Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Bull) (CB)
My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, this Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
Flood Reinsurance (Amendment) Regulations 2025
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Hayman of Ullock
That the Grand Committee do consider the Flood Reinsurance (Amendment) Regulations 2025.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
My Lords, as most noble Lords will know, Flood Re is a reinsurance scheme that provides for accessible and affordable flood insurance for eligible households. It is a joint government and industry initiative launched in 2016, designed to improve the availability and affordability of UK household flood insurance.
For clarity, Flood Re Ltd is the name of the company established to administer the scheme. Since its launch in 2016, it has provided cover for flood insurance to more than 500,000 households that are at risk of flooding right across the UK. Before Flood Re, only 9% of policyholders with a prior flood claim could get flood insurance quotes from two or more insurers, and none could get quotes from five or more insurance companies. Some 99% of households at high risk of flooding can now obtain quotes from 15 or more insurers.
The Flood Re scheme has evolved since its launch back in 2016. When levy 1 was last reviewed in 2022, the regulations were changed to allow for Build Back Better to be included in the scheme, which allows for up to £10,000 to be offered as part of a post-flood claim to install flood-resilient measures at the property, helping to manage down the risk and impact of any future flooding. I am pleased that insurers representing some 77% of the UK household insurance market are now committed to offering Build Back Better to their customers, whether they are Flood Re-ceded policies or not.
The Flood Re scheme is a joint initiative between government and the insurance industry, and we are going further than the previous Administration to invest in flood defences. As part of this Government’s plan for change, a record £2.65 billion has been committed to better protect 52,000 properties by March 2026. Maintenance of existing flood defences will be prioritised, ensuring that a further 14,500 properties will have their expected level of protection maintained or restored. This means that a total of 66,500 properties will benefit from this funding, which will help to secure jobs, deliver growth and protect against economic damage.
I turn to the specifics of the statutory instrument. Flood Re Ltd regularly and continuously monitors the risk and market that it is supporting to ensure that it is in a position to continue to enable affordable flood insurance for those that need it. To do so, it is required to purchase reinsurance, which it does on a three-year basis. Taking into account changes to risk, claims profile and expected increase in the number of household flood insurance policies ceded to it, Flood Re Ltd has projected that its liabilities could increase from £2.1 billion to at least £3.2 billion over the next three years, and this is the level of cover that it now needs to purchase.
In addition, the global reinsurance market has become more challenging since Flood Re Ltd last negotiated its three-year reinsurance cover. Events around the world have impacted on the risk appetite of those providing reinsurance, meaning the market that Flood Re Ltd can purchase from is both more volatile and more expensive than previously. All those factors combined have resulted in Flood Re Ltd proposing this increase to levy 1, so that it can afford to purchase the required reinsurance and continue to provide that access to affordable insurance that we all recognise the need for.
I assure noble Lords that this proposal has been well scrutinised before reaching this Grand Committee for your Lordships’ approval, not only by policy and finance officials in Defra but by our colleagues at HMT. This scrutiny has been informed by advice from the Government Actuary’s Department, which has provided its opinion that the increase to levy 1 is necessary to ensure the viability of the scheme.
I recognise that any increase to costs is unwelcome at any time. The cost of increasing levy 1 is spread across all insurance companies that offer UK household insurance and is proportionately split based on their market share. We can be confident that Flood Re Ltd has done its due diligence in seeking this increase and reassured that it would not be being asked for if it were not needed. By using existing capital, Flood Re is keeping the increase to 18%, while the costs for reinsurance are expected to more than double. The decrease that was put in place three years ago, going from £180 million per year to £135 million per year, demonstrates, I suggest, that Flood Re Ltd is very conscious of its responsibilities in keeping the levy as low as possible.
In summary, this statutory instrument allows for a necessary change to the Flood Re scheme by amending Regulation 8(2)(a) of the Flood Reinsurance (Scheme Funding and Administration) Regulations 2015 to increase the levy 1 placed on UK household insurance providers from £135 million to £160 million from 1 April 2025. I emphasise that the measure in this instrument is necessary to ensure the effectiveness and continuation of the Flood Re scheme and its ability to provide affordable flood cover for the increasing number of homes that are at risk of flooding in the UK. I beg to move.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister and congratulate her on bringing this instrument forward, which I wholeheartedly support. I want to press her on a number of issues arising from it.
In the last Parliament, the Minister had the grace and good sense to support an amendment of mine to what is now the levelling-up Act. It stated that there should be no homes at all built on functional flood plains after 2009. As the Minister will be aware, and as this instrument states, there is no insurance cover for homes built on functional flood plains after 2009.
At the time, I was delighted that Flood Re was set up, with the support of the present Government, by the then Conservative Government. However, the mapping is not as tight as it might be. As we discussed during the passage of the levelling-up Bill, we are dependent on local authorities to home in on the crucial area of zone 3b. If the Minister and her Government are committed, as they seem to be, to continuing to build on functional flood plains, which we recognise are not covered by Flood Re, can she tell the Grand Committee the average cost of insurance for those home owners to insure themselves, particularly where they may have been flooded on one or more occasion since they moved into a home which was built after 2009?
I believe that we should look at this in the context of Flood Re and the housebuilding programme. I know the Minister will probably tell me that I must be patient and wait for the planning and infrastructure Bill to come out—perhaps she could give us a date for when to expect it. That is my first and key point: what insurance cover there is, the cost for individual households and to what extent they might benefit.
Has the department done an impact assessment on the instrument as it stands? Is the Minister able to say what plans the Government have to extend the scheme in a number of ways—first, to cover homes built on flood plains after 2009 going forward, but also to extend it to cover businesses in particular? I am not entirely sure what the position is as regards farms, which are partly a business and partly a residence, but there are other businesses as well—many owner properties—where the business and the home are shared.
When will the Government have a view on what the future of Flood Re should look like when it reaches the end of its natural life? When this instrument was discussed in the other place, my honourable friend Dr Neil Hudson, who speaks for the party there, asked about the frequently flooded allowance, which was introduced by the last Government as a ring-fenced fund of £100 million to protect areas that had been affected by repeated flooding. Is the Minister able to say whether the Government are minded to continue that programme going forward?
I am sure that, when responding, the Minister will say that the Government have improved the resilience of properties and therefore are quite entitled to encourage local authorities to build on functional flood plains. She was, sadly, unable to attend the launch of the report by Westminster Sustainable Business Forum—Policy Connect—in which we looked at flood and coastal erosion risk management policy for the new Government. I do not know whether the Minister has had a chance to look at this, but will her department especially consider our recommendations to ensure the uptake of property flood-resilience measures, some of which come under Build Back Better, to which she referred—but they also go beyond that? Will the Government be minded to allow for the installation of both resistance and resilience measures as part of property flood-resilience schemes funded by the Environment Agency? Will she also review the eligibility criteria and distribution process for the property flood-resilience repair grant scheme to make it more widely accessible and streamlined? Further, will the Government align all property flood-resilience funding resources—including those from the Environment Agency’s property flood-resilience framework, Flood Re’s Build Back Better and Defra’s flood-resilience repair grant—to the same amount, so that all the funding resources would be aligned at £15,000, possibly as part of the forthcoming multiyear spending review? I realise that these are very technical recommendations and that the Minister may not have the answers, but they relate to the instrument and the forthcoming spending review.
Finally, the recommendation that I press to the Minister today would be to normalise the use of property flood resilience in both new and existing properties. Part C of building regulations should be updated to require the installation of basic property flood-resilience measures for properties at risk of flooding and the installation of very basic no-regret measures for all new homes, irrespective of risk.
These recommendations go to the heart of my belief that, if we continue to build properties that are not covered by Flood Re, we owe this to the people who will buy those properties. I find myself not needing a mortgage: I had sold a property, and I was in a position to have bought, and I almost did buy, a property without a mortgage—this is going back to the 2000s. No one would have told me that I could not be insured. I know the Minister will say that they can be insured, but I would be interested to know how affordable it is for these properties not covered by Flood Re and built after 2009 on flood plains. How expensive is that insurance? If the Government are going down this path, we must have more resilient houses built in those areas. That said, I welcome the opportunity to debate the instrument today. I hope it will have a fair wind and be approved.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction to this short but important statutory instrument. I was assisting on the Water Bill in 2014-15 when Flood Re was first debated to provide insurance to properties that were uninsurable due to constant flooding, the main insurance companies not being willing to take any of the risks on those homes and dwellings.
This SI is quite simple: it raises the levy that insurance companies can indirectly pass on to their customers from £135 million to £160 million. The £135 million level was set in 2022, when the levy was reduced from £180 million. The Explanatory Memorandum quite rightly states the importance of not having a levy that is higher than it needs to be, but I stress that there is a danger in setting it too low.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument to ensure that flood reinsurance can continue to operate effectively. For that reason, His Majesty’s most loyal Opposition are pleased to support it. Although the measures are necessary, they raise several questions about the future of the Flood Re scheme and the Government’s broader approach to flood risk and resilience.
The flood reinsurance scheme established under the Water Act 2014 was designed to provide much-needed reinsurance for household insurers facing flood risk, ensuring the availability and affordability of flood insurance for properties at risk of flooding. This initiative, introduced by the previous Conservative Government, remains a crucial safety net for many home owners across the country. It has offered vital support as we face increasing flood events that threaten the stability and safety of homes across Britain.
However, we must recognise that the scale of flooding is rapidly increasing. Recent assessments by the Environment Agency indicate that approximately 6.3 million properties in England are at risk of flooding from rivers, seas or surface water. This is projected to increase to 8 million properties by 2050, reflecting the escalating threat posed by climate change and extreme weather events. This highlights the importance of ensuring that the Flood Re scheme is sufficiently robust to support the growing number of home owners at risk.
The statutory instrument proposes an increase in the total levy from £135 million to £160 million. The Government’s assessment indicates that this rise will likely be passed on to consumers, resulting in an estimated increase of £1.60 per household insurance policy. Although this increase may seem modest on an individual basis, it raises concerns about the cumulative effect on policyholders, especially those already facing higher premiums due to rising costs in other areas. This adjustment reflects the growing challenges the scheme faces in a world where extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe.
His Majesty’s Official Opposition acknowledge the necessity of this adjustment, given the financial pressures on reinsurers, driven by factors such as inflation, global natural catastrophe claims and the need to preserve the scheme’s financial resilience. If the rate and risk of household flooding continue to rise, can the British people reasonably expect these annual increases in insurance premiums to become the norm?
I have several other key questions for the Minister today. First, can she confirm whether the Government have consulted with industry stakeholders about the feasibility of expanding the Flood Re insurance scheme, particularly in high-risk areas and to houses built after 2009?
I am most interested in the Minister’s response to my noble friend’s question regarding farmhouses and buildings. Although these are likely to have been sited in less flood-prone locations, the Government have made significant commitments to building 1.5 million new homes in the coming years, a substantial increase on the recent rate of building completions. As my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering highlights, how does the Minister intend to protect these new homes from flood risk, particularly those in high-risk areas? Will the Government commit to ensuring that all new developments are designed with flood resilience in mind?
Could the Minister confirm and explain the role she sees for nature-based solutions in the management of floods at a catchment level in future? Here, I declare my interest, as set out in the register, as the owner of land in a number of river catchments.
Finally, can the Minister inform us what progress is being made in the transition from Flood Re to risk-reflective pricing for household flood insurance when Flood Re expires in 2039? We are approaching midway in the life of Flood Re and it would be desirable to see some progress.
These are questions that go to the heart of the Government’s approach to flood risk, resilience and insurance. While we understand that the increase in the levy is a pragmatic measure in the light of global challenges, we must not overlook the broader implications of a changing climate and the evolving risks that flood-prone households face. With that, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to these questions.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this debate today. Personally, I was very pleased when Flood Re came in; I thought it was incredibly important legislation. Anyone who has lived in a house that has flooded, like I have, and in communities that flood, will know how very important it was that we had this insurance scheme come into place. I therefore thank noble Lords who have supported this small but extremely important SI today; it is important that the scheme stays viable and continues.
I would like to try to cover most of the questions that have been asked. There has been a desire for government to look at whether the scheme can be extended; that came across clearly from all who took part. Before I go into the particular individual responses and specifics, let me say that although we have no plans to make changes right now, we are continuously keeping all our policies under review, including those relating to flooding insurance. It is important that we discuss, debate and listen to others as we move forward in how we make those decisions around policy changes. If we make any changes to the scheme in future, it would be important that we secure the appropriate reinsurance for that, which would be challenging in the current market. To put it into context, this would mean that the levy we are talking about today would then need to be increased even further.
I know that noble Lords are aware that, currently, leasehold properties with three or fewer units, where the freeholder is living in one of those units, qualify for Flood Re building insurance. The problem with larger blocks not being eligible is that they are considered to be commercial businesses, and that is why they fall outside of the scope of Flood Re.
The Flood Re scheme as it is set up at the moment, and as it will continue to be set up through the statutory instrument in front of us, is funded by the providers of household insurance, not those who underwrite commercial policies. Buildings insurance is the responsibility of the freeholder and kept separate. However, I recognise that there is a problem.
When Main Street in Cockermouth flooded, for the second time in only six years, I held meetings with business insurance companies and high street businesses to look at ways we could move forward, because there are still alternative things that we can do and that the Government can look to support.
Having said all that, and with properties built after 2009 having been referred to—the noble Baroness knows that that is something that I was concerned with—we are planning to explore this further. Minister Hardy, who is the Minister responsible for this area, has asked Flood Re to look into the matter to understand the scale of concern and how industry might respond, to ensure that those living in properties that currently do not come under the scheme could be provided with appropriate insurance cover. Although it is not in front of us today and not something we are actively looking at, we have asked for this to be considered further. In the meantime, contents insurance policies can be applicable, so there is that potential as well.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
The Minister may be coming on to this, in which case I apologise, but do we know what the policy would cost? I visited Cockermouth and Keswick after the floods in 2009—I have suddenly had a nightmare that I did not tell whoever the MP was that I was there, but we will gloss over that. Many of those people could not afford contents insurance, yet they were clearly at risk of flooding. Does the Minister have a figure, or could she provide one in writing?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I do not have the figure at my fingertips. This is something we are looking at. We have asked business insurance companies and the scheme itself to look at what those costs are, because if we are to consider broadening it then we need to understand the costs. I cannot provide that figure to the noble Baroness today, but it is something that we are considering.
I will move on to some other areas that were mentioned. Planning and the Government’s housebuilding programme was referred to. As noble Lords know, we have committed to building a large number of high-quality, sustainable homes. If noble Lords have not read the National Planning Policy Framework, I strongly urge them to do so. Flooding and the environment are very much part of that document. When I read it, I was pleased that the concerns that Defra had raised had been taken account of and included in the document.
Flood risk is an important consideration in the planning system. The NPPF is clear that:
“Inappropriate development in areas at risk of flooding should be avoided by directing development away from areas at highest risk”—
and that includes flood plains. Where development needs to be in locations where there is a risk of flooding, as alternative sites are not available, local planning authorities and developers should ensure that development is appropriately flood-resilient and resistant and is safe for its users for the development’s lifetime, and will not increase flood risk overall—a really important point that the noble Baroness knows I have talked about quite a lot previously.
On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, about nature-based solutions, we are committed to that.
The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, asked about farms. We know that agricultural land and businesses can be seriously affected by flooding and coastal erosion; we have seen it too often in recent years. There are two points here: getting your land insured and managing your land—and managing it in order to reduce the risk of flooding and coastal erosion. Farmland has a really important part to play in that aspect.
In the floods investment programme, the amount of funding a project can attract depends on the damages it will avoid and the benefits it will deliver. Agricultural land is an important part of calculating that, and we hope that farmers will take up those opportunities.
An additional financial report will be provided to rural communities to recognise the significant impact of flooding on farms. We are monitoring closely the impacts of flooding caused by storms on the agricultural sector; that work is going on at the moment with the Environment Agency.
Food and Feed (Regulated Products) (Amendment, Revocation, Consequential and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2025
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Merron
That the Grand Committee do consider the Food and Feed (Regulated Products) (Amendment, Revocation, Consequential and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2025.
Relevant document: 17th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument).
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)
My Lords, these regulations were laid before the House on 29 January. This draft SI uses powers conferred by the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 to propose two reforms to the market authorisation process for regulated food and feed products in Great Britain. The first is the removal of the requirement for certain products to be reauthorised every 10 years, and the second is to allow authorisations to come into effect following ministerial decisions and to then be published in a public register, rather than prescribed by statutory instrument. The reforms are very much related to process.
These reforms are part of this Government’s mission to kick-start economic growth by increasing investment, driving up productivity and tackling regulatory barriers—something that I know noble Lords are concerned with. The UK food industry is worth some £245 billion in consumer spending annually. It is driving innovation, particularly as the UK’s growing engineering biology sector harnesses emerging technology to produce novel foods.
Regulated products are food and feed products that require safety assessment before they can lawfully be sold. The Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland carry out this assessment and provide recommendations to Ministers across Great Britain on the authorisation of products. Innovation and growth across the food sector is increasing demand for authorisations. We need proportionate regulation to support investment, while maintaining safety and consumer trust. This statutory instrument removes requirements that are unnecessary for food safety without compromising it.
On renewals, certain authorised products must currently be reauthorised every 10 years. This SI removes that requirement. Instead, safety reviews will be carried out when necessary. The service will be more efficient if regulators focus on detailed reviews of products that potentially pose risk, instead of reassessing products that have many years of safe use.
The FSA and the FSS have earned public trust through rigorous risk analysis. These reforms build upon regulators’ existing powers to request safety information. They enable an efficient approach, where the regulators respond effectively to emerging risks. I emphasise that, where necessary, approvals can be modified, suspended or revoked. Food safety will continue to be the priority.
Although steady progress is being made, it is fair to say that the FSA and the FSS are not processing as many applications as are coming in. This is causing an increasing backlog, which is of concern. There are 481 current applications; although 97 applications have been completed since 2021, the caseload is growing, not reducing. Of those 481, about 100 are renewals, with almost 500 additional renewals expected in the next three years. This has to be dealt with. While the FSA and the FSS have implemented measures to improve the service within current legislation, it is essential that the service and the system are modernised. Removing automatic assessment for renewal allows a more targeted approach.
I turn to the removal of SIs. The second part of these reforms allows authorisations to come into force following ministerial decisions and to be published in a public register, rather than being prescribed by an SI. This will enable new products to be brought to market more quickly, without, I emphasise, compromising safety. Publishing authorisations together in online registers, rather than in complex legislation, will make finding information on authorised products more accessible than currently. This aligns with other UK regulators’ authorisation processes, such as for veterinary medicines and pesticides.
The FSA and the FSS provide scientific scrutiny through expert staff and independent scientific advisory committees. They provide safety assessments, risk management advice and recommendations for ministerial decisions. This process aligns with internationally recognised principles. The FSA and the FSS will publish risk assessments and authorisations, in line with their commitments to transparency. The statutory obligation to consult will not change, and authorisations will continue to be subject to public scrutiny.
I assure noble Lords that there has been extensive engagement with industry and consumer groups, including through public consultation. The reforms have received substantial support. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee was reassured by the FSA’s responses to questions raised during scrutiny. I have responded to those primary areas of focus in this opening speech.
These reforms prioritise efficiency and safety, focusing resources on innovative products. I hope noble Lords will feel able to support these reforms, which will create a service which manages risk in a proportionate fashion, without compromising our high food and feed safety standards. I beg to move.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I welcome these regulations, on several grounds. First, as the Minister mentioned, this is a deregulatory approach. There cannot be many regulations deemed to be deregulatory that have 104 pages, but 70 of those pages deal with revocations of existing legislation. That is to be welcomed.
I completely support that this will be a risk-based approach. I am conscious that consultations are ongoing on products being considered by the FSA under this approach. I am conscious that some may be concerned about removing the need for separate secondary legislation, which is a hangover from our days in the European Union, but this is perfectly routine.
I have a couple of questions for the Minister. First, I am conscious that the Food Standards Agency is a non-ministerial department, with the DHSC leading on this in government and in Parliament. Can she confirm whether DHSC Ministers will be making these decisions or whether it will be open to Defra Ministers?
Secondly, an issue that arose during the passage of what is now the precision breeding Act was concern that the devolved Administrations would be reluctant to have any GMO in products sold in their countries. The purpose of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act and the non-discrimination principle was to make sure that, where something had been given the go-ahead in England, say, it could be sold anywhere across the United Kingdom, respectful of the devolved Administrations but nevertheless giving consumers that choice. Will the UK Government fully assert the non-discrimination principle in the sale of future products? As I said, I support these regulations.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I support the comments made by my noble friend and concur entirely. I congratulate the Minister on bringing forward this streamlining and deregulatory process. However, I share some of the concerns put forward by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.
My noble friend talked about GMO. I am personally very wary of GMO products: I would like to know if I were eating such a product or if such feedstuff was being fed to an animal that I may go on to eat. Can the Minister assure me that the removal of the renewals process will not lead to any information affecting the suitability of validation methods for GMOs being overlooked? Put simply, can the public and consumers rest assured that the processes that have been followed hitherto will be followed? How can the public be made aware of those processes and know that that is the case?
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, in following the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, I echo her concerns about the labelling of GMOs, and I look forward to the Minister’s answer on that. I am afraid that I somewhat disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, regarding the rights of the nations of these islands. They surely should have the right and ability to say that they want healthier food and the right to set higher standards for food than England may choose to.
Coming to the general point, I find it a little surprising that we have heard considerable celebration about reductions in red tape at a time when there are grave concerns among the public about the safety of our food supply, particularly the impacts of ultra-processed foods, which contain many of the substances that will be covered by these regulations, and in a society that has huge problems with the overall level of public health. Surely it is better to have so-called red tape than for people to become ill as a result of the food that they buy without knowingly putting themselves at risk.
