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.