House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I am puzzled by the intervention just now by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. For some time now, if a Member of this House has been posted abroad or for some other reason is unable to attend the House regularly, they apply for a leave of absence. It is as simple as that.