As the Minister set out so clearly—I thank her for that—there are two chief changes here. The first is to remove the requirement for reauthorisation for certain products every 10 years. These are products that have previously been identified as high risk, which is why they are on the list: feed additives, and food and feed containing GMOs or smoke flavourings. We are taking away actions to monitor products that have been regarded as high risk. Secondly, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, we are removing parliamentary scrutiny by not requiring SIs. Building on what she said, will there be an accessible list somewhere that can easily be found by Members of the House and members of the public?
When we do not have the automatic 10-year authorisation, what will happen when an issue arises? I do not think that this has been covered very clearly at all. How will the Government alert the House to that issue? We have seen this happen in many areas before, and I expect that NGOs and researchers in universities would come to an individual Member of the House and they would have to batter away at trying to establish the issue, how big it is and what is happening. However, we and the NGOs have only limited capacity. How will the Government keep us and the public informed about what is happening when this starts to be an issue?
I thank the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for a very comprehensive piece of work on this SI. It is seven pages of quite detailed scrutiny, which contain a considerable number of expressions of concern. The committee is concerned that the Explanatory Memorandum did not fully explain the mechanisms to detect and monitor the risks in absence of a renewal process, which essentially addresses the issue I just raised about how we know.
Some of the discussion is about what happens in the testing of products if technology and our understanding change. We are in a period of rapid, massive change in our understanding of the operations and the biology of the human body. I have talked in other contexts about microbiotoxicity, where products impact on the human microbiome. That is a sentence that would not have made any sense 10 years ago, which reflects how fast our understanding of human biology has changed. We are just starting to get into understanding the virome—I recently hosted an event on phages—the bacteria and fungi in our body and how they interact with viruses and food. It is a very complicated and fast-moving area.
I have focused on the Food Standards Agency, which has a total of 1,582 members of staff in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As the Minister has said, it is struggling with the number of applications that it is getting and, essentially, it does not have enough staff. If that is the case and there is this flood of new applications, how can we be reassured that attention will be given to things in that “Already done, don’t really have to think about it” pile, particularly when there are so many other biosecurity risks facing our country?
I declare that my comments have been informed by Beyond GM. It highlights that the Government Chemist, which is part of DSIT and hosted by the Laboratory of the Government Chemist—which is now, curiously, a privatised organisation—
“expressed the view that the renewals process”
needs to make sure that it has
“necessary scientific checks on the currency of validation methods”.
This is not just the biology changing but the understanding of our testing.
Finally, I offer a reflection on what we have seen happen in so many areas of public safety related to chemicals. Teflon is not a food additive, although it is an additive that has been unintentionally put in our food. PFAS were discovered in the 1930s; by the 1970s, companies including DuPont and 3M were aware of the risks and hid them. It was only in the 1990s that regulators and the public started to become aware of them. We have to be aware that we cannot trust giant multinational companies to declare to the Government and identify when a problem first starts to emerge. This has to be done by people acting for public good, not for private profit.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, as the Minister said, this SI does two things. It removes the requirement for 10-yearly renewals of regulated product authorisations and removes the requirement for regulated product authorisations to be prescribed in secondary legislation, instead allowing them to come into effect following a ministerial decision, presumably based on appropriate advice from the FSA.
As is not unusual, and as has been mentioned before, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, in its 17th report of this Session, was critical of the Explanatory Memorandum. The efforts of this hard-working committee, which I admire very much, have filled in many of the gaps; however, I feel that it should not have been necessary for it to do this had the department provided a fuller and more helpful explanation of the protections. Is it not for officials to predict the concerns that might arise about new regulations, explain why the Government feel that they have been addressed and put that in the Explanatory Memorandum?
The Government assure us that the changes are intended to simplify the authorisation process and would create
“a more streamlined and effective regulatory regime”.
They cover three regulated product regimes: feed additives; food or feed containing, consisting of or produced from genetically modified organisms; and smoke flavourings. I believe that all these product groups may be subject to new evidence of health or environmental effects—either benefits or dangers—as time goes by. The FSA and the FSS have responded that they
“would continue to assess products at initial application stage to authorise them as safe to be placed on the market, and would maintain their powers to carry out safety reviews of authorised products already on the market at any time if new evidence or risks emerge”.
The words “at any time” are key, because they mean that those organisations do not have to wait 10 years to spot and assess a problem. This is reassuring.
However, as we have heard, Beyond GM was concerned that, in future,
“greater emphasis would be placed on the FSA’s post-market monitoring activities to ensure new evidence and risks are detected before harm occurs”.
I am familiar with the FSA system of horizon scanning in another context. It is thorough, gathering intelligence from international regulators, global networks and its own scientific advisory committee for horizon scanning. It also keeps abreast of analytical methodology and has a well-used incident reporting mechanism. As we speak, revocations of authorisations due to safety concerns reported through this mechanism have generally been actioned outside of the renewal process—in other words, it has not had to wait for 10 years. Can the Minister assure us that the FSA has sufficient resources to keep up this level of horizon scanning and subsequent action? I am clearly not the only Member of this Committee with concerns about this; the same submission from Beyond GM had concerns about it as well, in the light of recent budget cuts and staff shortages.
The FSA responded:
“An evidence-based review system will ensure already authorised products are reviewed based on risk and new evidence, rather than on a fixed timetable”.
This new risk-based system may well be a response to budget cuts, but it could also be justified by the fact that there is no point in wasting precious staff time on reassessing products that have consistently been found to be safe—and I mean “consistently”; one reassessment may not be enough in this field. Can the Minister tell us which of those two options it is? Of course, we might not have needed the Minister’s explanation if the EM had been more helpful.
There were submissions suggesting that GMOs should not have been treated in the same way as other products. The SLSC’s report contains the FSA’s explanation of the additional measures that are in place when GMOs are authorised initially and of how monitoring occurs post market approval. This includes the responsibility of the businesses—the producers, or the people putting the food together—to supply annual reports to the FSA and the FSS about environmental and any other risks that were not predicted at the start of the authorisation. Is the Minister confident that these reports are always sent and are complete? There may be vested interests in not having them complete.
There was a response from the Government Chemist, as we have heard, which was interesting. It considers that the renewals process, which is now being removed, provides important and necessary scientific checks on whether laboratory-based validation methods for GMOs remain current. In other words, it was not about the dangers of GMOs themselves but confidence in the laboratory procedures which assess them. The FSA response says that it will be relying on businesses, which will continue to be required to notify the FSA and the FSS if they have any new information which might affect the suitability of a validation method. Can we rely on businesses to know that and to report any concerns? Given that science is developing so fast in the world of biotechnology, is the Minister confident that we have a regular means of ensuring that we have the best, most up-to-date and accurate methodology, without having to rely on businesses telling us or on this being looked at every 10 years?
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Moraes, to his place. We served together in the European Parliament, of which he was a well-respected member. I thank the Government for sending out so many big guns—I think I count six on the Front Bench in this Room. I will not flatter myself that they are here for me, but I am impressed by how seriously the Government are taking this statutory instrument.
I thank the Government for addressing the concerns of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, rightly said that questions were not answered, but it is good that the Government were able to address those concerns, and we are grateful for that. Like my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lady McIntosh of Pickering, I think that these Benches generally welcome measures to streamline processes, but I understand potential concerns over the safety and oversight of regulated products. As the saying goes, one person’s safety standards may be another’s red tape. That was something that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, alluded to.
We welcome that there was a consultation between April and June 2024. I understand that, while there was broad agreement in principle, there were some concerns and disagreements, which I would like to ask the Minister about today. Before I do that, I shall pick up on the issue of GMOs. Let me clear—I have nothing in principle against GMOs, but for consumers it is important that there is labelling, so that they can make that choice in an informed way. When we were in the European Parliament and negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the US and made the point about labelling GMOs, what was interesting was that the US negotiators would say, “That’s a non-tariff barrier”. If the Government intend to label GMOs, is that an issue that will be brought up in future trade negotiations? The Minister may not be able to answer that immediately, but perhaps she can write to us about it, or ask her colleague who is taking through trade issues at the moment.
The Government claim that these changes will provide businesses with quicker approval times, increasing the return on investment and stimulating innovation. That is of course to be welcomed, but we should always be aware of two things. What happens in the case of negative unintended consequences, and what happens if new evidence comes to light that shows that a product authorised under these terms presents previously unforeseen risks to public health or the environment? That is something that other noble Lords referred to. In a situation where regular renewals are no longer required, can the Minister assure your Lordships if and how products covered by this regulation will be reassessed, if any new data emerges that suggests that they are not as safe as originally thought, especially if these products are already on the market?
I understand that the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland have the power to conduct evidence-based reviews if new information surfaces, but can the Minister assure us that a less regular review mechanism will not compromise safety? I think that she mentioned the phrase “where necessary”. Can she put more meat on the bone and explain a bit more what that means? What mechanisms are in place to ensure that products remain compliant with safety standards over time? We know that regulation is often outpaced by innovation, so how do the FSA and the FSS plan to stay ahead of new risks or scientific developments with less regular oversight than these renewals once provided?
The second potential concern is that the Government do not appear to have conducted a formal impact assessment of these proposals. Given that these regulations will affect a significant number of products and legislative instruments, could the Minister tell noble Lords whether it is correct that no formal impact assessment was conducted and, if not, why not? Was there an informal impact assessment of any kind, and why was it decided that no formal impact assessment would be needed? Can the Minister assure the public that the full range of potential risks and benefits has been properly assessed?
Finally, as noble Lords may know, I spent 14 years in the European Parliament—not as long as my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Moraes. I was often frustrated by EU regulations, because they were more often than not based on the precautionary principle, or the over-precautionary principle, rather than the innovation principle. It is important that we get the balance between innovation and precaution right—I welcome that. I am not necessarily against divergence between UK and EU regulations, especially when it allows innovation, but could the Minister tell your Lordships what conversations the Government have had with EU counterparts and colleagues in Northern Ireland about the potential impact of these regulations on the Windsor Framework?
Overall, while these Benches welcome the regulations, I hope that the concerns expressed during the consultation, and today by other noble Lords, can be addressed by the Minister.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their valuable and considered contributions to the debate today. I re-emphasise the main point I made in my opening comments: removing automatic renewal processes and statutory instrument requirements will not lower food safety or standards. I am grateful for the support from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and for her bringing to bear her experience across relevant departments, as well as from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Lord, Lord Kamall.
I have heard a number of concerns, including from the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Walmsley. I understand the points made, and I hope that I can reassure them further from my opening comments. I am very happy to follow up where I have not got the ability, time or wherewithal to answer the questions.
The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, asked about ministerial decision-making and the assertion of the non-discrimination principle. These reforms do not change what is in place to maintain the functioning of the internal market Act. Differences in approach will continue to be managed through the relevant common frameworks. I reassure not only the noble Baroness but other noble Lords that the FSA and the FSS are strongly committed to achieving a four-nation consensus, in line with our commitment to the food and feed safety and hygiene common framework. Decisions by Ministers in England—which will be from the Department of Health and Social Care, to the point brought up by the noble Baroness—as well as Scotland and Wales, will still be required for authorisations in their respective nations.
The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, asked about processes that will be followed with the removal of the renewals process. This SI does not change current GMO labelling requirements, which I know was another matter of concern to other noble Lords. Products that contain or consist of GMOs must be clearly labelled as defined in current legislation. Nothing will change in that regard. Following the reforms, businesses will continue to be required to notify the FSA and the FSS, if they have any new information which might affect the suitability of a validated laboratory-based method for the identification, detection and qualification of GMOs, something that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, was also concerned with.
To the point about the SLSC, it is suggested that the House may wish to consider the steps proposed to maintain parliamentary oversight. However, proportionate processes are in place for sufficient scrutiny of authorisation decisions, such as public consultation and the publication of safety assessments and authorisations. It is an important point that the authorisation process remains open and transparent. The SLSC recognised that this aligned with the processes used by other UK regulators.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I do not wish to labour the point too much, but when a statutory instrument is presented to this Committee, we have the opportunity as parliamentarians to look at it. How will we be informed of the renewals if they are on a register? Do we have to ask someone to notify us? How do we know? At the moment, it is automatic; in future, it will not be.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I understand the point the noble Baroness is making. I will turn to the point about the availability of information, which was also the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, made. However, details of applications and authorisations will actually be more publicly available than they are currently. I hope that will be helpful. Of course, as we know, Ministers must provide reasoning if they disagree with FSA and FSS advice when they are making their decisions. In order for the public and anybody—including Parliament—to scrutinise regulated product applications and authorisations, all those tools and resources will be available.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, suggested a reporting mechanism. I am happy to look at that and will take into account what she said. But I say to noble Lords—and I know they know this—that statutory instruments are not the only way in which to hold matters to account, nor are they always the best way to ensure transparency and openness. We are seeking to be more transparent and ensure that we make this an easier place for industry, the public and others to work in—which most noble Lords welcomed.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
There may be a legal obligation on companies to act, but we have seen again and again that, with the profits versus the costs of them identifying a problem and being prepared to go public and go to the Government about it, the legal requirement is not much of a safeguard.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I understand that. It is why these reforms build on existing powers, whereby the FSA and FSS can request information for the review. It is of course in the interests of businesses to proactively provide it. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, where necessary, approvals can be modified, suspended or even revoked if a safety concern has been identified. That will not change.
To return to the point I was making previously, when, or if, new safety evidence emerges, it will inform whether authorised products are safe to remain on the market at any time, instead of—this is the reason for this statutory instrument—working to arbitrarily fixed renewal timetables, which burden industry and the public sector with comprehensive reviews for all products, whether they are needed or not, even when there is no evidence to suggest that one is needed. The evidence shows that this move is generally in the desired direction to be working.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked whether more should have been done in the Explanatory Memorandum to point out issues. As I listened to her, I wished that we could all predict what needs to be answered. Importantly, the FSA responded to all the questions raised by the SLSC, which was reassured by the responses. I hope that noble Lords agree that the FSA has been most helpful there.
On the question asked by the noble Baroness about sufficient resources and systems, it is anticipated that a relatively small number of authorisations will require a review on the basis of safety, as compared to the large number of renewals currently processed. I would expect that to be very manageable.
The noble Baroness also asked whether reports are always sent, whether they are always complete and whether that would give confidence. An evidence-based review system will ensure that already-authorised products are reviewed based on risk and new evidence rather than, as I said, on a fixed timetable. Reports are indeed provided and completed, but this change will make that even more doable and meaningful, and that is the reason for the change.
As I said earlier to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who made a suggestion about Written Statements being made, I will certainly take that away and reflect on it—as I will do for all of the points that were raised. With that, I thank noble Lords for their interest in and scrutiny of this SI.
Neonatal Care Leave and Miscellaneous Amendments Regulations 2025
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
That the Grand Committee do consider the Neonatal Care Leave and Miscellaneous Amendments Regulations 2025.
Relevant document: 16th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Information and Technology (Baroness Jones of Whitchurch) (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted to bring these regulations, which were laid before the House on 2 January, forward under the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023, which originated as a Private Member’s Bill during the previous Parliament. I pay tribute to Stuart McDonald—the former Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East—and the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, for successfully steering that Private Member’s Bill through the various stages in both Houses to secure Royal Assent in 2023. The Act establishes new statutory entitlements to neonatal care leave and neonatal care pay for employed parents if their child starts to receive neonatal care within 28 days after birth and goes on to spend seven or more continuous days in care. These regulations are another step towards the implementation of neonatal care leave and pay in April this year, and they are the first to be brought before the Committee under the powers of the Act.
Currently, there is no statutory entitlement for parents of children who require neonatal care. Until now, parents in this difficult situation have had to rely on using other existing rights, such as maternity leave or annual leave, in order to be there to care for their baby and to support their partner. This approach has caused additional stress for parents. Some mothers have reported that they had to leave work because they were not ready to return at the end of their maternity leave. Because paternity leave is limited to two weeks, some fathers and partners have to rely on statutory unpaid parental leave or the compassion of their employers in order to take time off work.
Around 40,000 babies spend over one week in neonatal care each year. Once neonatal care leave and pay comes into force in April 2025, we estimate that around 60,000 parents will be eligible and that around 34,000 parents will take up paid neonatal care leave each year.
What do the SIs do? Neonatal care leave will enable eligible parents to take a minimum of one week and a maximum of 12 weeks of leave, in line with the number of weeks for which their baby receives neonatal care, on top of their other parental leave entitlements. Neonatal care leave will be a day 1 right for employees.
Statutory neonatal care pay, like other family-related pay rights, will be available to employees who also meet continuity of service and minimum earnings tests. Eligible employees must have worked for their employer for at least 26 weeks ending with the relevant week and must earn, on average, at least £125 per week before tax. If eligible, the parent will be able to claim a flat rate of £187.18 per week in the 2025-26 financial year, or 90% of their average earnings, whichever amount is lower.
Employers will administer the statutory payment on behalf of the Government. Small employers will be able to recover 103% of their statutory payment from the Exchequer, while larger employers can recover 92% of payments, and will therefore incur wage-like costs equivalent to 8% of the statutory payments they make. A similar arrangement applies for all other existing statutory parental payments.
Together, these regulations will provide protection and support for parents at an incredibly challenging time. These entitlements provide a floor, and employers can and should go further if they are able to.
We have consulted extensively with stakeholders, including charities and business representative organisations, to ensure that these regulations balance the needs of parents and businesses. These groups agreed that the proposed reforms would provide substantial benefits to businesses, including retaining the skills and knowledge of their current employees.
I will now explain a few points of detail in the regulations. These have been developed through consultation, including with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS professionals.
We have designed a definition for neonatal care that encapsulates the different ways in which babies receive it, going beyond the walls of hospitals and including outreach care. This could include care that takes place within the family home, provided it meets the relevant criteria.
We have included outreach care in the eligibility criteria to capture the many ways in which babies receive care, and also to prevent a postcode lottery, where parents of children who receive the same clinical treatment may qualify in one area, as they receive treatment in hospital, but not in another, as they receive treatment at home through an outreach care programme.
To ensure that as many parents as possible are eligible, the definition of “parent” in the regulations encompasses adoptive parents, foster-to-adopt parents and intended parents in surrogacy arrangements. Those who meet this definition would also be required to have responsibility for the upbringing of the child and be caring for the child at the time of taking their leave and pay.
Having a baby in neonatal care is a difficult experience for any parent, whether the baby is admitted for one day or for many months. However, this entitlement will focus on parents of babies who experience prolonged stays in neonatal care, as they will be in most need of additional support. The qualifying period of neonatal care, as set out in the Act, will be a minimum of seven continuous days beginning on the day after the one on which the care starts. Starting the clock at 00.01 am—one minute past midnight—of the day after the child is admitted creates a consistent approach that does not vary from baby to baby.
Baroness Wyld (Con)
My Lords, I rise to support these statutory instruments wholeheartedly, and thank the Minister for setting them out so comprehensively and clearly. It was a great privilege to sponsor the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Bill in this House. I am most grateful to Minister Justin Madders in the other place for writing to let me know that these SIs would be introduced.
The definition of neonatal care that the Government have arrived at is very good. Clearly, a lot of meticulous work went into that. At the end of last year, I finished serving on the Preterm Birth Committee, so brilliantly chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Patel. I reflect that, as with this Bill, it is so important that policy developments are rooted in the experience of families, as the Minister set out. As she said, these families are going through the most difficult situation.
I shall try to keep my remarks brief, but I wanted to put on the record my thanks to all the organisations and campaigners—and particularly the parents who told me their stories, and who have come back now and said what an impact this change will have. I thank Bliss for its briefings and for keeping up the pace on this. I reflect that, when the parents have come and campaigned, they have never asked for the world. They appreciate that, as the Minister said, one has to balance the needs of employers and employees, which is why the consultation with stakeholders that she referred to was so important.
This has been one of the best examples of cross-party working. When I came to this House, I never thought that I would work with the SNP, but it was a real pleasure so to do with Stuart McDonald in the other place in the last Parliament. I am proud that it was a Conservative Government that backed this Bill, but I also want to be generous of spirit and pay tribute to the Labour Party. When it was in opposition, it was incredibly helpful in getting this through. It was designed in close consultation with employers. As the Minister said, we always said that we hoped that employers would go further where and when they could. I just reflect that, as we go into future discussions about employee relations, dialogue is absolutely essential to ensuring that we can produce outcomes that everybody can get behind.
The Minister will be aware that groups of families will not be able to access this pay because of their different employment statuses. Can she say something about what the department is doing to look at what we might do in the future on that? She talked about making sure that HMRC is prepared, which will obviously involve raising awareness of these regulations and this change. Bliss and others have done a great job, but there is more we can do to make sure that parents know they are entitled to this—just to ease that anxiety.
This provision should make a real difference to many families—and families have told me that it would have done, if it had been there when they went through this. I hope that a lot of families will be spared some of the stress and worry that comes at the most difficult time. I thank the Minister once again for bringing these instruments before the Committee.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comprehensive introduction of these regulations. We on this side of the Committee support the introduction of these statutory instruments. As my noble friend Lady Wyld mentioned, the Conservative Party made a clear and firm commitment in its 2019 manifesto to introduce neonatal care, and it would be very remiss not to join the Minister in praising my noble friend Lady Wyld for her sponsorship of this Bill through the House of Lords. Her commitment was instrumental in delivering the Act, and she deserves enormous praise for that.
It is with a measure of cautious optimism that we now find ourselves in a position to support these measures—so long as we continue to build on the sensible and pragmatic improvements to workers’ rights that we, as Conservatives, introduced during our time in government. It was under our stewardship that we introduced shared parental leave, which affords families greater choice and flexibility. We also instituted carers’ leave, which granted employees valuable time off to care for their loved ones. Furthermore, we championed flexible working arrangements, giving both employers and employees the autonomy to determine working practices that best suit their needs.
