in, we have often done mergers and acquisitions and had cliff-edge problems with people. It is generally the case that an organisation that expels the seasoned and the good—expelling the human capital that it has bought—without replacements right away, is an organisation that weakens itself. In our House we have people aged beyond 80 —we now know that there is a large number, thanks to the spreadsheets of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra—and, were we to show them the door, that would be very weakening.

This has an elegance in it, because it does not expel anybody but sets down the premise for the future. It is the route that is peculiarly British, in that it was chosen, as we have heard, by the senior judiciary when they did the same thing many years ago, and indeed by the bishops when they brought in a retirement age. In both of those circumstances—I have spoken to people who were around at the time—the people, in any event, chose an earlier retirement age. So we would smooth out the great problem of the cliff edge.

My second and final point is about the wrinkle that the noble Earl, Lord Devon, has cleverly introduced about the 10-year minimum alternative. From the Cross-Bench perspective—and indeed, through us, from the House’s perspective—this is a very good wrinkle. The Cross Bench has to provide quite a lot of judges. We need to provide judges for Special Public Bill Committees, the Ecclesiastical Committee and other purposes, for which we are lucky to have members of the senior judiciary on the Cross Benches—I am looking at at least one here—who are very valuable to the House. The trouble is that the Supreme Court has a retirement age of 75 so, if they can get trained up only by the time they are 77, say, we will have them for a very short period of time. So it is extremely helpful for us if the senior judiciary gets at least 10 years at bat. That is helpful for the Cross Benches and the House.

When I was at the Bar school, I was told that the judge only ever hears the point the third time you make it. I have now made this point four times. The Leader was pointing out that we are all judges and that we are here for judgment. I hope that noble Lords will ponder, for the fourth time, that this might be a good point.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I recognise that this country rather likes retirement ages, but I am afraid I do not share that view. I think of my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who recently retired when he was, I think, 93—someone says he was 97; even better. He was absolutely as sharp as a tack until the time that he stood down. His contributions to this House were memorable. He was a very serious man in every way and people listened to him in this House. To think that we would put in place a system that would have got rid of Lord Mackay fills me with absolute horror.

If we want to reduce the numbers, I have never understood why a committee of this House turned down the idea of internal elections. We all know who are the people in our parties who do not come, who do not contribute and who play very little role in this House. Why not allow us to elect them out and reduce numbers that way? Then we would not have this arbitrary business of saying that, because someone has reached a retirement age of X, that is the reason why they should go.