House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

Just to help the noble Lord’s confusion, there are the courtesy titles of the younger sons of certain levels of the peerage.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, my support for this concept is not new. Indeed, this was one of my recommendations to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, for his report. If Prime Ministers had created fewer Peers so that we were not so numerous, I would continue to resist this concept of creating Peers with no right to sit in this House making laws.

However, our numbers are perceived to be a problem. We must recognise that Prime Ministers need to grant peerages not just because they need bodies in this House, legislating, but because they need to reward achievement in the same way as others receive other honours, like knighthoods and other gongs.

Being granted the title of Lord or Baroness is a great reward in itself, but I can see merit in Prime Ministers being able to grant a peerage and the title of Lord or Baroness to someone who would not be entitled to sit in the Lords and make laws, but in recognition of the good they have done in their own particular field. I cannot define a category of these people, but it may be like an even higher version of a knighthood.

This suggestion may give Prime Ministers the flexibility they need to create peerages and reward people for their great work without flooding this House with new Peers. Perhaps the noble Baroness the Leader of the House would like to make this suggestion to the new Lords Select Committee and ask it to report back with recommendations, because I believe there is merit in having non-legislative Peers.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise for intervening, but I have to do so because this is a concept that, like the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, I have proposed in your Lordships’ House on many occasions. I have not heard that support for it from the Conservative Benches in the past, but I have put it forward because I believe it would be a useful component of a wholesale reform programme of your Lordships’ House.

However much I agree that it is useful, I cannot agree that we should vote for it tonight. If I had written the Labour Party manifesto, I might have included it, with many other things, and if I had been the parliamentary draftsman for this Bill, I might have looked much more widely and had a much wider Bill —but I am neither of those things.

We have before us a very specific, narrow Bill. I do not believe that I shall argue later in today’s proceedings even about the content of the agenda for the Select Committee—but this should not be included in it, because it is not based on a manifesto commitment in any way. It is completely piecemeal, and I have not heard support for it in the past as part of a wholesale package of reform. Therefore, however much I might be tempted by the idea, I shall be happy to vote against it if the noble Lord, Lord True, puts the question to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I signed the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and I rise briefly to support him. The House may recall that in Committee I presented three options for the removal of Peers who attended infrequently, and the mood of the House seemed to coalesce around the 10% one. I say to my noble friend Lord Attlee that leave of absence should deal with the problem he has just described.

If we were not being constantly told by the Government that there are too many Peers, I might not necessarily advocate this measure. If a Peer turns up for just 5% of sittings, he is not getting an allowance for the 95% of sittings when he is not here, so there is no burden on the taxpayer. However, there is a burden on all the rest of us doing all our committee work, as we will find out when our hard-working hereditaries are removed and the Whips start calling around for volunteers to fill the slots they were previously filling. We will then realise how much our hereditaries have been doing. Of course, I think this issue will now be considered by the new Select Committee, and I look forward to seeing its conclusions.

I just want to flag up two points. First, I note that this amendment suggests amending the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. That proves the point I made to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, last week: we may need legislation to do these things, and it cannot be done just by internal Standing Orders. Secondly and finally, when the Select Committee makes recommendations on attendance, how will we pass them into law? If we cannot use Standing Orders, we have to use either primary or secondary legislation to do it. In the debate on my Amendment 23A, coming up shortly, I shall lay out a quick, simple and painless way to do it with secondary legislation; I commend it to noble Lords and hope they will all be here to support it.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, when the noble Baroness comes to reply to this amendment, can she assure us that her new committee will look at the question that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, raised as to whether the House of Lords already has the powers to do this? As the Convenor of the Cross Benches said, we all agree to the terms of the Writ of Summons. There is a very strong argument that that inherently gives this House the power, through its Standing Orders, to achieve what this amendment sets out to achieve. It is clear that this question has never been settled or established. The noble Baroness’s committee would be an ideal forum to do that, and I very much hope that it will.