As a result of these reforms, Britain now boasts one of the most generous systems of maternity and paternity leave anywhere in the world, ensuring that families are afforded the opportunity to spend vital uninterrupted time with their newborns. These advancements were not made in isolation; they were achieved, as my noble friend Lady Wyld said, through active dialogue and consultation with businesses and employees alike. That is how changes of this type should always be introduced; the Government may wish to take note.
I turn to the effects of this instrument, which aims to support employed parents of children born on or after 6 April 2025 whose babies require at least seven days of neonatal care within 28 days of birth. This measure is clearly a step forward, offering up to 12 weeks of paid leave for parents—one week for each week a child spends in neonatal care. The Official Opposition support this but there are questions to consider. How will the Government ensure that businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, manage these measures? Will the Government provide sufficient guidance and support to help employers navigate these changes smoothly? I notice that the Explanatory Memorandum says that guidance will be published before the regulations come into effect, but can the Minister reassure us that the guidance will be publicised widely and made available to employees? That may go some way to ameliorating the one-off cost of just over £4 million that the Minister pointed out would be an effect of these measures.
Additionally, although the Government have provided the statutory payment of £187.18 per week—or 90% of average earnings, whichever is lower—do they think this amount will be sufficient for parents to fully support themselves and their families during these challenging times? As my noble friend Lady Wyld pointed out, we hope that employees go further if they can, but, as she and I have said, we need to bring businesses with us.
There are several important questions regarding the scope and accessibility of these regulations. Although the provisions are designed to be inclusive, allowing parents in surrogacy arrangements and adoptive parents to take leave, what steps will the Government take to ensure that employers are fully aware of these provisions? How will they guarantee that leave is genuinely accessible to all those entitled to it, regardless of their work history or specific circumstances? Additionally, although businesses will be able to reclaim a portion of the statutory payment from HMRC, how will this process work in practice? Will the Government provide adequate support to help employers navigate the process smoothly, ensuring that there are no delays or confusion?
It is equally important to ensure that there is public awareness. The Government have indicated the development of a communications and stakeholder engagement plan to inform parents, employers and the public about these changes, but how will that work in practice? How will the Government ensure that the information reaches all parents, particularly those who may be unaware of their entitlement to neonatal care leave or pay? Can the Minister guarantee that the plan will be robust enough to reach every eligible family?
We support these measures but we must continue to scrutinise their practical implementation. Neonatal care leave and pay represent a significant step forward in supporting families during one of the most challenging periods of their lives. However, as with any new entitlement, the devil may well be in the details. How will the Government evaluate the success of these regulations over the first few years? Will there be a formal review mechanism to assess whether the scheme is meeting the needs of parents and businesses? It would also be most instructive to know how many parents are using this entitlement—whether it is the 60,000 estimated, or more, or less.
As I have asked a couple of times, how will the Government ensure that businesses, especially smaller ones, can manage the additional burden of these regulations? Will the statutory pay rate be sufficient for families already facing financial pressures? How will the public and employers be fully informed to ensure that the provisions are accessed effectively? Most importantly, can the Minister comment on the support that may be available to parents in Northern Ireland, as I believe these measures apply only to the mainland?
I look forward to hearing the Government’s responses to these questions and to ensuring that these regulations are implemented in a way that truly benefits the parents and children who need them most.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the support across the Committee for these regulations. Again, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, who rightly paid tribute to the parents and campaigners; I absolutely echo that point. Without that pressure, which all Governments have received, these measures simply would not have come forward. We are very grateful for the campaigners and the parents behind all of this. The noble Baroness also mentioned cross-party working. Private Members’ Bills are often a good illustration of that; I know this from the ones I have been involved in.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, asked about the people who might be excluded. That is a good question and goes some way to answering the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. We are just setting a minimum standard here, of course. This is a minimum standard, but we encourage employers to go above and beyond it. Many do so already and recognise the benefits that this brings to their businesses. We will keep this whole issue under review; the charities and campaigners will require that of us, I think, going back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. We will want to see how the rollout goes but this is a good start. As with many regulations, we want to embed this measure before we do any further evaluation of it.
The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, asked about making sure that we have a smooth implementation so that everybody knows what is going on. My officials are working with HMRC to develop and publish guidance on GOV.UK, which will explain the requirements of the legislation. In developing this guidance, we are undertaking user testing to ensure that it is fit for purpose. Ahead of implementation, my officials have been engaging with stakeholders—including employer groups, payroll providers, IT software developers and ACAS charities—and ensuring that we have posters in neonatal wards to advertise the benefits; I hope that that will make sure that the word spreads as widely as it possibly can.
I am grateful to the noble Lord for talking about some of the other measures and family-friendly policies that the previous Government introduced. I was pleased to hear about those; I hope that it bodes well for the debates that we are going to have on the Employment Rights Bill when we come to it in due course.
In the meantime, the provisions outlined in these SIs will provide for new parents with babies in neonatal care the ability to benefit from additional time off as a day 1 right. We should not lose sight of how important that is. Currently, many working families across the UK are having to return to work while their babies are sick and receiving care. As I said before, some mothers are also having to leave work because they are simply not ready to return to work. These measures aim to address some of the difficulties that thousands of parents face when their babies are in neonatal care or afterwards. They are a huge step forward.
We hope that the change in the law will also send a signal of encouragement to employers about the significance of recognising the struggles that parents go through when their very young child is unwell and of the need to provide them with appropriate support in all ways—not just with leave and pay but in other forms of support as well. Of course, I acknowledge that many employers are already providing that support to parents, but there is more that they can do; we all have an education role to play in all of that, I think.
In the meantime, I again thank noble Lords for all their comments.
Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (General) Regulations 2025
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
That the Grand Committee do consider the Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (General) Regulations 2025.
Relevant document: 16th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
Industrial Training Levy (Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2025
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Smith of Malvern
That the Grand Committee do consider the Industrial Training Levy (Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2025.
Relevant document: 18th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments for the scrutiny they have provided to this order. This statutory instrument, laid in draft on 5 February, will allow the Construction Industry Training Board to raise one more year of levy on the construction sector to fund training. In particular, I welcome the £40 million from levy funds that the CITB is investing in homebuilding skills hubs to support the Government in reaching our 1.5 million homebuilding target.
The CITB’s latest figures state that the construction sector contributes £186 billion to our economy and employs 2.1 million workers—unquestionably a significant part of the UK economy. However, the sector’s reliance on subcontracting and self-employment means that investment in workforce skills is too frequently left to others to prioritise. This levy order reflects the key role that industry plays alongside government in making its workforce safe, competent and increasingly productive.
Established in 1964 with a remit across England, Scotland and Wales, the CITB’s legal purpose is to encourage the provision of construction training. It is a purpose that, some 60 years on, the independent 2023 ITB review found is still needed, due to what the lead reviewer, Mark Farmer, identified as “ongoing market failure”. His report accepts that the current ITB model, a statutory levy system for construction employers, remains the best way to fund such training. The CITB also remains a key partner with government and is an important player in our plan for change. It will work closely with Skills England when it emerges from the passage of legislation through these Houses.
Over the last three years, the CITB has used levy funding to support almost 69,000 apprentices, given grants to over 44,000 businesses and delivered masterclass courses in areas including roofing and bricklaying. This order is the vehicle to bring in just under £224 million of focused funding from the construction sector for the CITB to deliver training and skills activity to support our missions. I trust that noble Lords will continue to support this approach of levy funding training within the construction industry.
Before I outline the details of the SI, I will address the duration of this order. The primary legislation permits a one-year levy order without consensus, the process of consulting with industry, as long as certain criteria are met. The CITB wanted to give industry time to consider the impact of the ITB review before debating its support for three years of levy payments through the usual consensus process. With the delayed ITB review publication truncating the available time before current levy income runs out, the CITB provided me with levy proposals for one financial year. With the ITB review now published, the CITB will start consensus next week on proposals for a 2026 three-year levy order and will listen and respond to industry views in earnest on that.
I turn to the details of the SI. This one-year order retains the levy assessment rates prescribed by the three-year 2022 order: 0.35% of the earnings paid by employers to directly employed workers and 1.25% of the contract payments paid to indirectly employed workers. The levy order exemption threshold means that employers with an annual wage bill of below £135,000 are exempt from paying any levy at all. The CITB estimates that 69% of in-scope employers fall into that category. The levy order reduction threshold provides a 50% reduction for employers who pay a wage bill between £135,000 and £449,999. A further 15% of employers are in scope of this provision and would pay reduced contributions.
Both thresholds have been increased from the 2022 order to prevent employers who have increased employee wages exceeding the limit and facing new or increased levy rates. Employers who are exempt or pay reduced levy rates are still eligible to claim CITB support. The large volume of eligible employers is counterbalanced by the amount of levy paid by larger employers, enabling the few to support the many for the wider benefit of the construction industry.
In lieu of the typical consensus process, the CITB sought views on the one-year proposal from its 14 prescribed organisations, sector federations representing around 30% of all levy-paying employers and the nation councils for England, Scotland and Wales. The vast majority were supportive, and subsequent industry engagement via CITB comms channels and engagement with trade media has not attracted any dissent over a one-year approach. With the ITB review and the CITB’s strategic plan now published, industry is in a much stronger position to enter consensus for the 2026 proposals and make informed decisions.
In conclusion, I have confidence that your Lordships’ Committee will have suitably scrutinised the impact assessment that was laid with the levy documentation; this articulates how the CITB proposes to spend the levy raised by this order. This spend is focused on activities that support the Government’s ambitions to deliver on the plan for change, especially in commitments to build 1.5 million homes in this Parliament and to drive growth for the good of the nation. This order will enable the CITB to continue carrying out these vital training responsibilities. I beg to move.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I always remember how the late Lord Andrew Stunell, who was a spokesperson at one stage for the construction industry, used to rage at us about the huge shortages in every branch of construction. He said, “Just imagine, if we were able to fill these vacancies, how we would be able really to boost the economy and opportunities for young people”.
With an estimated 250,000 extra construction workers needed between now and 2028, it is vital to look at a wide range of ways in which to increase the number of new entrants to the recruitment pool, creating a more diverse workforce. One problem is the mismatch between supply and demand; individuals find it hard to find the right route into a role in construction, and it can be economically challenging for employers to invest in apprenticeships and new entrants.
Better pathways need to be created into the industry. Construction needs to grow apprenticeship starts, which are the main source of industry recruitment at entry level. In addition, around 30% of further education learners need to be able to progress to an apprenticeship or job in construction by assuring employers that they have the skills and experience they need.
Another problem is retention. Better retention of trainees and current workers in construction can significantly reduce skill shortages. Nearly 60,000 new entrants leave the industry each year. We need to retain the current workforce—many leave due to preventable reasons, such as poor workforce culture or limited career progression. Developing a training and skills system to meet the current and future needs, with CITB working with Skills England, will, I hope, start to reverse the problems we face. We very much welcome the levy.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak on this draft order, which, as the Minister set out, directly impacts the future development of the construction sector’s workforce. As we heard from the Minister, the CITB has been responsible, for the past 60 years or so, for ensuring that the sector has the skilled, diverse and competent workforce that it needs to meet both current and future challenges.
However, as we heard, following the 2023 review of the industrial training boards led by Mark Farmer and published in January 2025, it is clear that we need some radical changes to the way that we address the structural skills shortages in the construction sector. So we are left with a one-year SI, which of course is far from ideal from the perspective of the sector, but we accept that it gives time to work out an alternative approach. I hope the Minister will be relieved to hear that I think there is little to debate in relation to this SI, which I imagine will mark the end of an era, but it gives us an opportunity to hear from the Government about how they plan to deliver on the recommendations of the Farmer review.
I thank Mark Farmer, on behalf of these Benches, for his leadership of the review and his approach to analysing the challenges that the sector faces. His review does not mince its words, if that is the right phrase, by underlining the extent of the challenge facing the sector and the need for radical change in the way that skills are developed.
We welcome his focus on the need for a “competent, productive and resilient” industry, with the capacity to deliver on the nation’s critical infrastructure projects while ensuring high standards of quality and safety, and
“a ruthless focus on addressing the future workforce capacity, capability and resiliency challenges set out in this review”.
His recommendations are clear in terms of merging the ITBs into a single workforce planning and development body for construction and construction engineering, supported by a statutory levy. The shortages in the workforce that employers face are shown starkly by the combination of wages rising far faster than the national average while productivity has fallen. In the words of his review, these are
“crucial lead indicators of the industry’s future trajectory and represent a direct challenge to the effectiveness of the ITBs over the last 15-20 years”.
The review highlights the continued reliance on labour intensity but, sadly, appears to conclude—if I have understood correctly—that there are still too few incentives for individual businesses to markedly review that reliance through capital deployment or production model reforms. Of course, one unintended consequence of the increases in employers’ national insurance contributions might be more capital investment, but surely this is a clear call to the Government to create exactly the incentives that are currently lacking if the productivity of the sector is going to see the kind of step-change improvement that it needs. I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on that.
The review also argues for
“a pivot in levy spend with a more forced redistribution for maximum industry impact”—
I love that; it is so direct. The review argues for
“more efficient industry drawdown and mobilisation of both ITB levy and apprenticeship levy”.
How can the Minister reassure the Committee that this will happen in practice and within the next year?
That leads me to the Government’s response to the review, which is where I began to worry. I reassure the Committee that, although my speech is longer than I had planned, it will not cover all 40 or so pages of the Government’s response. I absolutely know and believe that the Minister is very focused and cares a great deal about delivering on this area, but some of the responses left me very uneasy, and I would be grateful for her reassurance on this.
As the Minister said in her opening remarks, recommendation 1.1 is that the ITB model should be retained in terms of its “basic statutory mandate”, but it goes on to say that
“its strategic priorities, core capabilities and activity require wholesale transformation. This all needs to be ruthlessly focused on addressing the fundamental workforce resilience challenges facing the construction and engineering construction industries”.
The DfE response is:
“Meeting the skills needs of the next decade is central to delivering the government’s missions across all regions and nations. This government is committed to ensuring we have the highly trained and more productive workforce needed to deliver the national, regional and local skills needs of the next decade, aligned with the new Industrial Strategy and government infrastructure and built environment commitments. In this context, we agree that there is still a case to maintain the Industry Training Boards (ITB) in their basic form. The construction and engineering construction sectors recognise both ITBs service and that training levels would be negatively affected without the ITB model and are broadly convinced of each organisation’s value”.
I do not know what the Minister thinks, but that does not feel to me like the “ruthlessly focused” tone of the recommendation.
Recommendation 1.3 of the review is:
“Proposals to implement the recommendations set out below should be developed quickly with agreed milestones to be monitored by DfE. If DfE”—
I emphasise that—
“is unsatisfied with progress it should reconsider the viability of the ITB model”.
The department’s response says:
“Department for Education (DfE) officials will update ministers on progress as part of the implementation plan, with a view to commenting on the ongoing viability of the ITB model. This assessment of progress will be undertaken in conjunction with wider reform of the skills landscape, focussing on the introduction of Skills England and the Growth and Skills Levy (in England)”.
I had a couple of other examples, but I think my point rests.
I would be grateful if the Minister could address the question raised by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in its remarks on the SI in its report. It said that,
“for the future period, agreement with the industry will be sought when there is little clarity about how the CITB will operate and, therefore, what the levy will be funding”.
Finally, in its briefing for this debate, the CITB explains that £143 million—over 12%—of the funds raised from the levy over the life of the Parliament will be spent on
“running the business, including grant and levy administration”.
I work out that this is about £28 million a year. I wondered how that compared with the projected budget for Skills England and what the Minister thinks about this as a level of running costs. Can this money, together with that of the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board, be put to use in addressing the urgency and importance of the recommendations in the Farmer review?
As the noble Baroness rightly said, the construction industry is vital for the future of our nation, and it is essential that we take an effective approach to its workforce needs. As the Official Opposition, we support the Government to ensure that the levy works effectively for the next year and hope very much that our concerns about the DfE’s response to the Farmer review prove to be unfounded, and that a year from now we will have a clear and compelling plan for the future of the sector and its workforce.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I thank noble Lords who have attended today for their contributions to this debate—we are of quality rather than quantity. I will endeavour to cover all of the questions raised; where I fail to, I will follow up in writing.
The theme of both noble Lords’ contributions relates to our shared understanding of the challenge for the construction sector to be able to meet current requirements for construction skills and the construction skills necessary to deliver the Government’s plan for change, particularly to build the 1.5 million new homes that we have committed to. I wholly understand noble Lords’ concerns that we need to do more to fill the considerable gaps that exist there. That is why a much wider range of activity will be necessary, such as the important work that the CITB is doing, including the £40 million contribution to housebuilding hubs that I identified in my opening speech, which will make a considerable contribution to construction skills. A much broader approach is going to be necessary from the Government as well.
Such an approach will encompass, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, how we support our further education colleges to deliver the specific skills necessary, how we develop a broader and more flexible offer in the growth and skills levy than has been available up to this point, and how we ensure that the construction industry is making the most of the diversity of those who might be available to contribute to construction skills. The CITB’s analysis shows that just 7.4% of UK construction workers are from an ethnic-minority background and that only 15% of the workforce are female. We can see that there is much more work that the CITB and the industry need to do to ensure that we are developing a construction workforce that reflects the whole of our society and not just part of it. That in itself will enable us to go further in ensuring that people are coming into the industry.
In particular, the CITB in its homebuilding hubs will support individuals to become employment-ready and site-ready. It will support all people wishing to enter the sector, including underrepresented groups, women, and those from black, Asian and other minority-ethnic backgrounds. The Into Work grant supports progression to employment from FE provision. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, identified what is sometimes a leaky pipeline from training into work. There, employers can receive £1,500 if they support work experience and then recruit someone from an FE construction course. That funding makes local employment opportunities in SMEs more viable for employers. In addition, the CITB is funding the training of industry construction ambassadors on fairness, inclusion and respect, to drive improvements in human resources practices and site experience.
The CITB is already undertaking a range of activity. As part of the Government’s skills strategy, there is more that we will want to look at in relation to that pipeline, to support for employers and to the knowledge of employers, in order to take on those who have done training in the construction industry in our colleges so that they can take their place in the industry and maximise the contribution being made.
Introduction: Lord McCabe
Introduction: Baroness Debbonaire
Lord Speaker’s Statement
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
My Lords, I would like to repeat a short Statement for information concerning events on the Parliamentary Estate this weekend.
The safety and security of all those who work on and visit the Parliamentary Estate are the Lord Speaker’s top priority. A review will be undertaken into Saturday’s incident.
The Lord Speaker thanks all those who were involved in helping to ensure that Saturday’s incident was resolved safely. An individual has been charged and the House’s sub judice resolution now applies.
Finally, I remind all noble Lords that we do not discuss the detail of security measures in the Chamber.
Retirement of a Member: Lord Taverne
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
My Lords, I notify the House of the retirement, with effect from Friday 7 March, of the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, pursuant to Section 1 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. On behalf of the House, I thank the noble Lord for his much-valued service to the House.
Personal Statement
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I apologise unreservedly for the comments I made last week during the debate in Committee on the Holocaust Memorial Bill. I realise that what I said was grossly insensitive, and I apologise to the Committee and to the House.
Apprenticeships: Entry Requirements
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
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Baroness Whitaker
To ask His Majesty’s Government how they support people enter the apprenticeship system who have not been able to meet the entry requirements, including on literacy.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, apprenticeships are jobs with training, so it is employers who make recruitment decisions. But we have introduced flexibilities, so that adult apprentices no longer need to achieve stand-alone English and maths qualifications, while strengthening job-specific English and maths training. This will allow more adults to access apprenticeships and support thousands more to achieve them, helping to meet skills shortages in sectors such as construction and healthcare. Apprentices under 19 must still achieve these qualifications, putting them in the best possible position to progress in life and work.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to hear that Answer. But the potential of a very large proportion of 16 to 18 year-olds in the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities—a larger proportion than for any other minority ethnic group—to enter further education and/or to gain the apprenticeship status which could get them employment is still not being realised. In the years 2019-24, their entry into apprenticeships was never more than 170 per year. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that the main reason, the significant drop-off in secondary school attendance and attainment for these children, needs targeted research into the many causes, encouragement of schools to sign up to the pledge to create a Gypsy, Roma and Traveller-friendly environment, and specific interim action; for instance, to expand the relaxation—
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
It is coming—to expand the relaxation of the requirement for level 2 maths and English for young people judged to be capable?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is a valued advocate for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, and her work is important in helping us to understand what more the education system needs to do to enable their achievement. We recognise the issues faced by young people in those communities and want them to thrive, whether at school or in work. I want more people from underrepresented backgrounds to be able to access apprenticeships. I attended a very useful round table with some of our largest employers just this morning to talk about this issue. We are developing new foundation apprenticeships for those starting their careers. This is also an important step towards our youth guarantee of education, employment or training for every young person.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
My Lords, I support what the Government are doing in reducing the levels of numeracy and literacy for apprentices starting. The House should remember that the apprentices of the 18th century who created the Industrial Revolution did not sit numeracy or literacy tests. The colleges for which I am responsible—the university technical colleges—produce 20% of the students in this country becoming apprentices at 18, while schools produce only 4%. As a result of these changes, I am sure that our percentage will increase, meaning that many more youngsters will be able to benefit from high-quality apprenticeship training.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord goes slightly further back in history than I do; nevertheless, I understand and share his view. We expect apprentices to continue to learn the maths skills and the English and communication skills necessary for the occupational standards within which they do their apprenticeship, but not to have to pass a separate qualification in maths and English. I reiterate that we will still expect young people up to 18 to study and achieve qualifications in English and maths.
Lord Laming (CB)
My Lords, the Minister’s response to the noble Baroness’s Question was most encouraging, because she well understands that this generation of young people have experienced a great deal of disruption in their education; not just during but since the pandemic, there has been a great deal of absenteeism in schools, as she knows. Can she assure the House that we will not only encourage this generation of young people but demonstrate to them how much we value their potential?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is absolutely right that we need to work harder to make sure that all children are able to succeed in school and that all young people have the opportunities to then go on in education or training. In the area of apprenticeships, that is one of the reasons for introducing, as we will do later this year, foundation apprenticeships, which will provide that first step on the employment and training ladder for young people who perhaps would not otherwise have been able to access it. We will continue to find ways to ensure that all young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds or those who have faced other challenges in life, can fully achieve the opportunities that they deserve and can make the most of them in their lives.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the vast number of people who have special educational needs—I declare my interests in this field—and who can have their problems in education solved by using voice-activation and readback facilities to access at least English, should be allowed to do so, as these facilities are so readily available? Without them, we would exclude a lot of people with the mere notion of exams or qualifications.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is right that assistive technology can make a big difference both to children in school and to young people as they enter training and higher education. That is why, for higher education, we will continue to ensure that the disabled students’ allowance provides support for students to fully access learning, and why we make specific provision for young people entering apprenticeships who have an education, health and care plan.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, bearing in mind the crucial significance of the maritime sector to our nation’s wealth—and, indeed, survival—can my noble friend the Minister say what we are doing to encourage more maritime apprenticeships both in the Merchant Navy and more widely?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is right about that. I will write to him with some of the details about the occupational standards that already exist to enable apprenticeships in the maritime industry. We have seen a development of these occupational standards, supported by employers and others. I agree with him that ensuring this apprenticeship route—whether into the maritime industry or more broadly, particularly across industrial areas that have been identified in the industrial strategy—is a crucial way to enable growth and opportunities for individual young people.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, the Minister says that the Government are committed to making sure that young people have a good grounding in English and maths. If that is the case, why have the Government cut the number of hours of maths teaching in colleges from four to three hours a week?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
We provided a continuation of the expectation that young people who have not achieved level 2 in English and maths continue to have the ability to study those subjects. We continued the funding to enable that and provided some flexibility for colleges to deliver that in a way that is most appropriate for them.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, what can the Minister say about the plans for the proposed new growth and skills levy? How will that, first of all, increase the number of apprenticeships being taken up by younger people aged 16 to 25—which is disappointingly low—and, secondly, how will it promote greater provision of apprenticeships by small and medium enterprises?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is right to ask us about the growth and skills levy. The current apprenticeship levy and system are—employers tell us—too inflexible and do not allow some of the provision that would ensure precisely that more young people are able to enter apprenticeships. That is why, at the first stage of delivering flexibilities in the growth and skills levy, we will introduce foundation apprenticeships along the lines I outlined, which will encourage far more young people to come into apprenticeships. In doing that, we will also support the small and medium-sized enterprises, which tend to have younger people as apprentices and take more people from disadvantaged backgrounds. We will also introduce flexibility around the minimum length of an apprenticeship, so that in areas where it makes sense to teach the whole standard in a shorter time, or for those who already have a considerable amount of prior learning, that minimum will go to eight rather than 12 months.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, every young person is good at something. Finding that is not always easy. The required level in maths and English for entry to FE and apprenticeships acts as a barrier to Gypsy and Traveller young people. Does the Minister agree that it would be more effective to open up technical and vocational training schemes to these young people, without the need for relevant levels in maths and English, to enable them to fulfil their full potential?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
To be clear, the issue is not that not having maths and English prevents you starting an apprenticeship. That is up to the employer to determine who they recruit to the job that will go alongside the apprenticeship. It also does not stop people from entering college. However, for 16 to 18 year-olds in particular, to ensure that they have the best opportunity to progress in life and they have the basic skills that will enable them to do so, we expect that they then pursue—between 16 and 18—the learning and qualifications necessary to give them those basic skills in English and maths.
High Seas Treaty
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
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Baroness Boycott
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to introduce further measures to protect 30 per cent of oceans by 2030, and to ratify the High Seas Treaty agreed by the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government have created a network of marine protected areas covering 40% of English waters, including the first three highly protected marine areas, which were designated in 2023. They are now focusing their efforts on ensuring that these areas are effectively conserved and managed. We have limited the use of damaging fishing gear in 60% of English MPAs and are now considering the next steps to manage bottom trawling. Legislation to implement the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction agreement, sometimes referred to as the high seas treaty, will be introduced as soon as the legislative timetable allows.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
I thank the noble Baroness very much for that Answer. It is very good news to hear that we are limiting bottom trawling in MPAs, but the point of my Question was to ask whether we have a Bill going through the noble Baroness’s department—or, indeed, the FCDO—which will ratify the global ocean treaty. The UN conference will happen in June. If we have not ratified our treaties, as I understand it, we will not have a seat at the first ocean COP.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The UK will continue to be proactive in preparing for implementation and entry. We are committed to partnering with others, in particular the global South and the Commonwealth Secretariat, to ratify and implement the agreement. We are actively engaging in that. The first meeting will take place at the UN in New York this April. We very much support this, and we are working with others to move forward.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, as Environment Secretary, I visited several marine protected areas in 2023. I accompanied my noble friend Lord Ahmad when the United Kingdom signed the agreement in New York. I am really concerned, given that officials had shared with MPs and Peers last year that a Bill would be ready by the end of 2024. I am sure that there is sufficient agreement on both sides of the House to get this legislation through in time for the conference to which the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, referred. It would be really embarrassing for the United Kingdom not to be a full member of the first UN ocean COP in June.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
Let me confirm that the Government are completely committed to ratification of the BBNJ agreement, in line with our determination to re-invigorate the UK’s wider international leadership on climate and nature. We are working on the measures needed to implement the detailed and very complex provisions of the agreement before we can formally ratify.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, it is great news that we have the high seas treaty in what is otherwise a lawless area of our oceans. However, treaties are no good if they are not enforced, and this treaty does not say how it will be implemented. How does the United Kingdom feel that it can be enforced? Will it lead in that process internationally given its experience of the Blue Belt programme around our overseas territories?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The BBNJ agreement establishes the mechanism to designate marine protected areas and other areas-based management tools in areas that are beyond national jurisdiction. We have commissioned research to develop a shortlist of the potential area-based management tools that we could develop to use in future proposals once the BBNJ agreement comes into force. We believe this will help to ensure that this agreement supports the achievements that are required by the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework target.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, last year I chaired the Westminster conference on marine natural capital. I learned there that while there has been considerable success in designating marine protected areas in recent years, both Defra and the MMO sadly lack the resources, technology and capacity to map, evaluate and patrol the areas that have been designated. If we are to introduce increased designations as well as a policy of marine net gain, how will we ever enforce it if we cannot even audit and protect the areas already designated?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The noble Earl makes a very good point. No law or agreement is worth anything unless we enforce it. That is why we are determined to do all that we can to achieve our 30 by 30 commitments at sea. These are challenging targets—it is important that we acknowledge that. Minister Hardy, who is responsible for this area in Defra, has confirmed her intention to continue working on this and push forward. Enforcement and ensuring that it happens are part of that important work.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, does the Minister share my concern at the intense pressure that our fishing grounds are coming under with a spatial squeeze from marine conservation and 10% of fishing grounds removed through the GB Energy Act? Will she look carefully at this to see that our fishing grounds and future fishers’ livelihoods are ensured?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
Supporting our fisheries is an important part of the work that Defra does. We must ensure that when we work on areas of conservation those who fish are also talked to and understand the implications—and that we understand the impact that any decision has on our fishing fleet. My honourable friend Daniel Zeichner MP, the Fisheries Minister, speaks regularly to those who fish so that we hear their voices as loudly as we hear others.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I am sure that the Minister is well aware that of our marine protected areas only 5% are protected from bottom trawling. Does the high seas treaty mean that when some of our allies, such as Denmark or France, assert that they are okay to bottom trawl in our MPAs, we can stop them?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The key thing that we are doing around bottom trawling is looking specifically at the areas that are most important and need conserving the most. When we look at making agreements with other countries, that is clearly an important consideration, because there is no point in designating somewhere a marine protected area if we do not look carefully at which parts need protecting the most and ensure that damage does not take place. It is good that we have 60% of our MPAs protected, but, clearly, we need to move forward and do more.
Lord Roborough
My Lords, I am sure all noble Lords have seen the potentially tragic news of a serious shipping accident off the Yorkshire coast this morning. I know I speak for all noble Lords in expressing our sympathies and support for the crew, the emergency services and their families. Can the Minister share with the House the nature of the product being carried on the tanker, what risks this poses to the public and the marine environment, and what steps the Government are taking?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for raising this issue. I am sure that we were all extremely shocked and concerned on hearing about the collision that has just taken place in the North Sea. It is an emerging picture; we are still hearing more evidence as to exactly what has happened. I assure the House that we are speaking closely in Defra to the Department for Transport and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which are leading on the government response. They are assessing the situation, as it has only just happened. I assure the noble Lord and the House that Defra’s agencies including the Environment Agency are engaging on any clean-up that is needed and assessing any pollution. We are not sure at the moment exactly what the situation is. There has been a fire, which makes it much more difficult to look at the extent of damage and pollution. We will keep the House updated as we hear further information.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, can I press the Minister a little further on the ratification process for the high seas treaty? Can she confirm that ratification needs to take place before June 2025 if we are to have a voice at the COP process that will take place on the treaty later this year?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
To confirm, the UN ocean conference is a separate meeting. Therefore, it is not a deadline for ratification of the treaty, but we are committed to the ratification.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister not recognise that with areas such as this in which the United States is not participating, it is even more important that we ratify promptly and show that such international arrangements can be made to work even without the United States?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I can only reiterate our commitment to ratifying the treaty.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her warm words, but are they not somewhat at odds with the Government’s wish to turn over the Blue Belt round the Chagos Islands to the Chinese fishing fleet?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I have been talking about the marine protected areas. I do not see that our complete commitment to supporting our blue environment will be at odds with that.
Sudan: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
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Baroness Brown of Silvertown
To ask His Majesty’s Government what support they are providing to women and girls in Sudan, in the light of reports of sexual violence.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)
My Lords, tackling conflict-related sexual violence in Sudan is a priority through our Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict initiative. UK aid is supporting Sudanese survivors of gender-based violence through clinical treatment, dignity kits and psycho-social services. We support the work of Education Cannot Wait, which is providing safe learning spaces for 200,000 vulnerable refugees in Sudan’s neighbouring countries. During our November UN Security Council presidency, I called for greater action to protect civilians following the United Kingdom-led extension of the UN fact-finding mission’s mandate. In April, the Foreign Secretary will convene a conference to galvanise efforts to end the conflict.
Baroness Brown of Silvertown (Lab)
My Lords, last week UNICEF published a harrowing report that described the rape of young girls by combatants in Sudan; four were just one year-old. The US, as the penholder on sexual violence and conflict, has cut almost $30 million from UNFPA’s Sudan refugee support, leaving survivors of sexual violence without life-saving treatment and support. Can my noble friend assure me that the UK will step up to ensure that services for these victims of sexual violence can be delivered across the region and work with partners to further ensure that the warring parties and their proxies are held to account for their heinous crimes?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, the findings of UNICEF’s report on child rape and sexual violence in Sudan are truly appalling. Through the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict initiative, we fund clinical management of rape, safe spaces and mental health support for survivors. Last September, I co-hosted a side event at the UN General Assembly High-level Week to spotlight the issue of conflict-related sexual violence in Sudan, where I called on the warring parties to immediately protect civilians. Through the Women’s Integrated Sexual Health programmes, we provide integrated sexual and reproductive services to women and girls in both IDP camps and non-IDP settings.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, UNHCR reported in December 2023 that underfunding was severely hampering comprehensive life-saving, gender-based violence treatment in Sudan. I am very grateful for what the Minister said about the UK Government’s current work, but we have heard that the UNICEF report said last week that things are much, much worse. Can the Minister say whether UK international aid to women and girls, especially those subject to gender-based sexual violence, will be protected from Treasury cuts?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness. The Prime Minister has made it absolutely clear that Sudan is a priority and will remain a priority through the spending review that we are currently undertaking.
I should reassure the noble Baroness that we have taken consistent action; on 4 and 5 March, Harriet Matthews, director-general for Africa, visited Port Sudan; on 24 February, I hosted a round-table in Geneva with the head of the fact-finding mission to talk about these issues; and of course on 31 January, a UK-sponsored UN Security Council press statement condemned the recent violence in al-Fashir and Sudan.
So we are continuing to focus on this, and that is what the April conference that the Foreign Secretary is convening will be all about—not only making sure that the international community acts on humanitarian support but looking forward to developing a civilian-led coalition that can lead Sudan out of conflict.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lord, notwithstanding the undoubtedly sincere efforts that the Minister makes, what assessment has he made of the statement made today by the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, that the sudden funding cuts by top government donors, which have cut off significant support to humanitarian organisations working to reach some 21 million people, will be a “catastrophic blow”, not least to women and children?
Reinforcing the point made by the noble Baroness who spoke earlier, what is being done to end the culture of impunity, where someone such as Omar al-Bashir can still be on the loose when he was indicted 20 years ago for the crime of genocide in Darfur?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, the US is the largest humanitarian donor in Sudan, providing just under half of the UN’s response, and we are pressing all partners to ensure that aid continues to be committed to Sudan. Far too much of the aid already committed is unable to reach those who need it, and the April conference will focus on that. We remain committed to working with a number of partners, including the US, to ensure safe and unimpeded humanitarian access.
I will also repeat that we continue to support the ICC investigation in Darfur, including allegations of crimes. We are absolutely committed, which is why, in October, we also managed to get wholehearted support at the human rights committee for the fact-finding mission’s mandate to be extended.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, I am sure the whole House will join with the Minister in condemning the appalling sexual violence that is happening in Sudan. We all support him in wanting to see the perpetrators held to account. What steps are the Government taking to make sure that our aid to Sudan is effectively targeted towards protecting women and girls from this terrible violence and exploitation? I ask the Minister again the question posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton: will this work be exempted from the cuts to the foreign aid programme?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I have mentioned before that we have a huge amount of humanitarian aid committed to Sudan that cannot reach the people who need it. The warring parties are stopping it. We had support at the UN Security Council for our resolution supporting the Secretary-General’s call for the protection of civilians. That was vetoed by the Russians for no reason at all, but that has not stopped us continuing to raise the issue of how we need to get humanitarian aid in.
The commitments are there already—we will get it in. As the Prime Minister said, Sudan will be a priority, which is why we have convened this special conference, co-hosted by a number of countries, in London in April.
Baroness Helic (Con)
My Lords, children will be particularly affected by the cruel assaults conducted against them. Will any special support be given to children, and funding given to UNICEF, so that their recovery can be secured as much as possible, even though it will not be guaranteed?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I would urge noble Lords to read the UNICEF report—it is truly shocking. Very young children under the age of 10 are being subjected to these horrific crimes. The report’s findings show that over 200 children have been subject to that sort of sexual violence. The warring parties need to apply the commitments they made in Jeddah. We are absolutely committed to giving those children what support we can. But I cannot believe that they will ever recover from that shocking crime.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, through the initiative of US Representative Gregory Meeks in his position on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, US arms sales to the UAE are currently blocked on the basis, widely reported, that the UAE is supplying arms and funding to the RSF, which is of course responsible, as are both sides in this conflict, for many of the hideous crimes we have been talking about. What is the UK position?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
We have been absolutely clear that the supply of arms to the warring parties should be halted and we have urged all parties to stop. We are aware that some countries are supplying arms to both sides, because they see the conflict continuing as in their interest. We are trying to convene all regional parties to London in April, particularly neighbouring countries, so that we can focus on getting that humanitarian support in and on how we end this conflict. The way to end this conflict is to ensure we have civilian-led leaders who are able to take hold of the country and make sure it remains united.
Sadly, both sides have announced a process for a civilian-led Government. We even had the RSF articulating that here in Parliament. But we have made it absolutely clear that it has to be independent of both sides—truly independent—and civilian led.
UK Poverty 2025
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
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Lord Hendy
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report UK Poverty 2025 published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on 30 January, particularly with regard to in-work poverty.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government value the insights provided by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and its recommendations will be taken into account in the ongoing work to develop a child poverty strategy. Supporting people into good work will always be the foundation of this Government’s approach to tackling poverty. Our proposals and plan to make work pay—including increases to the national living wage and the Get Britain Working White Paper—will increase the number of people in work, help them to progress, improve job security and raise living standards.
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her Answer. Some 68% of working-age adults in poverty and 50% of children in poverty live in a household with at least one wage earner; 38% of those on universal credit are in work; and half the working population of 32 million earn less than the UK median wage of £616 a week. It is plain that the problem is that wages in the United Kingdom are too low. Does the Minister agree that, in the absence of the mythical trickle-down effect, the only realistic way of increasing wages is near universal coverage of collective bargaining?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My noble friend knows more about collective bargaining than anyone in this House, I suspect, and I thank him for that question. He is absolutely right to highlight the scandal of in-work poverty. We should not be in a position where somebody goes to work full-time and cannot support their family. The Government are absolutely determined to do something about this. Our strategy is about trying to get people into good jobs and keep them there, and that they develop in them. For that to work, we have to make sure that all the parties are involved.
We are very committed: do we want an era of partnership that sees employers, unions and government working together in co-operation and through negotiation? For example, we are going to start by establishing a new fair pay agreement in the adult social care sector, consulting on how it will work, learning from economies where it has worked effectively, and then assessing to what extent those kinds of agreements could benefit other sectors and tackle labour market challenges. We all have to do this together. Work should be the way out of poverty, but it will take action to make sure that it is.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, in the press release on the report, the JRF chief executive warned that the social security system was pushing some people into deeper poverty through cruel limits and caps, and that any credible child poverty strategy must therefore include policies that rebuild the tax and social security system after a decade or so of cuts—not further cuts, but actions to ensure that social security provides genuine security and meets people’s needs. Will my noble friend relay that message to her government colleagues, especially in the Treasury?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I always make sure that the comments of all my noble friends—and, indeed, all noble Lords—are conveyed to those down the other end. I absolutely agree with my noble friend that it is incumbent on this Government to do what they can to tackle poverty. One of the things I like very much about the way that the Child Poverty Unit is developing a strategy is that it recognises that we have to do this on more than one front. It is trying to use all the levers available to it, looking at four different areas: how we increase incomes; how we drive down essential costs; how we get interventions, especially at a local level; and how we make sure that we use the whole economy and all the tools available to us across government to tackle poverty and get people into work. I will make sure that her views are heard by those making the decisions.
The Lord Bishop of Bristol
My Lords, JRF has been publishing its analysis of the incidence and impact of poverty for more than 100 years. I have reason to be grateful for its analytical work, but I also see the impact of poverty in my own diocese: in our food banks, which continue to need to grow and are dependent on the voluntary efforts of so many; and in our schools. Our children are going hungry because insufficient income is coming into their homes. Can the Minister elaborate on steps the Government are taking to address the issue of food provision, such as raising household incomes—particularly in the context of the current discussion on benefits—and working with agencies to ensure that emergency food provision, which has sadly become so prevalent, is still available as a last resort?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I thank the right reverend Prelate for that question and pay tribute to those not just in her diocese but across the country who are working so hard—volunteers and organisations, including churches—to support those who need help. The Government are committed to ending mass dependence on emergency food parcels. We recognise that there will always be times when people need emergency help, but I am interested in seeing that there is a wider range of support available.
For example, as the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, has previously described, you can get better support for people so that they can make different choices and move on. The Minister for Employment is today attending the opening of the West Midlands Multibank to learn about the range of support that can be given; for instance, business surpluses are used to support people. In the end, however, the right reverend Prelate is correct: we need to drive up household income so that people do not need to do this. A key way to do that has to be to get people into good jobs, and to support them so that they stay in them and develop in them. We are determined to do that.
Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Wheeler) (Lab)
We will hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, please.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her acknowledgement of the work we do at Feeding Britain—I say this with my Food Foundation hat on. Our recent report The Broken Plate estimates that people who are among the lowest fifth in terms of income would have to spend 45% of it in order to eat a healthy diet, a figure that rises to 70% if the household has children. One thing the Government could do is to ensure that everyone can enrol on the Healthy Start scheme and receive vouchers. They are not that much, but they make a difference because they have to be spent on decent food. At the moment, this does not happen and about 800,000 people are not getting a support that is already there. Can the Minister look at co-ordinating the different systems to make this happen automatically?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for that question; I will certainly look into that and see what else the Government can do. There are a number of programmes, which are not always well known. For example, the holiday activities and food programme, which the noble Baroness will know about, provides in its broadest sense healthy meals, enriching activities and free childcare places for children from low-income families. Bringing together those schemes helps their health, well-being and learning. Also, the Government are committed to developing free school meals. The noble Baroness will know that from this April, free breakfast clubs will be rolled out. We have already picked the first 750 early adopters, which means that more than 180,000 children will begin to benefit—time together in schools learning, and also eating and being ready for the next day.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, the personal independence payment is a benefit for disabled people as well as for those with long-term illnesses, including those who are in work, and it helps with extra living costs. Have the Government formally assessed the impact of any planned changes to PIP on in-work disability poverty? Can the Minister confirm whether freezing PIP will increase poverty levels among this group?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness has been around the game long enough to know that no matter how she tempts me to comment on speculation out there in the papers, if I did that I would at the very least be sacked, if not actually transported. So I hope she will bear with me when I say that the Government will always be aware of and consider the impact of their actions on people across society.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, what is the Minister’s response to findings in the report that the two-child limit is the biggest driver of rising child poverty in the UK today? Scrapping it would lift 300,000 children out of poverty and mean that 700,000 children were in less deep poverty. Does she agree that voters in the last election reasonably expected a Labour Government to end this catastrophic Conservative policy, and, if she does agree, when are they going to get rid of it?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, Labour voters in the last election did not expect this Government to inherit the mess of an economy that we did.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I did not say “£20 billion”; bear with me.
The noble Baroness raises an important point. The Child Poverty Unit is looking at the full range of tools available to it, and it will look at depth of poverty, different family types and all the different levers out there. The noble Baroness will understand that I am not in a position to make any commitments today, but we are absolutely determined to produce a child poverty strategy that will, over time, address the range of challenges in our economy and try to move us towards a sustainable alternative. We need to lift children out of the poverty into which so many were driven in recent years. We have to begin addressing this, but in a systematic and sustainable way.
Lord Katz (Lab)
My Lords, as my noble friend has just said, the JRF report makes clear not only the lamentable performance of the previous Government over 13 years in reducing child poverty, but the importance of housing costs and especially social rents in ameliorating poverty among those in work and out of work. Does the Minister agree that the Government’s noble ambition of building 1.5 million more homes is important, and can she tell the House how they are going to prioritise affordable and particularly social housing as part of that measure?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that excellent question. He has hit on something quite important. If we are going to try to tackle poverty, tackling the cost of housing in our society is fundamental to that, because the housing market is essentially broken. My noble friend mentioned that the Government are committed to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation, but key within that is prioritising the building of new social rented homes. We also need to do more to protect the stock of existing homes, which we are going to do by reforming right to buy.
There will be a housing strategy from this Government which will set out a long-term vision for a housing market that works for communities. It will go through the new actions we are going to take, as well as what we have done. But I can reassure my noble friend for the moment that support is available in the short term from my own department to help those who are struggling with their housing costs. For example, discretionary housing payments can help with advances, shortfalls in rent and rental deposits. We are going to tackle this, short and long term.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
My Lords, that concludes Oral Questions for today. It may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I allow a slight pause before the next business—but that is not a reason for leisurely conversations going in and out of the Chamber.
Business of the House
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
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Baroness Smith of Basildon
That Standing Order 44 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with on 11 March to enable the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill to be taken through its remaining stages that day.
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
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Lord Newby
“Duty to take forward proposals for democratic mandate for House of Lords(1) It is the duty of the Secretary of State to take forward proposals to secure a democratic mandate for the House of Lords.(2) In pursuance of the duty under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must carry out the steps set out in subsections (3), (4), (5) and (6).(3) Within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament a consultation paper on methods for introducing directly elected members in the House of Lords.(4) After laying the consultation paper under subsection (3), the Secretary of State must seek the views on the matters covered by that paper of—(a) each party and group in the House of Lords,(b) each political party represented in the House of Commons,(c) the Scottish Government,(d) the Welsh Government,(e) the Northern Ireland Executive,(f) local authorities in the United Kingdom,(g) representative organisations for local authorities in the United Kingdom, and(h) such other persons and bodies as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.(5) Within 16 months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament a report on responses to the consultation. (6) Within 18 months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament a draft Bill containing legislative proposals on the matter mentioned in subsection (3).”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause imposes a duty on Ministers to take forward proposals to secure a democratic mandate for the House of Lords through introduction of directly elected members.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 11, standing in my name and those of other noble Lords, seeks to take forward proposals for a democratic mandate for the House of Lords.
When we debated Lords reform last November, I set out the reasons why I thought the Lords should be elected. I said then that it should be elected on the basis that in a democracy, laws should be passed by people chosen by the people to act on their behalf. It should be elected because the unelected Lords leads to a geographical imbalance in membership in which London and the south-east are greatly overrepresented and the north, Scotland and Wales are underrepresented. It should be elected because it would almost certainly be more representative of the ethnic diversity of the United Kingdom, and it should be elected because it would be more politically representative. It would contain members of the SNP and almost certainly more members of the smaller parties. By doing all these things, it would help restore the trust that the people have of Parliament—currently at a low level.
We realise that this Bill is not the place to introduce detailed proposals for an elected second Chamber. Instead, the amendment requires the Government to start a process that would lead to the House having a democratic mandate. It requires the Government to produce a consultation paper on methods for electing the Lords. It suggests who should be consulted—including the nations and regions of the United Kingdom—and it sets out a timetable for undertaking the consultation and then for the production of a draft Bill containing legislative proposals for reform.
I do not intend to dwell on the imperfections of the current system of appointing people to your Lordships’ House. Suffice it to say that if we had elections, we would not be worrying about many of the issues that will concern us later today and on further consideration of the Bill. We would not be worrying about the Prime Minister overriding the Appointments Commission to appoint cronies. We would not be worrying about whether Peers did their jobs properly or about the balance between different groups or types of people. In short, it would cut through the Gordian knot of problems that bedevil the current system.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for supporting this amendment. I remind the Committee that in 2012 the proposals for an elected House of Lords were approved in the Commons by a majority of 338 at Second Reading, with the support of both the Conservative and Labour Front Benches and with only 46 Labour opponents and 89 Tories.
On the other amendments in this group, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that consideration would need to be given to the powers and conventions of a reformed House of Lords, but we have to be rather careful that this exercise does not become a pretext for delaying the whole process. I do not see the necessity for the noble Lord’s proposal of a referendum. No referendum was envisaged in 2012, and public opinion has for a very long time been strongly in favour of this House being elected. Again, such a move could be a pretext for delay.
We obviously agree with the sentiments behind the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, but we wanted to put a timetable in our amendment to ensure that, if it is passed, momentum towards reform will not be unnecessarily delayed.
The noble Lord, Lord Brady, would reduce the size of the Lords to 200 and elect people using the first past the post system. I do not believe that the Lords could do its job of detailed scrutiny and a comprehensive range of Select Committees with such a small number of people. The Clegg reforms envisaged a House of 450 and, to do the work we expect of it, that is probably about right. Noble Lords will not be surprised to know that we also prefer a system of proportional representation for the Lords, as for the Commons, for reasons with which the House will be only too familiar.
In sum, we see Amendment 11 and the consequential Amendment 115 as helping the Government to fulfil their manifesto and bring about the long-term future of the Lords on a largely elected, or elected, basis. I commend it to the Committee.
Amendment 11A (to Amendment 11)
Lord Blencathra
“(3A) The consultation paper under subsection (3) must assess the implications of securing a democratic mandate for the House of Lords for its powers and conventions, which may include—(a) the powers of the Lords in relation to money bills;(b) the powers of the Lords in relation to statutory instruments;(c) the Salisbury Convention;(d) the Prime Minister being drawn from the House of Commons;(e) the limitations in the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 on the powers of the House of Lords;(f) the role of the Lord Speaker and their relationship with the Speaker in the House of Commons.”
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, Amendments 11A and 11B would amend the Lib Dem Amendment 11 to say that we should first consult on the role of the Lords, if it were elected, and have a referendum to see whether the public actually wanted an elected Lords.
Let me reassure my noble friends that I am completely opposed to having a consultation paper on this, and to having a referendum. My amendments are a response to the usual deliberate attempts to advance the case for an elected House without first working out how the whole balance of powers between the Lords and the Commons would change if this House were composed of elected Members.
My Amendment 11A seeks to deliver what the Government Chief Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said to the House magazine on 13 July 2021. He said:
“We have to be very clear, what are the powers of the Lords, what do you want the Lords to actually do, and why is it there? Answer those issues, and then we can decide”.
Those were very wise words from the noble Lord. Even the commission chaired by my noble friend Lord Wakeham avoided this by suggesting just 150 elected Peers, so that their membership was so small in comparison to appointed Peers or hereditaries that the supremacy of the Commons would not be challenged.
Then we had the ludicrous Gordon Brown proposals suggesting an assembly of just 200 elected Members from the regions, with our current powers reduced and the Lords just a regional talking shop. I can do no better than quote the words of our new noble ambassador to Washington, who described the Brown proposals as
“a sort of multi-layered cake with an assortment of very diverse ingredients in it with a thin layer of icing at the top, which is called a new second chamber of the regions and nations, which has barely been put in the oven yet, let alone fully baked”.
Thank you, Mandy. So it is raw, not even half-baked—but that is Lib Dem policy for you.
There was one report which suggested 450 elected Members, but most suggest just 300 elected Lords senators. Thus, we would have an elected Lords with about half the number of Lords senators as MPs. Before looking at the new roles of the two elected Chambers, we need to consider who those new senators would be. First, they will all be party-political people—Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem, SNP, Northern Ireland Members—exactly the same as the House of Commons. Just look round this Chamber and see how many here would be selected as candidates. Will the Cross-Benchers form a party? Possibly, but highly unlikely, so we would lose all that expertise. What about the older hands here, those who have had 30 or 40 years’ experience in their various professions, business or industry? Will they apply or be selected as political candidates? Even we older politicians, who have the scars and experience of doing things in government in the past—we will be out too.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, I have signed the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, but I really enjoyed listening to my noble friend Lord Blencathra, who raised many sensible points. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, did not quite give the case for a democratic House as much justice as it deserved. I am sorry to see that most of his Benches seem to be relatively deserted. On the whole, his party has not turned out to support him as ably as I will now try to do.
It is interesting that today we very much turn to a new phase of discussion of the Bill. Last week, we discussed the issue of heredity and whether to fling out certain Peers. I think the Committee broadly agreed, overwhelmingly, that heredity was no longer an acceptable way of choosing a House of Parliament, but there was substantial disagreement about transitionary arrangements, grandfather rights and creating life Peers. No doubt we will return to those at length when we meet again and discuss those amendments on Report.
When discussing a democratic mandate for this House, it is always worth having a look at history—what my noble friend called the institutional memory. I do not think that any of us can go back to 1911, which may not have been the first time that democracy was discussed for this House, but it is a key point because it led to a statute of Parliament which fundamentally reassessed the relationship between the two Houses.
What is important about the 1911 Act is its preamble. I will not quote it exactly, but it said that we should substitute the House of Lords for a Chamber constituted on a popular, instead of a hereditary, basis. That was in 1911 and here we are in 2025, and we are no further to getting that. In the 1920s, after the First World War and the devastation it produced, several commissions looked at the case for an elected House, which came to nothing. In the 1930s, there were other matters. In the 1940s, there was of course the Second World War.
The extraordinary Parliament in 1945, with all those radical Labour policies under Attlee, did so much. Of course, with only a few handfuls of Labour Peers, that Labour Government managed to pass everything they wanted to through this House, which goes to the nub of my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s argument that convention plays an important part in the relationship between these two Houses of Parliament. However, I am not entirely sure that my noble friend was quite so keen on those kinds of conventions existing. They were very powerful in the 1940s, and they are still powerful now.
In the 1950s, there was the introduction of the Life Peerages Act which, at a stroke, fundamentally changed how this House was viewed and injected a good deal of new blood into it. That is what has kept us going ever since. But the dream of democracy did not quite die. Lord Longford introduced a Bill in 1968. That Bill was talked out in the House of Commons by two MPs: Enoch Powell and Michael Foot. They decided that the reason there could not be a democratic mandate for the House of Lords is that it would compete with the House of Lords, and that level of competition was completely unacceptable. The noble Baroness is trying to intervene.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)
I only wanted to correct the noble Lord. He said that they could not have an elected second Chamber as it would compete with the House of Lords; I think he meant the House of Commons. He just misspoke—that was all.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
Anyway, that took us to 1998-99 and the promise in the 1997 Blairite manifesto that there would be a democratic reform. Here we are, 28 years after that, and there is no further movement at all. At the beginning of the century, there were various royal commissions and White Papers, which came up in favour of a more democratic House, but none was pushed forward. I think Prime Minister Gordon Brown had an attempt in 2009-10 at a democratic House. But it was not until the Government of my noble friend Lord Cameron that we saw the introduction into Parliament of a Bill for real democratic mandate—an 80:20 elected House—and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, explained very well what happened to that.
It is worth pointing out in this debate about the democratic mandate that the amendment I have signed is not for an 80:20 elected House; it is for a 100% elected House. That would mean that the House would lose the benefit of the Cross Benches. I think having 20% unelected is extremely important. The Cross-Benchers bring something to this House which no democratic mandate would be able to do. You just have to look at the Cross Benches for an example: former judges, trade unionists, businesspeople, churchmen, archbishops, and so on. They would never dream of standing for an election, but they bring their knowledge and experience to bear to the workings of this House and legislation, which is extremely effective. I am in favour of an 80% elected House, not a 100% elected House.
Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, made the case for a directly elected House. I wonder whether it is worth considering, and whether the noble Lord has considered, that, given the enormous changes in devolution over the last 25 years in our major cities and, of course, in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, there may be a case for looking at the capacity of this House to accept some form of indirectly elected Members, which would perhaps go to stopping what my noble friend Lord Blencathra regarded as too strong a democratic mandate that would challenge the House of Commons.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I have also signed the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and I am surprised and delighted to say that I agreed with every word that he said. I think that there are some real problems with the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I always enjoy his speeches, but he made an awful lot of assumptions in that speech. While it was very entertaining, I am not sure that it would hold up to close examination. Does the noble Lord want to say anything? No.
I am not against getting rid of hereditaries: I think it is a long overdue move. I am extremely fond of some of them—not all of them, but some—and they play the most incredible role in this House. Once they are gone, we will see some really big gaps in all our processes, so we will miss them. However, it is time. It is something that is way past its sell-by date. Quite honestly, my main objection to the Bill is that it is so timid. Why not be braver and think seriously about the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Newby? Why not do something that has really forward-thinking, constructive ideas, rather than just the rather mean-minded blunt instrument of kicking out the hereditaries? I am not defending privilege; I do not like it at all, but in this case, it just seems so petty.
On the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Brady—he has not even introduced his amendment yet, but we all have views on it—I agree that 200 is too small. If I could give my own short history lesson, back in 2013 my noble friend Lady Bennett and I tabled a Bill to redraw the whole House of Lords under PR, and I think that the figure we used was 350, essentially at least reducing this House by half, because we are a bloated, undemocratic, archaic, ridiculously old-fashioned House and it is time to move on.
I am trying not to make a Second Reading speech, but I am not sure I am succeeding. The Labour Government told us they were going to modernise the House, which is fair enough. If I could see that this was the first of many alterations and many different Bills, it would sit easier with me. We have heard that everyone over 80 is going to be kicked out; I personally do not mind that, but the Government have been bringing in new Peers who are over 80; they will not have a very long shelf life. I am curious about that.
I argue that this amendment is a very good one because it covers the crucial aspect of the House being more representative. Certainly, if we had it under PR there would be a lot more Greens, which I know would be very welcome to your Lordships’ House.
Finally, in the Bill I tabled, there was an element of Cross-Benchers—I forget exactly how many, but it might have been about 100—and we can do that under a different form of election. We all agree that Cross-Benchers, hereditary or not, are extremely valuable, and so to lose their skills and expertise would be a mistake. However, I think that one of the first things this Labour Government should do is to stop the ridiculous appointment system by the Prime Minister which brings in people who love having a title but really do not love the work.
Baroness Andrews (Lab)
My Lords, in the interests of institutional memory, I will add a footnote to that. I was very surprised to see the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, as I know his passion for democracy in this House and the way he has pursued it in the Delegated Powers Committee. His explanation was more than welcome.
It occurs to me that in the historical palimpsest that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, offered, the one thing he omitted was the report from the Joint Committee of both Houses in 2011-12 on the coalition Bill. Had the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, served on that Joint Committee, it would have taken two weeks rather than 18 months to write our report. We would have had infinitely more fun and would have come to conclusions that were infinitely crisper and more persuasive. In that report, we took exhaustive evidence from the authors of the Bill, from Ministers, from all the usual suspects and beyond, and—I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, takes some comfort from this—we came to exactly the same conclusions as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has about the dysfunctional relationship that would be set up automatically with the House of Commons.
As we worked through our list of Ministers giving evidence, it became perfectly clear that none of them had asked themselves those questions about the implications it would have for the House of Commons, its legitimacy, its effectiveness and its relationship with the House of Lords. They had not considered whether there would be constituents who had competing notions of what was right or what would happen if we had different parties in command in the two Houses. It was an exhaustive review and there were differences of opinion—the chair was Lord Richard—but it was conclusive in its recommendations: the House of Commons must think again about the Bill it had been presented. It was the last time that either House looked at this issue in depth with any sophistication.
My point is simply—just as the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra and Lord Strathclyde, have said—that this is a constitutional issue of massive significance. It can hardly be dealt with through an amendment to such a narrow Bill on such a narrow point and where, frankly, these amendments have no place anyway. We should be addressing the substance of the Bill. Since the issue has been raised, however, we are right to remember that we had worked out our proper views on the implications of this subject separately in 2012. I wonder what happened to that Bill: why was it ever withdrawn? Unfortunately, the Prime Minister at the time is not in his place; otherwise, we might have been able to get an answer after all these years.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)
My Lords, there is one assumption in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that needs to be questioned, and that is the total identification of democracy with direct elections. There are other forms of democracy that include indirect elections. I was particularly glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, bring this up. The debate has moved on since the time of a great standoff between those in favour of a totally elected House and those in favour of a totally appointed House. Ideas were floated by the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for example, about a House that truly represents the nations and the regions. You can imagine a House that was indirectly elected by the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the English regions. I am not arguing for or against it at the moment; I am just questioning the assumption that the only form of democracy is direct elections. You could have a form of democracy with the indirect elections by the nations and the regions.
I have just one other small point in relation to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. He mentioned the royal commission chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, which I had the great privilege to be a member of. The noble Lord suggested that we had recommended that the elected element would be only a third—150, I think. But, in fact, that commission recommended a series of stages in which the elected element would grow. I think on the commission’s recommendations, it would eventually grow to a majority. It is only a small point but that is what it envisaged.
Lord Brady of Altrincham (Con)
My Lords, in speaking to the amendment that stands in my name, I reassure your Lordships that I neither seek nor anticipate achieving consensus on this point but rather hope to stimulate the kind of debate and discussion that we are already starting to hear in the Chamber this afternoon.
To the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I say that my proposal of geographical constituencies would ensure the kind of geographical spread that he would like to see, possibly more effectively than a PR system would. I am not wedded to a membership of 200, although I think it is reasonable for the House to be smaller, and I suspect it could be a lot smaller.
Unsurprisingly, I agree with a great deal of what my noble friend Lord Blencathra had to say. Perhaps my concern comes down to his central point, which I think we usually fail to address and tackle sufficiently in this discussion: this House does a very limited and specific job and does it very well. The point I made at Second Reading is that the hereditaries are actually at the forefront of that and, on average, contribute more than life Peers do. But given that the Government are determined to change the composition of a House that works so well in that limited and specific function, should we not take a moment to reflect on wider questions, not just how the House should be composed but whether our function should be so tightly confined?
We might also pause to reflect for a moment on what the public think of this House. I note from a YouGov poll just a few months ago that 42% of the public have a negative view of the House of Lords and 49% think it is not useful. By a margin of 62% to 16%, there is support for having no hereditaries. But, also, interestingly, 50% of the public, compared with 22%, say that they oppose a wholly appointed Chamber.
We are moving the composition of the House—I have no doubt that the Bill will become an Act—but we are moving to something that is already disliked and disapproved of by the wider public, and to something that possibly has even less legitimacy than a House of Lords comprising jointly life Peers and elected hereditaries. The justification for the current composition, or indeed for moving to a wholly appointed House, is circular and, in many ways, peculiar. It is deemed essential that the House should lack legitimacy and that its composition should be hard to defend, precisely and deliberately to ensure the primacy of a House of Commons that does have legitimacy, derived from elections.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, I support Amendment 11 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, my noble friend Lord Strathclyde and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.
As I have said in earlier debates, the 1999 agreement always envisaged that the House would, as stage 2 of that agreement, adopt proposals for introducing elected Members to the House of Lords. However, I am not sure that all were firmly agreed that the elected Members should be directly elected. I believe that some kind of indirect election system—perhaps one representing the new estates of the realm, such as the CBI, the TUC, the BMA, the Bar Association, et cetera—should also be considered as an alternative way to introduce a more democratic and representative element of the House’s composition. The difficulty would be in agreeing which organisations should be entitled to select or elect representatives, but the possibility should certainly be explored. An alternative way to select indirectly elected Members of your Lordships’ House might be by granting election or selection powers to devolved legislatures and principal councils.
After the Second World War, and under pressure from the American occupation forces, the Japanese Government introduced constitutional changes that replaced the House of Peers with the directly elected House of Councillors, to which elections from large multimember constituencies are held. This introduced an element of proportional representation. Japan has two elected houses and, while they sometimes clash, the new upper house’s powers are restricted in a similar fashion to those of its predecessor House of Peers, and so it more or less works most of the time. I am not supporting moving directly to an all-elected, alternative second Chamber, but the Japanese example should be closely looked at.
Although I support the outcome that could flow from this amendment, it is wrong to make changes to the membership of the House before shaking the sand out of the shoe. To let the Bill go through with this amendment alone will not guarantee that it would definitely lead to any enactment of a Bill laid before your Lordships’ House and another place.
It is clear that the 1999 agreement was that the 92 hereditary Peers would remain until the enactment of proposals incorporating a democratic element. Nevertheless, I will support this amendment, but I believe the House should also adopt something similar to Amendment 6, as previously debated. I will support my noble friend Lord Lucas if he brings back on Report an amendment that would retain an elected and independent element within your Lordships’ House, which would keep the sand in the shoe. A combination of Amendment 6 and this amendment could well be developed to a level where a programme of change would enjoy a broad level of support across your Lordships’ House.
I also support Amendments 11A and 11B in the name of my noble friend Lord Blencathra, both of which seek to ensure that referenda will be held to make certain that proposals for an elected House really would be enacted with popular support. As my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said, some sort of popular support should be sought in making a constitutional change of this nature.
I cannot support Amendment 70 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, because a review would most probably conclude that a House composed of only appointed Peers and Bishops would lack appropriateness—that is an understatement. Such a review would just be kicked into the long grass.
I like Amendment 72, but I think that the 92—or 88—should remain until the end of the Session prior to the new House being convened, following an election under a new electoral model.
I am not sure about Amendment 90D in the name of my noble friend Lord Brady, although I agree with much of what he said in his most thought-provoking speech. Clearly, a House comprising only 200 Members would have no room for people retaining activities outside the House and would lack the capacity to scrutinise legislation as it does at present, or to operate the number of Select Committees it does today. It would be a very different kind of House. However, I am certainly attracted by my noble friend’s proposal that elections should be held one year later than general elections. That should be considered as a part of any move to a partly elected House.
Lastly, Amendment 115 makes sense. The Bill should not be enacted without the adoption of at least a partial democratic mandate at the same time.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
My Lords, I thoroughly support Amendment 11. People have tried picking holes in it, but it does not say that all have to be elected. It says:
“introducing directly elected members in the House of Lords”.
The proposals, which would be thought through and brought with a Bill within 18 months, could contain all sorts of different proposals, which I know everyone wants to debate in a moment. I will leave that to everybody else because there are some very good ideas in there.
The whole point about Amendment 11 is that it gives voice to that promise of Privy Council oath, given from the two Front Benches, that there would be further democratic reform of the House of Lords. That is what Amendment 11 states, and it puts a time limit on it. Therefore, the Secretary of State has to do something about it, not just kick it into the long grass. We will not be here, but those who follow us will be here to see proper further reform of the Lords, introducing a democratic bit to it. As I said before, without that democratic element, it will eventually have all its powers removed because it will have no democratic legitimacy.
Lord Tugendhat (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Brady spoke very eloquently, but he did not refer to his Amendment 90C:
“A person can only be a member of the House of Lords if they are not a Minister of the Crown”.
I do not know why he did not refer to that, but it is a very bad idea.
One of the most striking features of politics in the more than 50 years since I was elected to the House of Commons is that as the diversity in gender and ethnicity has widened—which is a good thing—the diversity of life experience has narrowed considerably. When I was first elected to the House of Commons, there were people who had a lot of business experience, people who had been active in trade unions—
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, the amendment that the noble Lord is speaking to is actually in group 18, whereas we are starting with group 1. We will debate Amendment 90C later.
Lord Tugendhat (Con)
Then I will move to the other amendment which I wish to speak to and take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Newby.
Democracy is the central feature of our governing system, and the House of Commons must always be the superior House. However, precisely because MPs’ experience has narrowed to the extent that it has, we have seen that the House of Commons has given up on its scrutiny function over time. When I was first elected, guillotines were very rare. They are now very common. Bills come up to this House that have barely been scrutinised.
My question to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and those who support his amendment, is: would an elected House be interested in the scrutiny function? The House of Commons has its representative functions. It does a great deal of useful work in different areas, but in terms of scrutiny it has rather given up the ghost. That has been left increasingly to the House of Lords. That is not a desirable situation, but it is the situation that exists. Would an elected House have the interest in scrutiny that we need? If we did not have scrutiny in the second Chamber, we would not have enough scrutiny at all.
It would be wise to consider that a democratically elected second Chamber is not the only way forward. It may well be better to look at some alternatives and at the function first rather than the form. At the moment, we are all talking about the composition and the form of the House but not its function. If one looks at the function of the House, what system of election, selection, appointment—whatever—would be most appropriate?
The Earl of Dundee (Con)
My Lords, no doubt there are two different ways of furthering a democratic mandate for the House of Lords. One is, as we have heard, through a directly elected House, maybe following a referendum on that principle, as advocated by my noble friend Lord Blencathra in Amendment 11B, and perhaps including a partially or fully directly elected House of 200 Peers with constituencies, as proposed by my noble friend Lord Brady of Altrincham in his Amendment 90D.
The other solution is advocated in a later amendment, Amendment 75, to which the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, and my noble friend Lord Trenchard have already referred. This is through an electoral college, representative of all parts of the United Kingdom and responsible for indirectly electing two-thirds, or 400, political and temporal Members of a reformed House of 600, where one-third, or 200, Members are non-political Cross-Benchers directly appointed by a statutory appointments commission.
It can be strongly argued that this is a much better formula for three reasons. First, it avoids conflict with another place, which direct elections to a reformed House of Lords would lead to, as my noble friend Lord Blencathra eloquently pointed out. Secondly, it is far more likely to preserve our current high standard of legislative and government scrutiny. Thus, thirdly, through this quality function, to which my noble friend Lord Tugendhat has just referred, it would thereby be better in preserving and improving democracy itself in the United Kingdom.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, my Amendments 70 and 72 are included in this group. On recent comments relating to the function of the House, I tried to table some amendments about the function of the House but it is out of the scope of this Bill, so it is not part of what we can debate.
Amendment 70 calls on His Majesty’s Government to review the appropriateness of an unelected Chamber. While I am a Member of this place, it is my mission to see this House abolished and replaced with an elected Chamber that better represents the needs, diversity, backgrounds and lived experiences of people across all four nations. As the late Earl of Sandwich pointed out in his valedictory speech, I will do my duty right up to abolition. My position on an unelected Chamber has been clear from my maiden speech in this place right up to today. An unelected Chamber is inappropriate, outdated and obviously undemocratic. Why is it that the UK promotes democracy at home and abroad, yet fails miserably in ensuring that our own nations are governed by a democratic mandate? With record low levels of trust in politics and a Government who have pledged to restore public confidence in the political system, surely now is the time to radically transform this place.
A recent poll by the Electoral Reform Society found that just 2% of the British public have confidence in the House of Lords. We must ask ourselves why that is. I suggest that an element of distress stems from the fact that this Chamber could not be further removed from the lives of the people we make decisions on behalf of, given that the public have no influence over who gets to become a Member of this place. In fact, the Prime Minister’s hold over appointments to this House was even challenged by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, who said on our first day in Committee on this Bill:
“I simply will not be able to get a life peerage”.—[Official Report, 3/3/25; col. 80.]
We have become a gated community of more than 800 Members, without the public having a say in who those Members are. Democracy is built on the principle that people get to choose; they have a say in how their lives are governed. It seems contradictory that a body with no direct mandate from the electorate should have influence over matters that deeply affect people’s day-to-day lives.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
As we are in Committee, we will all have the opportunity to contribute.
An unelected Chamber is, at best, an assault on democracy. I ask your Lordships to reflect on whether an unelected Chamber is appropriate in 2025. Amendment 70 calls on His Majesty’s Government to do just that. The Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has himself previously stated that it is indefensible. It is time for His Majesty’s Government to act.
I now move to my second amendment in this group—
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
Before the noble Baroness moves to her second amendment—
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes
As we are in Committee, if possible, I will complete my remarks.
Amendment 72 fleshes out how we could have an elected Chamber. There are currently 78 bicameral parliaments globally, with 55 of those being largely or wholly elected. We are an exception to that rule. The UK has one of only two second Chambers without any elected element, the other being Lesotho.
Another poll by the Electoral Reform Society found that an elected second Chamber was the most popular option, with 47% of the British public saying that they should have the power to choose through elections. Does this figure not clearly highlight the public’s desire to see a second Chamber that reflects their needs and values? We are not here to serve our own interests; we are here to represent the people across our nations. If we believe that, which I hope everyone here does, we have no problem in accepting and indeed promoting the abolition of an unelected Chamber in today’s world.
It has been reassuring to see several Members of your Lordships’ House tabling amendments to probe the establishment of a democratic House. I will briefly speak to these amendments before moving on to my own proposal on how we might want to achieve this through Amendment 72. Amendments 11 and 115, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, function as good starting points for reforming the composition of this House, which I support. However, I do not believe that they go far enough in outlining the model that might bring about a Chamber that best represents the people of these nations. However, they have my support in progressing and securing a move to a democratic mandate for this House.
Amendment 72 seeks to address these gaps and offers a further fleshed-out solution. Plaid Cymru believes that proportional representation should be the mechanism used to elect representatives. Specifically, we favour the single transferable vote electoral system. This system allows voters to have a real choice on who represents them by reducing the pressure to vote tactically. I believe this system would establish a second Chamber that is truly elected by the people, creating a balanced Chamber where everyone is represented.
Adopting this system also results in a greater diversity of candidates, with multiple candidates selected by a party. That a second Chamber in the UK desperately needs more diversity if we are to see a more representative legislative body cannot be disputed. This is not wishful thinking; far from it. Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Malta and Scotland already use this system in some of their elections, and noble Lords noted other examples earlier.
Australia’s second Chamber also adopts this system, and it works. This has ensured that the Government are much less likely to control the Senate, meaning that the Senate is not always swayed by changing political tides, and the Chamber more accurately reflects the first voting preference of the electorate.
While I firmly believe that STV would be the preferable choice, there are multiple ways it could be implemented. Neither my own amendment nor the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, specify it being 100% elected; there could be space for a Cross-Bench group to be represented as part of that model. It is crucial to consult a broad range of stakeholders to ensure that such a constitutional change follows a fully democratic process. That is why, in new subsection (2) proposed by Amendment 72, I have specified that the Secretary of State must consult various bodies, including devolved Governments, political parties and representative organisations.
If we are to establish a Chamber that generally serves the people of these nations, constitutional decisions must not be confined to the remit of Westminster alone. I call on His Majesty’s Government, as well as everyone in this place, to reconsider the appropriateness of an unelected Chamber in the 21st century and join me in my mission for abolition.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I apologise, my Lords. I think it might help everybody if I confirm the normal courtesies of the House. This is a debate and Members can take interventions, but they can also choose not to; that is in section 4.29 of the Companion.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
The noble Baroness made a very passionate speech in favour of democratic accountability. Why then did she not stand for the House of Commons instead of coming here?
Viscount Thurso (LD)
My Lords, I do not think the noble Baroness wishes to answer the noble Lord’s question, and she has every right to do that.
I rise very briefly to support my noble friend Lord Newby. This is a very straightforward and simple amendment that seeks to place a duty on the Government to do something after this Bill has passed.
Some of us have spent a great deal of time on Lords reform. I started in this place just under 30 years ago and had 27 years between the two places, and one of the things I have observed in that time is that chances to do something to reform this place do not come along too often, and legislation comes along very rarely.
I greatly enjoyed the eloquence and oratory of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, although I have to say that he has once again convinced me that the more eloquent he is, the more incorrect his arguments are. I very much appreciated the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, with grace and gentleness, rebutted them.
The key point in all that—I am desperately trying not to give a history lesson—is that, when we did the draft Joint Committee of both Houses in 2011-2012, so ably chaired by the late Lord Richards, we came to a compromise position that addressed every single one of the points the noble Lord put forward, and they went into the draft Bill that went before the Commons. That Bill had a Second Reading and, had it had not been for a slightly sneaky operation by Jesse Norman on the programme Motion, it would have gone through and been discussed by both Houses.
So I support my noble friend simply because there needs to be reform. There needs to be reform because we need more legitimacy. In 1832, we were powerful and the Commons was not. From 1832 onwards, the power has moved to the Commons. We now need to regain some legitimacy so that we can again be a powerful part of a Parliament that holds the Executive to account. In asking for this amendment, my noble friend is simply saying, “Let’s hold our feet to the fire and get it done”.
Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on the eloquence of her speech. But she put forward a point of view about this House that I think is mistaken when she said that it is supposed to be representative of the people. It absolutely is not and it never has been. It has other purposes, for better or for worse, and we all sit here as representatives of nobody but ourselves. That is particularly true of Cross Benchers and the non-affiliated, but actually it is true of all party Members as well, and there are important reasons for that. We are well placed to bring to bear on the proceedings of Parliament as a whole a disinterested point of view, in the proper sense of “disinterested”: in other words, not representing an interest but trying to think as hard as we can about what is right.
The speech by the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, was very important here, because, if we think about the function of this House, we may come to realise that its current composition is not so idiotic. Its function is to scrutinise, and the type of people that want to scrutinise are not the type of people who want to get on in life. The people who want to get on in life are those in the other place who are, as was eloquently pointed out by the noble Lord and others, trying to get the next position, higher marks on social media, more likes and jobs. Most of us have gone beyond that stage of life. That is obviously not true of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, because she is very young, but she disinterestedly and kindly sits here in order to contribute her wisdom.
The trouble with the Bill is that we are not thinking about function but droning on about composition. As long as we think that it is a good thing to have a powerful House of Commons that forms most of the Government of the day, it is perfectly reasonable to have a not-very-strong House of Lords that tries to scrutinise. If we think that that is perfectly reasonable, we might consider that perhaps we should not be mucking around with our composition.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, we have already spent more than an hour on this and I do not intend to prolong that for more than two or three minutes. However, I am getting a bit alarmed by the breadth of the discussion we are having.
I remind the House—maybe the Procedure Committee needs to look at this—that the Bill is the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill. From looking at the amendments, of which this is a particularly bad example, not in the quality of the argument but in the dangers it presents for anyone looking for Lords reform in the future, we can apparently have absolutely any amendment whatever so long as it conceivably, by some long-stretched argument, has some effect on the future composition of the Lords.
A lot of people have been saying that we need to do more things once this Bill has become an Act, but, my word, I have been very much put off thinking that is a good idea having listened to today’s debate, because any one of the other issues—whether it is the age of retirement, the length of service, or the number of Bishops, for example— could apparently lead to precisely the same kind of debate that we have had today on amendments to this Bill. I have to say—and probably anyone could say it about me—that it is very unusual that you hear any new arguments in these debates, of which we have had many in the past.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, my first point in response to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is that the Bill will pass—the noble Lord does not need to worry about that. Secondly, simple constitutional changes can have very serious consequences. We have only to think about a simple change that my noble friend Lord Cameron introduced, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which created a disaster.
I think it would be helpful to the Committee if the noble Lord, Lord Newby, could tell us what he thinks the role of the House of Lords is now, and what he thinks it will be in the future. My noble friend Lord Blencathra touched on that. The noble Baroness said that there was mistrust from the public, and I think that arises largely from extremely misleading reporting in the media, which little is done to counter. I would ask the same question about the role of the House of Lords of the Leader of the House, but I expect she would be quite cautious, especially as regards the future. I remind the House that I intend to retire in the spring, so I am fairly neutral.
Many noble Lords—and others inside and outside the House—fall into the trap of proposing to alter the composition of the House of Lords without first considering its role, both now and in the future. I thought that the Labour Government had already studied this matter carefully by means of the Wakeham commission, to which the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and other noble Lords referred. There is a solution very carefully worked out by my noble friend Lord Wakeham and his commission.
I have always believed that the role of the House of Lords is to revise legislation—and I mean revise, not just scrutinise. In the last Parliament, the House revised the Rwanda Bill: it did not merely scrutinise it. It should be an additional check on the Executive but not determine who the Prime Minister is or financial matters. Most importantly, it should be a source of expertise.
The noble Lord, Lord Newby, pointed out that we have a difficulty in that we are hideously London-centric, but getting rid of the hereditary Peers who are chained to their castles and estates up and down the country will make the situation worse, and it is not clear to me how being elected, either in whole or in part, will make us any better at performing our role—a point touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Moore. Of course, it may make us much less willing to give way to the elected House. Many advocates of an elected House suggest that we would be more effective and legitimate if elected. I suggest that being elected can be a disadvantage. For instance, about two years ago, I was dealing with a problem with a high street bank debanking a business in the wider defence industry—noble Lords will recall that recently the Secretary of State for Defence was forcefully raising this issue in public. I needed to have a meeting with senior executives of the bank in circumstances where a Member of another place would be blanked by the bank; they would get nowhere. Why was I able to secure the meeting and then understand what the problem was? The answer is that the bank trusted me. It could be sure that I was not getting involved in order to burnish my local credentials, my media profile or anything else.
I have a question for noble Lords proposing a change to the role of the House or introducing an elected element. In their proposed reformed House, would it be intended that the Government of the day could still easily be defeated? If it was, surely the House would claim democratic credentials and be far more challenging to the House of Commons, as noble Lords have already pointed out. However, if the new House could only very rarely defeat the Government, then in the case of something such as the Rwanda Bill, surely the courts would step in to fill the vacuum.
Finally, can the Leader of the House say whether she agrees with my view of the current role of the House of Lords? I appreciate that she cannot comment about its future role, which is a much more difficult question. When in the 2010 Parliament the Conservative-led Government tried to reform the House, I gleefully went around my friends in the House of Commons saying that I was looking forward to being Senator Attlee of South Hampshire. They obviously got the message.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, when we debated the role of the House of Lords last November and on every occasion that we have debated the subject to which I have contributed, I have started by saying, as I say again today, that in a modern, 21st-century democracy there must be a case that the legislature should be elected. Although it puts me therefore to some extent at odds with friends of mine on different sides of the House, I have to say that I generally support, not necessarily every detail, the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Newby.
If that was all I had to say, I probably would not have bothered saying it, because I think the Lord Privy Seal must have grasped that there is support for the noble Lord’s amendment from different parts of the House, and all I would be doing is adding my name to that. However, I want to go a little further into the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and point out that it is really very clever and has a lot of lot in it that should attract noble Lords, because although it sets a clear destination, it is very non-specific about the details of how we should end up and what the new House of Lords would look like in its elected form. What he is doing in his amendment instead is putting in place a process.
I think we all know what a process looks like. It has the sort of things that we find in this amendment: steps that need to be taken, in a certain order, and dates by which those steps should ideally be taken. The Lord Privy Seal seems to have some difficulty with the word “process”. She used it in Committee last week, when we talked about various matters to do with the future of this House beyond this Bill. She said that we were in a process, but the Lord Privy Seal is not actually in a process. She may think she is, but she is not, because if she were she would be able to tell us the steps, the milestones and the target dates that we find in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby.
The only thing we know for certain about the process in which the Labour Government are engaged—the process that so is so important not only to this House, but to anyone who takes an interest in our constitutional balance—is that her door is always open. That is the process as far as the Labour Front Bench is concerned. There is no timetable, there are no milestones and there are no commitments as to what is going to happen, in what order or when. While it is perfectly legitimate for the Lord Privy Seal to say that she does not support the process proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, it now becomes almost impossible for her, given what she has said before, both to oppose the noble Lord and to fail to come forward with a process of her own—which is what so many noble Lords in this House would like to hear. Otherwise, she will show that she is not being wholly candid with us in the way that we would hope.
The essential point about Labour’s sense of direction is that it came forward in its manifesto with a package of measures and obtained a mandate for a package of measures. Some of those measures were to be taken at an early stage—the Lord Privy Seal and I have had this argument about the weight of the full stop, and I am not going to go through that now—and at least one was going to be taken later. It was going to be a consultation involving the democratic character of the House and the representation of the nations and regions and so on. Clearly, anyone reading the Labour Party manifesto would say that that was something to be done in the latter half of the Parliament. It also explains to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, why these issues arise in what appears to be a very narrow Bill: it is because that very narrow Bill sits in a context of a manifesto commitment and a mandate which is very much broader. It cannot be separated out; those threads cannot be pulled apart without having an effect on the rest of the fabric.
I will come to a close very quickly. If I tremble to find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I tremble even more to find myself in disagreement with my noble friend Lord Blencathra. While any new system or composition of the Lords is absolutely bound to require a crunching of gears as the two Chambers find a way of working together, the notion that this is impossible—that two democratic chambers cannot work together—is, as I have said before, simply belied. One can look round the rest of the democratic world, where it does work, with crunching of gears and not always ideally, and sometimes with surprises and unexpected turns of events—but of course it is possible to have two democratic chambers.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Blencathra that these matters are so weighty that there is a strong case for a referendum. I am rather more sympathetic to referendums than many people here and in the other place, and I find myself rather out on the extreme wing on this, but I certainly think there is a strong case for a referendum on the constitutional future of your Lordships’ House.
Coming back to my original point, I very much hope that the Lord Privy Seal will stop hiding behind her open door—if that is not too much of a mixed metaphor—and come out into the West Front corridor and tell us, if not in this Chamber today, if she does not like the process proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, what process she has to offer us.
Lord Northbrook (Con)
My Lords, I will focus on paragraph (3) of Amendment 11, suggesting what should be in the consultation paper on methods for introducing elected Members to the House. House of Lords reform has been unfinished business now for well over a century, as emphasised in the Parliament Act 1911. I believe the Bill provides an opportunity for looking at several different ways of reform for the House: elected or appointed, or a mixture of both.
The Electoral Reform Society produced an interesting paper on an elected House in December 2023. I will first explore how other countries select members of their upper houses, to give comparison for an elected House of Lords here. The majority of second chambers choose their members by election, whether direct or indirect. The Inter-Parliamentary Union—the IPU—categorises 55 second chambers as predominantly chosen by either direct or indirect election, and only 22 as predominantly chosen by appointment. Many chambers do, however, combine a direct and/or indirect election with a small element of appointment. For instance, while the Italian Senate is nearly wholly directly elected, a handful of life seats are held by ex-officio members, formerly presidents, and up to five citizens are appointed by the President for outstanding service.
In Ireland, of the 60 members of the Senate, 43 are elected by panels representing different vocations, six are chosen by graduates of the two major universities, and 11 are nominated by the Taoiseach, creating a mix of direct and indirect election for some appointments.
In Spain, the Senate combines direct and indirect election based on different territories. The majority of senators are directly elected in multi-member constituencies based on the 50 provinces. Around a fifth are appointed by the legislatures of the autonomous communities, which are themselves elected by closed-list proportional representation—PR.
Concerns are often raised about the potential conflict arising from having two directly elected chambers. Wholly directly elected second chambers can be found in Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Switzerland and the USA. Within this group are significant differences in the electoral system used, which in turn affects their composition. It is generally agreed that one party should not have a majority in both chambers. Because of this, few parliaments with direct elections for both chambers choose similar electoral systems for both chambers.
Two notable exceptions are Italy and the United States. Italy employs a similar mixed system for both the upper and the lower house, with both chambers also electing on the same day. Because of this, while there may be some differences, the party balance tends to be the same in both chambers. The United States is the only country to use a majoritarian system for both chambers. While using the same system, the two USA chambers have different compositions because of the difference in size of their constituencies and the length of term. However, with party competition forcing a two-party shape due to the nature of the electoral system, the opportunity for gridlock is high. In both Italy and the USA, similar electoral systems are also matched by similar powers.
The majority of parliaments with wholly directly elected upper chambers use different electoral systems in the lower chamber. Brazil, the Czech Republic, Poland and Switzerland have PR-elected primary chambers and use majoritarian systems for their second chambers. Australia has a majoritarian-elected lower house and a PR-elected upper house. Japan and Mexico use mixed systems for both chambers.
Using different electoral systems for both chambers tends to produce different electoral outcomes, which are also supported by arrangements such as different term lengths and staggered elections. For a wholly or partly elected second chamber, the question remains as to which system of election to use. If direct election is chosen, there are many options for the type of electoral system that could be used.
Previous suggestions for Lords reform have put forward different options, including versions of party lists and single transferable vote, STV. The STV option was recommended in the cross-party Breaking the Deadlock proposals in 2007 and the House of Lords reform draft Bill in 2011. As Liberal Democrats will know, STV is a proportional and preferential election system in which voters get to choose their choice of candidate. Constituencies are multimember, returning usually around three to five candidates per district, although constituencies can be larger, and voters can put a number to as many or as few candidates as they like. Candidates who reach the quota are elected, and any votes over and above what they need are redistributed to vote as second preferences, and so on until the places are filled.
The 2011 draft Bill selected STV to ensure that those elected have
“a personal mandate from the electorate, distinct from that of their party”.
STV is a candidate-based system, which means that independents are placed on an equal footing with party-political candidates. In addition, because it is a candidate system, voters are able to choose between candidates of the same party, putting an emphasis on which party candidate they think will be most suitable. Candidates such as community leaders, who have a party leaning but would rather stand as independents, are able to do so without harming their party’s chances by splitting the votes.
According to the Electoral Reform Society:
“In the Scottish local elections of 2017, between a third and a fifth of voters gave their second preference to a candidate of a different party to their first choice. And, whilst many voters are loyal to their party, when no more candidates are available for their first choice party … the majority go on to give lower preferences to candidates of other parties. This opportunity for voters to make more nuanced choices would likely result in a chamber that has a different political character to the Commons.
STV could also help elect a more diverse chamber. Because STV is a multi-member constituency system, it encourages parties to put forward candidates who differ from each other in order to maximise their vote. District magnitude, the number of people being elected in an electoral district, has an impact on the diversity of those elected, so larger STV districts are … more likely to create a more representative chamber without needing additional measures … STV would likely go furthest to fulfilling the goals of a more politically diverse and independently minded chamber where voters would be able to select candidates according to their expertise and experience, as well as ensuring representation from across the regions and nations of the UK”,
which I believe the Labour Party wished for the Lords in its manifesto.
Another form of rank ordering preference is the AV system. While STV is considered a form of proportional representation using multimember constituencies, AV would operate in single-member constituencies and is not. There are of course other forms of PR, namely list PR, which was recommended by the Wakeham commission and the subsequent White Paper in 2001. In 2010-11 the House of Lords reform draft Bill put forward semi-open regional lists. List PR systems can be open, closed or semi-open.
With apologies to the Lib Dems, I will briefly go into the three main types of list. First, there is the closed list PR; secondly, the open list PR; and, thirdly, the semi-open list. There is a range of these types of list PR. Finally, we must not forget the first past the post system.
The 2008 White Paper modelled the options for election to the House of Lords on the basis of an 80% and 100% elected Chamber of between 420 and 450 seats. Using the four different systems I have outlined, while the first past the post and AV options produced results close to those in the Commons, the list modelling showed a greater proportion of seats for other parties, with no single party gaining an overall majority, but highlighted the problem for independents to get a place under this system.
Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Con)
My Lords, with all due respect to my noble friend who has just spoken, there is no point in going into all those details about methods of election, interesting as they are. Amendment 11 is wrong, and I oppose it because it would undermine the very basis of our democracy, which actually works very well.
The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, referred to the Joint Committee report published in 2012. I had the duty—I almost said pleasure—to sit on that committee, along with the noble Baroness and others, for eight months while we went into these matters in very great detail. I recommend that report to noble Lords. The report itself was critical of the then Government’s plan to introduce a directly elected second Chamber. The minority report, which was signed by 12 of the 25 members of that committee, was even more critical of the Government; I especially recommend that to noble Lords.
If we had direct election to this upper House, it would not only upset the delicate balance of our constitutional settlement. It would also totally undermine the delicate relationship between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. I seem to recall that in speaking on this matter back then in 2012, I said something like, “Mr Speaker, I don’t care about the House of Lords; I care about the House of Commons”. If I may correct myself, I do now care passionately about the House of Lords. It is for that very reason that I hope Amendment 11 does not have support here.
The great value of your Lordships is that the majority are not politicians, as the noble Lord, Lord Moore, most articulately said a few moments ago, whereas if we had direct election, the moment anybody stands for election and puts their head above the parapet, they become a politician. I can be critical of politicians because I am one to my fingertips; I have been a full-time one for more than 30 years. As a new Member of this House, I appreciate just how valuable noble Lords who are not politicians are in the work that they do and the scrutiny that this House brings to holding the Government to account.
My second point is that if the upper House is elected, that undermines the position of the House of Commons. It undermines the authority and accountability of the House of Commons. The electorate have to know where the buck stops. There is a direct relationship between the voter and the elected person, which is embodied in our House of Commons, one of the best democratic institutions anywhere in the world. If the upper House were to have democratic accountability and authority, that would challenge the House of Commons—and then the electorate would not know where the buck stops. As Tony Benn used to say, “If you don’t know how to get rid of the people you elect, then you don’t have accountability and you don’t have true democracy”. It is very strange to find myself agreeing yet again with Tony Benn.
My third point is simply that a well-functioning democracy is not just about elections. Our democracy works because of the checks and balances of civic society. That includes the work of your Lordships’ House as a revising Chamber, not as a representative Chamber. I beg your Lordships not to support Amendment 11.
Lord Norton of Louth (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend, for two reasons. First, I served with her on the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill. Secondly, I intend to follow her in actually referring to the text of Amendment 11, which makes me somewhat exceptional in this debate, because it has been about an elected second Chamber. The amendment does not actually stipulate that.
Let me begin with one or two quick points. First, it is not self-evidently the case that an appointed second Chamber is undemocratic. I have developed this case before; there is a democratic argument for an appointed second Chamber.
Secondly, it is not self-evidently the case that elected second chambers fulfil functions that benefit the political system, certainly not in terms of facilitating good law. Following what the noble Lord, Lord Moore, said, this Chamber is defined by its relationship to the other place. This is a complementary second Chamber. It adds value by fulfilling functions the other place does not have the time or political will to carry out. That renders it distinct, it adds value and I would argue that good law is a public good that deserves to be preserved.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and I both grew up in the post-war era. When I sat in front of our coal fire as a little boy, I used to love pulling at the threads of my woolly jumper and holes appeared elsewhere. My mother, who had knitted it, was furious and pointed to those holes. So it is with this Bill that would create an all-appointed House; holes appear elsewhere, and it is perfectly reasonable for your Lordships’ House, which is uniquely affected, to address some of the consequences.
The noble Lord, Lord Newby, in advocating work on a democratisation of the House—he is doing just this thing—follows a position long taken by his party. The preamble to the Parliament Act was referred to, which said that the House of Lords should be supplanted by a House constituted on a popular, instead of a hereditary, basis. It so happened that Asquith and Lloyd George, who believed in strong government, were not that keen on PR. In fact, Lloyd George, famously told CP Scott that PR was
“a device for defeating democracy, the principle of which was that the majority should rule, and for bringing faddists of all kinds into parliament and establishing groups and disintegrating parties”.
That was a wise man. Probably the father of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, did not know Lloyd George.
Asquith’s Government did not take democratisation forward, although, as the noble Lord said, Sir Nick Clegg and my noble friend Lord Cameron did go for reform in 2010. At the time, the Liberal Democrats saw that as part of a programme to entrench a Lib Dem hold on future Governments, with a PR wedge in both Houses. That did not succeed, but that potential Lib Dem lock is probably why many here, on both sides, would regard a Lords elected by PR as a less than enticing prospect.
However, beyond the principled arguments we have heard in this debate, put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Newby—and it is a legitimate, principled argument—and by others, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, there are two reasons why calls for democratisation might intensify after this Bill. They may appear to be in contradistinction, but they could interlock.
The first is potential overreach by an unelected Chamber. I remember that, when most hereditary Peers left in 1999, the then Leader of this House, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, declared that the new House, stripped of most hereditary Peers, would be “more legitimate”. Will the new House created by this Bill, freed of the drag anchor of so-called illegitimate hereditary Peers, be more assertive? Will it view itself as the rather more expert House, one with more wisdom and authority than an inexperienced House of Commons, where 335 Members are new and only one in 10 was a Member more than 15 years ago? I sincerely hope not.
Will the new House be more confident in pressing its arguments? In the absence of sensible working arrangements such as I have suggested, that is possible. Indeed, the current campaign in the Guardian shows what is already being said about the legitimacy of the unelected House, life Peers and hereditary Peers alike. Faced with challenge, an elected Government might see merit in pressing forward with reform. Which takes one to a second, very plausible scenario, where successive Governments, copying the precedent created by this Bill, simply tear groups of Peers out of your Lordships’ House to adjust numbers here to their party-political convenience.
I have spoken about this before. When I did, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, challenged me to say what other groups might be taken out of the House. I cited an example of Peers who have served for over 15 years, term limits being a very popular proposal for Lords reform. I checked what the effects would be if term limits came in in 2029 without grandfather rights, as this Bill plans for hereditary Peers. Removing in 2029 all Peers who have served over 15 years and denying them grandfather rights would deliver the Conservatives a significant net gain of nearly 70 over the Opposition parties and some 190 against all groups in the House. It would remove 59 Liberal Democrat Peers, which is throwing out more than 75% of them. What about that as a prospect? Before anyone says “threat”, it is not threat but fact. There are really grave dangers and deep unfairnesses in this game of “remove a chunk of Peers here and there”, and they are redoubled if grandfather rights are denied. I do not think that any unelected House could long survive such manipulation. The calls to allow the public, rather than the Government, to choose political Members of the House would inevitably grow. So, like it or not, the debate about democratisation posed by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, will not be shooed away simply by removing hereditary Peers.
After the 1999 Act and the challenge to us on a stage 2 House, my party, as my noble friend Lord Strathclyde reminded us, came forward in 2002 with an idea for an elected Senate of 300 members, with 60 seats reserved for unelected Cross Benchers to damp the electoral mandate. Our manifestos in 2005 and 2010 maintained that, and we sought to put it into action in the coalition Government. As we have heard, that attempt was frustrated, but what is the Labour position? It is the party in power. It is the party proposing, in its manifesto, replacing your Lordships’ House. The gracious Speech for the 1998-99 Session said that the 1999 Act would be
“the first stage in a process of reform to make the House of Lords more democratic and representative”.
Labour’s 2001 manifesto pledged a “more representative and democratic” House. Sounds familiar: is that not the line that we keep hearing spun by the party opposite on this Bill and this package of reforms? I did not believe it then, I am sceptical now and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, has every right to ask for the kind of work that he is proposing. So I must ask how the Minister will respond—I hope that she will.
After succeeding Tony Blair, whose party had been publicly advocating for a democratic second House for years—and then voted against any element of election at all in 2003—Gordon Brown tried to revive Labour’s idea of a representative House. In Labour’s 2009 Bill, he looked to end the entry of new hereditary Peers, but he included grandfather rights: a provision that all existing Peers should stay. It was a different Labour Party then, perhaps. Instead of backing plans for election put forward by the coalition, however, Labour allied with rebels in the Commons to frustrate progress. Given the track record of the party opposite, I am a little sceptical as to the future. Will the Minister set out her plans in detail when she responds? If not, can she place a letter in the Library of the House?
The absence of a stage 2 destination overshadows the whole debate on the Bill and provokes many of the questions being asked. When Sir Keir Starmer became leader in 2020, he pledged the abolition of this House in his first term in office and the creation of a new elected Chamber. He was ecstatic when Gordon Brown’s commission reported in December 2022, acclaiming the idea of a new assembly of the nations and regions and, as he put it, rebuilding trust by
“replacing the unelected House of Lords with a new, smaller, democratically elected second chamber”.
Yet Labour’s 2024 manifesto merely said that
“Labour is committed to replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations”.
The word “democracy” was not there. Where in the long grass is it now?
In conclusion, I will ask the Minister some specific questions. Can she confirm whether Labour’s alternative second Chamber will be wholly or partly elected by the people? The manifesto said there would be a public consultation on this Chamber, but you cannot have a meaningful consultation without a proposition on which to consult. When will consultation start? My noble friend Lord Blencathra asked for one form of consultation: a referendum on an elected House of Lords. Does the noble Baroness leave the door open to such a referendum?
Can the Minister tell us whether the Government will publish a White Paper, or any other guidance, to inform your Lordships as we move towards Report? As my noble friend Lord Moylan said, what is the current timetable envisaged for replacing your Lordships, as the manifesto pledged? It is causing concern and confusion on all sides. Will the Minister, who is Leader of the whole House—a responsibility she carries out, in my judgment, with a high sense of responsibility—set out a clear direction as to the Chamber that will replace us before we come to Report?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for what has been a long and interesting discussion; I thank the noble Lords, Lord Newby and Lord Blencathra, and others, for giving us the opportunity to have it. As with most debates we have had on the Bill, it has gone rather wider than the precise amendments in front of us. The noble Lord referred to some of the things he mentioned at Second Reading, the King’s Speech and other debates. I welcome that there is a focus on other issues beyond the Bill, but that is not what is before us now. However, they are all worthy of longer-term consideration.
The amendments in this group raise the introduction a democratic element to the House. Amendment 11, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, Amendment 72, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, and Amendment 90D, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Brady of Altrincham, all seek to impose a duty on the Government to take forward proposals to ensure a democratic element of your Lordships’ House once the Bill has passed.
Amendments 11 and 72 would require the Government to consult specified persons and bodies, including from this House and the other place, on proposals for introducing elected Members, whereas Amendment 90D would not require consultation and focuses on legislative proposals for a far smaller House of Lords elected under a first past the post system. I am not sure, if we were elected under any system, that it would be a “House of Lords”; I cannot remember which noble Lord said that they were tempted by the title “senator”, but it certainly would not be a House of Lords if that was the proposal. Amendment 90D also asks the Government to bring forward a draft Bill. A very similar amendment was placed in the other place, which was resoundingly rejected by a majority of 262.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
No, I will not take an intervention. I have listened to everybody with great courtesy throughout the whole debate. Would the noble Lord mind letting me answer the questions?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I shall take one short intervention. I am sure the noble Lord would not want to detain the Committee any longer than necessary.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, I intervene simply to say that I have long been a supporter of an elected House, as many noble Lords are aware—certainly since 1997. I am on the public record. I supported the Bill in 2012.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
I am happy to be corrected on that, and I am sure noble Lords will welcome his support.
I found Amendments 11A and 11B from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, really interesting. Amendment 11A seeks to impose a requirement on the Government to include in its consultation
“the implications of securing a democratic mandate for the House of Lords for its powers and conventions”.
The interesting thing about his amendments is that he was the first in the debate to talk about the functions of a second Chamber rather than the form. Other noble Lords then commented on that, but he was the first and he did so in some detail. My starting point on a second Chamber has always been: what does it do, how does it do it, why does it do it, and how do we best fulfil the role? I was pleased that some noble Lords mentioned the role of the Cross-Benchers, because we all welcome that role, and I think the public would too if they were asked. However, the noble Lord would also require a referendum on the principle of an elected second Chamber. If I understood him correctly, if that principle was endorsed it would have to be followed by a further referendum on the methods of election.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, spoke significantly more widely than her amendment, which seeks to place a duty on the Government to lay before Parliament a review of the implications of Act for the appropriateness of an unelected Chamber. She complained that she could not get the functions into her amendment, but the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, expressed surprise at how wide amendments could go on membership when the terms of the Bill are so narrow. But that is the ruling we have: anything to do with membership of the House is seen to be in order, which leads to quite a broad approach.
Underlying all those amendments is the argument that further reform of this House is required. I welcome that, because although this Bill is narrow and noble Lords have commented on the next steps, the Labour Party’s manifesto was clear. I am surprised that noble Lords seem so surprised. The manifesto talks about the steps. It says—I think the noble Lord, Lord True, read this out—that we are committed to replacing the Chamber we have now with
“an alternative second Chamber that is more representative of the nations and regions”,
and that we
“will consult on proposals seeking the input of the … public”.
The noble Lord, Lord True, seems to expect me to have a ready-made proposal to bring forward. I do not; this is a longer-term proposal, and I would have thought noble Lords would welcome the opportunity to have an input into it, which, obviously, they will have. There is a range of proposals. We have already heard today that even those who support an elected second Chamber have a range of ways they would do it, so there is no ready-made blueprint: there are lots of thoughts and suggestions, and we have put forward suggestions in the past, but we want to consult more widely. That is a manifesto commitment.
However, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said himself, this Bill is not the right vehicle for delivering that proposal and we would not accept those amendments. This is a focused Bill that seeks to deliver the manifesto commitment by removing the right of the remaining hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. I remind noble Lords that that principle was established 25 years ago. This is the final part of that principle. My noble friend Lord Grocott seemed surprised this has taken so long and asked why people had made interventions on a range of other issues. This is a focused Bill on immediate reform, following the principle established 25 years ago.
We heard quite a lot about the history of different parts of legislation. The proposals that matter at the moment are those in our manifesto that we are delivering with this Bill, but the Government are committed to more fundamental reform, as I have said. More geographical representation is clearly part of that.
I come back to the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I also thought that the noble Lord, Lord Brady, made a thoughtful speech. I know the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, was not proposing an elected second Chamber, but the primacy of the first Chamber is about its elected status. It is accountable to the electorate. If I understood the noble Lord, Lord True, correctly, he thought this Chamber should have a more enhanced role because we have been here longer and have more expertise. You could also argue that an elected Chamber is more in touch with the electorate who have more recently elected them. That is a very important principle.
The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, raised a number of points to be considered during a consultation on the form an alternative second Chamber should take. One point, of course, is primacy. I am intrigued by the idea that we could have a Prime Minister in a second Chamber; I will not apply for any such role. The noble Lord made an important point about the conventions that apply to an unelected second Chamber. Those conventions have stood the test of time through many changes, and they remain. They serve this House, the primary Chamber and democracy well. I anticipate no change to those conventions; it would be a different kind of Chamber if we did not abide by them. The hereditary Peers leaving in 1999 did not alter the conventions, and it will not alter the conventions now either. It is those conventions that protect the primacy of the Commons, which is extremely important.
These issues are not for your Lordships’ House today in this Bill. The Government are making an immediate start to reform this House with this Bill. Part of the reason why there has been no progress over the past 25 years is this argument that nothing can be done until everything is done. But nobody can agree, even in the debate we have had today, on what “everything” is and the result is that we do nothing. Completing this part of the reform shows good faith and good intentions.
The noble Lord, Lord True, tempted me on a number of points, and I want to challenge him on one. He referred to the exit of some Peers—that is, losing our hereditary colleagues—as being some kind of political attack because it affects the numbers. I ask him: did he feel the same when his party racked up appointment after appointment, creating a much larger disparity between the two main parties than we have ever seen before or than would happen under this Bill? What he suggested is not our intention. I have been very clear in Committee, as well as in Select Committee and in the other place, that this House works well with roughly equal numbers between government and opposition parties—and that is not a party-political point at all. Because of the work we do, we should be a more deliberative and engaged Chamber. The noble Lord is laughing at me, and I am not quite sure why; I am making a serious point about how this House works best. It is important that we do our best work and that we figure out how we can do that.
Lord True (Con)
The noble Baroness challenged me on one thing, and perhaps I can make it clear for the Hansard record that I was certainly not laughing at her, even if other noble Lords were. I think she acknowledges that from a sedentary position.
The noble Baroness asked whether I was concerned about certain things. I did not particularly like it when Sir Tony Blair created the largest number of life Peers ever known, but that was his prerogative. The point I am trying to make—this is a House point, not a party-political point—is that a very dangerous precedent opens up when it is felt that a group can be dismissed from the House. That has never happened in this way, and the Conservative Party has never removed people from other parties. I will not repeat what I said in my remarks, but I believe that this is a profoundly dangerous precedent, and we should find ways to avoid setting it.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, it is a party-political point. I was trying to make the very non-party-political point that the House operates best with roughly equal numbers. It has taken 25 years to get here. The principle was established when the hereditary Peers left in 1999—I have to say that any trade union would have snapped up Viscount Cranborne in a moment—and, in effect, 92 of their number remained in perpetuity. Those were the arrangements then. This Bill will end those arrangements, so that the House can move forward.
The noble Lord talked about a term limit, an issue on which some noble Lords have put down amendments later. That would have to be discussed and debated by this House. That is not one of the proposals we are putting forward, but if someone wants to propose that during the consultation we will have on an alternative second Chamber, they are at liberty to do so. I think there would probably be quite lengthy arguments about the duration of a term limit, but that is not included the proposals before us today. Although 25 years is perhaps quite a long time to take to move forward, it is right that we take time to consider these issues.
I am grateful to noble Lords for the points they have made. Certainly, some useful points for the future have been made on how an alternative second Chamber may be constituted. That is not before us today, but in due course, when we are able to come forward with proposals, we will consult quite widely. At this stage, I respectfully ask that noble Lords and Baronesses take their amendments back and reconsider them, and I beg leave to ask that they not press them.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I thank everyone who has spoken, and I slightly apologise for initiating such a long debate. I am grateful to noble Lords who have supported our proposal, and doubly grateful to those who have supported me today who have never supported me before—I thank them very much. I obviously cannot deal with all the points made, and I will try to be brief.
The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, made the classic argument for not having an elected House of Lords, the nub of which relates to the primacy of the Commons. The only thing I would say is that, in 2012, the House of Commons voted by a majority of 338 to have an elected House of Lords, so presumably, it did not think its position was being fatally undermined at that point. The noble Lord was the first person to raise the possibility of Cross-Benchers being included under our proposals, and they absolutely would be. There was a provision for Cross-Benchers in the 2012 proposals, and having them would be perfectly possible under my amendment.
On the question of looking at functions, as I said in my introductory remarks, there is no bar to that happening during the consultation period. However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that, at worst, wherever one ends up, one is likely to get a crunching of gears rather than a car crash.
Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Con)
I think I just proved the point there. I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. My point was not that I am not a politician, but that I am a lesser person for being a politician. The great thing about this Chamber is that it has a very large number, if not a majority, of Members who are not politicians, and that is what gives it its value.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I am happy to debate the numbers, but I disagree that the majority of people who take a party Whip can legitimately not call themselves politicians. The Cross-Benchers are not politicians, although they are very political in many cases. Under my proposal, they are not being abolished anyway.
On the noble Lord, Lord True, I was intrigued by his reference to Lloyd George. Lloyd George does not come with a totally unblemished record when it comes to matters relating to the House of Lords.
As I said at the start, this amendment is to set up a process. It is not a blueprint. We on these Benches believe that this process should now be commenced. We believe that it is very long overdue, and we will return to this amendment on Report with that in view.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes) (Con)
To the best of my knowledge, we are presently debating Amendment 11A, an amendment to Amendment 11.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I did not intend to respond at length, or indeed to respond at all to the debate. It has been a thorough debate—two hours and 10 minutes.
I raised the point about the problems we would have in this House if we concentrated only on form, rather than on function. That point has been eloquently made by all sides. I have no intention of summarising the debate any further. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Newby
“Life peerages not to be conferred against recommendation of the House of Lords Appointments Commission(1) The Life Peerages Act 1958 is amended as follows.(2) In section 1 (power to confer life peerages), after subsection (1) insert—“(1A) The power under subsection (1) may not be exercised in relation to a person if the House of Lords Appointments Commission has written to the Prime Minister to recommend that a peerage should not be conferred on that person.””Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would prevent a life peerage being conferred on a person if the House of Lords Appointments Commission has recommended against the appointment.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I hope and trust that this debate will be at least marginally shorter than the last.
Amendment 12 and its consequential Amendment 116, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, relate to the powers of the House of Lords Appointments Commission, HOLAC. Our amendment is very modest. It simply says that the Prime Minister should not be able to override a recommendation of HOLAC not to award a peerage to an individual on the basis that they were not a proper person to hold a peerage. One would have thought that this amendment would be unnecessary; surely no Prime Minister would ever wish to overrule HOLAC on a matter of propriety. Sadly, that is exactly what has happened in recent times. This amendment would prevent it happening again. I understand that, not least from the evidence she gave to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in another place, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, as the chair of HOLAC, supports this amendment.
The amendment in the names of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and the noble Lord, Lord Colgrain, would prevent the Prime Minister overriding HOLAC by giving the commission sole power to make recommendations for peerages to the King. In reality, the difference between this and our amendment is one not of substance but of form. However, it would be odd, to put it mildly, if HOLAC had such a power without being already constituted on a statutory basis.
It is a valid criticism of our amendment that it does not go far enough. The position of HOLAC should be placed on a statutory basis and it should be able to assess candidates for a peerage in terms of suitability as well as propriety. Other amendments in this group by the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, make provisions in these areas. We support these amendments in principle but believe that this limited Bill is not an appropriate vehicle for a more fundamental reform of HOLAC.
The amendment by the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, for example, raises detailed issues of the composition of a statutory appointments commission, which clearly need more detailed discussion than is possible in the context of this Bill. Fortunately, the Government committed in their manifesto to move further on these issues. Our amendment is a stand-alone provision that can be done easily now, and I hope that between now and Report the Government will give further consideration to bringing forward the very limited and uncontentious change covered by this amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment 12A (to Amendment 12)
Lord Howard of Rising
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to render the House of Lords Appointment Commission ineffective.
Lord Howard of Rising (Con)
My Lords, this country is being slowly but inexorably paralysed by committees of all shapes and sizes—departmental public bodies, quangos, you name it. New ones are being created on a regular basis, and every single one of them—new and old—is doing its best to expand its remit, thereby increasing its power and, frequently, its budget. The result, more often than not, is that Ministers are unable to take decisions. They are obliged to seek advice from this committee or that. If something goes wrong, however, it is the Minister who is held responsible and has to take the blame, while these unelected bodies, populated by the people who know best, remain unaccountable. Even the Chancellor of the Exchequer has to consult the Office for Budget Responsibility, an organisation that gets things wrong more often than right. What is wrong with our own vast department, the Treasury—or even the Bank of England, which has been known to get things wrong? When it comes to misjudgments, it is but a rank amateur compared with the OBR.
I draw your Lordships’ attention to one organisation that could be got rid of with no loss: the House of Lords Appointments Commission—HOLAC. It is a non-departmental public body. If His Majesty the King wishes, on the advice of the Prime Minister, to appoint someone to the House of Lords, what is the commission needed for, when exactly the same advice that the commission calls on to take its decision is available to the Prime Minister? Why does this advice need to be filtered through a separate body? What is the point of having an organisation to collate information from government departments to present it to the Prime Minister?
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
One reason is that we do not always trust the Prime Minister.
Lord Howard of Rising (Con)
He can already get this information.
I regret having to say this, but on more than one occasion HOLAC has taken a decision, or made a recommendation, that has been biased by a political view and not as an arm’s-length appraisal, resulting in the rejection of candidates of the highest calibre. That is not what the commission should be doing. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for whom I have the greatest respect and admiration, will stop HOLAC going beyond the bounds of what it should be doing.
At this very time, this Chamber is coming under increasing scrutiny. We need to welcome into our ranks individuals of talent, vision and extraordinary achievement. I strongly believe that HOLAC is a hindrance to this process and is damaging the future health and viability of the House of Lords. I beg to move.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 51, to which the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, have kindly added their names. I look forward to their contributions and appreciate their support.
This amendment, along with others in this group, focuses on the exemplary work of the House of Lords Appointments Commission, or HOLAC, whose appointees sit largely here on the Cross Benches. While I do not agree with ranking ourselves by method of entry to your Lordships’ House, I firmly believe that, once here, we are all equal. In my view, the angels of HOLAC have by far the worthiest routes to these red Benches. My amendment would increase the number of HOLAC appointments accordingly. Whereas the amendments from the noble Lords, Lord Newby and Lord Wallace, seek to ensure that the approval of HOLAC would be mandatory before any life peerages were conferred—a proposal I am minded to support given the excellent work of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and others and the importance of probity to appointments to this House—Amendment 51 is more limited. It aims to encourage the use of HOLAC as a means by which a further 20 Cross-Bench Members of Your Lordships’ House are appointed during the five years after the passage of this Bill.
Unlike the party-political Benches, which can organise themselves and lobby for their share of prime ministerial patronage to recharge their Benches following the removal of the hereditary Peers, the Cross Benches, as a determinedly independent body of individual Peers, are not in a position to push collectively for new membership. They will inevitably lose out due to this legislation and the House undoubtedly will be more political and thus less effective. This amendment has the benefit of diluting, if only a little, the relative increase in prime ministerial patronage that will result from the removal of the hereditary Peers. That must be a good thing.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, with the demise of the “good chaps” theory of government, articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and my noble friends Lord Dundee and Lord Hailsham, giving statutory powers in terms of probity, capability and experience to HOLAC, are essential. We should legislate for them at the first possible opportunity. Obviously, I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Howard on his amendment, but I understand some of his analysis.
On the amendments tabled by the noble Earls, Lord Dundee and Lord Devon, the Cross Benches have a great selection of hereditary Peers which they have carefully selected and elected and who provide great expertise to Parliament. For instance, we want to get to net zero, so they have a senior civil nuclear engineer. We have problems with shipping, including the Russian shadow fleet and the need for certain ships to go around the Cape of Good Hope because of the activity of the Houthis, so we have a former chairman of the Baltic Exchange. International aid is always important, which is why the Cross Benches have one of the few people in Parliament with any operational experience of international aid, who is in his place today. I could go on. Why does anyone want to get rid of that experience on the Cross Benches?
I have some concern about the selections that HOLAC makes. There is no doubt that noble Lords appointed by HOLAC are exceptionally good, as the noble Earl said, but there are too few of them. The problem is that—and I gently make this point—they tend to be public sector orientated, although there are obvious exceptions. Looking generally, I think that we have too many who are expert at spending other people’s money. Our debates are nearly always about spending more money and increasing resources, and never about spending less. Very shortly, we will have to make some very tough decisions about that.
I am surprised that no noble Lord has sought to put a duty on HOLAC regarding where noble Lords are based. I am sorry to say that the House is hideously London-centric, a point touched on already today by the noble Lord, Lord Newby. This problem will get even worse with the demise of the hereditaries, who tend to come from far and wide. Overall, we need greater involvement from HOLAC in vetting but to limit its selection powers to the Cross Benches. We need some better informal mechanisms to work out what experience and regional expertise we lack. Perhaps HOLAC should have some mechanism to deal with or advise on London centricity.
The Earl of Dundee (Con)
My Lords, in this grouping, there are two connected proposals in my name. Amendment 43 would not prevent political patronage creating non-parliamentary peerages.
Yet it would abolish the right of parliamentary political patronage to appoint Members to this House, replacing that practice, as advocated by Amendment 45, with a statutory appointments commission responsible for appointing 200 independent Cross-Benchers within a reformed House of 600 temporal Members, where the balance of 400 Members are political Members indirectly elected by an electoral college representative of the different parts of the United Kingdom.
These amendments also indicate three background considerations. The first is how thereby, in appointing 200 non-political independent Members, the new statutory commission appoints the largest group within a reformed House of 600. The second is the purpose of doing that and, thirdly, how membership, within a total of 20 appointment commissioners, reflects the proportions of different Benches sitting in a reformed House.
Among the 400 political and temporal Members, the Government and the Opposition would have exactly 150 each, while all other political parties, including the Liberal Democrats, would have 100. With 200, the independent Cross Benches, therefore, would have 50 more Members than either the Government or the Opposition.
The purpose of this is not House of Lords composition; instead, it is continuity of House of Lords quality function. So many of your Lordships have eloquently stressed that point today, including the noble Lord, Lord Moore, and my noble friends Lord Tugendhat and Lady Laing. This quality function is not just our current high standard of legislative scrutiny. As my noble friend Lord Attlee pointed out, it includes our achievements in revisions, and thus also the quality of that evidence. This quality of function would be undermined if the party of any Government having a majority in another place also had one here. That is why the Government and the Opposition ought to have equal numbers in a reformed House, while the non-political Cross-Benchers should be in the majority.
With a total of 20 commissioners appointing 200 non-political Members, subsection (5) of the new clause that would be inserted by Amendment 45 gives the ratios allocated to the different temporal Benches: five commissioners each for the Government and the Opposition; seven for the Cross-Benchers; and three for the Liberal Democrats as the third-largest temporal group. Amendment 46, referring to that subsection (5) in Amendment 45, proposes the additional words,
“or from a party-political group in the House of Lords not otherwise identified in this table”,
for which I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hailsham.
I also thank my noble friend for the qualification in his Amendment 44A, referring to Amendment 43, that with appointments to this House the statutory Appointments Commission can only select people who are properly reliable and independent-minded. In addition, I am grateful to him and to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, for their proposed Amendments 47 and 12 respectively, envisaging that, in the period of time before a statutory Appointments Commission has replaced political patronage, life peerages can still not be conferred against the recommendations of HOLAC or the present non-statutory Appointments Commission.
In Amendment 51, the strengthening of HOLAC is also urged by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, who has just spoken to that, supported by myself and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. As outlined, the aim should be for HOLAC to become statutory, replacing political patronage and appointing one-third or 200 non-political Members of a reformed House, temporal membership being 600 of which 400 are political Members. As a revising Chamber, this arrangement is best able to protect our present very high standard of legislative scrutiny to the advantage of the United Kingdom democracy here and, by example, to that of national democracies elsewhere.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I very much endorse what my noble friend Lord Dundee has been saying, and what he has said has enabled me—your Lordships will be pleased to know—to abbreviate my remarks very significantly. I have put down four amendments, to which I want to say something briefly: namely, Amendments 43, 44A, 46 and 47. I shall also comment briefly on Amendment 45.
So far as Amendment 43 is concerned, I agree very much, for the reasons advanced by my noble friend Lord Dundee, that HOLAC should be the sole source of recommendations for appointments. In substance, there is too great a risk that individuals will be appointed by a party or Prime Minister in circumstances that will offend the public sense as to what is appropriate. Unfettered discretion on the part of a Prime Minister raises serious questions as to suitability and propriety of additional appointments. That risk will be diminished by giving the right of nomination to HOLAC.
In response to the point made by my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising, the truth is that the decisions of Prime Ministers cannot always be trusted, and we have seen some pretty rum events over the last few years which give force to that conclusion. I prefer the approach set out in the amendment which my noble friend Lord Dundee has moved to the negative approach suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Newby—I think he himself would accept that his amendment does not go far enough.
That takes me to Amendment 45, which puts HOLAC on a statutory basis. I think that it is highly desirable that the existence, composition, role and powers of HOLAC should be enshrined in statute. I have come to this conclusion very much for the reasons advanced by the noble Earl and for the reasons that were advanced by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde in the debate of last Monday. It is very important that the powers and role of HOLAC should be statutory. There is a very good model for this. It is in a Bill which was introduced in the 2022-23 Session by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, and it may well be that he is going to repeat those points in the debate on Friday when he has a Bill before your Lordships’ House.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
HOLAC is 25 years old in May and, looking at its report card, one would say that it has been a success. Of its two jobs, the production of the 76 Members that the noble Earl, Lord Devon, referred to into the Cross Bench has been a great success. I can say, as I am not one of them, that they really are among our most regular attenders and most valuable contributors. On the other side, its vetting business has also been a success, otherwise we would have noticed standards slipping in the House all round. But HOLAC is a delicate child; it was born of a White Paper and it lacks the permanence that it deserves. It is now a non-departmental government body and an advisory body only.
I suppose there are three things that one could do to HOLAC from here: first, give it the permanence that I think it deserves; secondly, broaden the scope of what it looks at; and thirdly, increase its powers—or, rather, give it powers, because it does not have any at all at the moment. In permanence terms, as I have already suggested, I feel that the time has come, after 25 years of success, to try to find a way to make HOLAC more permanent somewhere in statute, and not just have it as something which appeared in a White Paper.
On broadening HOLAC’s scope, it is clear that the exercise it undertakes when it looks at new Members includes enough data, information and deliberation for it to make a determination on not just propriety but suitability. Given that it is an advisory body, this would be interesting to me, were I Prime Minister, and it should be asked to provide that guidance to the Prime Minister. I would have that element of broadening its scope.
Where I do have a difficulty, though, is on increasing HOLAC’s powers. It would be hugely complex. We would have to sort out who is going to be a member. Today, it is quite a relaxed process—it is going on at the moment to fill two slots—but it would be extremely interesting to all sorts of people to become a member, or indeed a chair, of HOLAC. Its scrutiny, if it had real power, would be something we would have to sort out as well. That would take some time, and the timetable for this Bill would not allow that. I do not feel that this Bill could possibly be a vehicle for increasing HOLAC’s powers, but it could be a vehicle for making it permanent and giving it some breadth.
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 45 and the other amendments in this group that would make HOLAC a statutory body. I was a member of the commission for a number of years and, despite the fact that I hold the proposers of these amendments in very high regard, it would be a great mistake to put it on a statutory basis. I say so for the same reason as that given by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, a distinguished former chairman of the commission, to your Lordships on 18 November 2022.
In a nutshell, making HOLAC a statutory body would make it subject to judicial review. This would mean that someone who was unsuccessful in their application to become a Member of your Lordships’ House could challenge that decision in the courts. It would mean that an appointment that had been announced and, indeed, confirmed could be challenged in the courts. The courts would be drawn into deciding who should and should not be a Member of your Lordships’ House—a Member of this Chamber of Parliament—which is a flagrant breach of what we have always understood by the separation of powers.
It may be suggested that the legislation contemplated by these amendments to make HOLAC statutory could in some way circumscribe the power of the courts to intervene. I am afraid that history demonstrates that in a contest of that kind between the parliamentary draftsman and the courts, the courts usually win.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend is making a very serious point. Would he perhaps consider that the power of judicial review would be reduced if HOLAC was obliged, before making a public statement, to give the person affected the opportunity to respond?
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
On the contrary, if reasons were given, those reasons could be the basis of a challenge in the courts. I fear I entirely disagree with the last point my noble friend made in his speech, when he suggested that reasons should be given. If reasons are given, they can form a stronger or a particular basis for a challenge in the courts.
I shall content myself with one example of the attitude of the courts to attempts to circumscribe their powers to intervene. When I was Home Secretary, a decision was made, though not by me, to refuse British nationality to someone whom I will not name. The relevant statute says that in such cases the Home Office is not obliged to give reasons for its decision. The High Court decided that these words meant what most people would think they meant, which was that the Home Office did not have to give any reasons. The Court of Appeal, however, decided that because the statute gave the Home Office discretion as to whether it could give reasons, it was wrong not to give the reasons. Your Lordship will see what I mean when I say that it is extremely difficult to circumscribe the determination of the courts to intervene.
I do not think that the courts should have a role in determining the membership of your Lordships’ House. That would be a consequence of these amendments. I urge your Lordships to reject them.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, with regret, I cannot support any of the amendments in this group. I say “with regret” because there are aspects of them that I like very much. I like the proposal to extend the scope of HOLAC to consider competence as well as integrity. I am also tempted, like my noble friend the Convenor, by wishing to put HOLAC on a statutory basis. But the objections raised by the noble Lord, Lord Howard, are powerful. So, I would go as far in agreeing with my noble friend as to say that I would favour HOLAC being put on a more permanent basis if a way could be found for dealing with the objections raised by the noble Lord, Lord Howard.
One thing that runs in common through these amendments is that HOLAC’s power being extended runs up against a fatal flaw—that in one case HOLAC is given a veto on nominations to your Lordships’ House and in another it is given the sole right to make recommendations. Those aspects are constitutionally wrong. The sovereign, the King, creates Members of your Lordships’ House. There must be somebody to advise him. It must be a democratically elected person and that has to be the Prime Minister. It cannot be the role of a body such as HOLAC, however admirable its work and however admirably it is composed, to give that advice. The advice to the sovereign must come from the Prime Minister.
So HOLAC’s advisory role is very important but, although we may not like it, in the end the Prime Minister has to take the responsibility. That means the Prime Minister can, if he wishes, reject the advice of HOLAC. The right channel is that HOLAC advises, the Prime Minister advises the King and the King appoints.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, I support the amendments that would put HOLAC into statute, for the reasons given by the Convenor of the Cross Benches, which I shall not weary your Lordships by repeating. To the noble Lord, Lord Howard, I would say that, if HOLAC’s procedures are fair and if the courts are wise, which I believe they are, they will steer well clear.
Amendment 51, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and to which I have put my name, is an amendment that is not for the long term but for the here and now. Although the Cross Benches notoriously still lack a hairdresser, we owe to the People’s Peers scheme a decent share of the expertise that so distinguishes your Lordships’ House. Without it, we would not have the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson, Lady Watkins and Lady Kidron, or the noble Lords, Lord Krebs, Lord Pannick and Lord Hennessy. None of them, incidentally, are what the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, described as “public sector experts”, although we have some of those, too. We would not have had Lord Ramsbotham, whose former desk in this place I proudly occupy and whose detailed knowledge of the prison system no current Back-Bencher in any part of this House can equal.
None of those people—and they are only illustrative examples from a short but distinguished list—was active in politics or would have thought of standing for election. None qualified automatically by virtue of a previous job. None was proposed for membership by a political leader. But each has brought qualities of the very highest order to public life. Whether future political Peers arrive here by appointment or by some process of election, I hope they will continue to be joined by a modest stream of independent experts—ideally for a fixed term, as counselled by the noble Lord, Lord Burns—who owe nothing to party affiliation or prime ministerial patronage.
How modest is the stream? The noble Earl has given some figures. Let me give some more. Between the start of the scheme in 2001 and the 2010 general election, HOLAC’s website records that 55 People’s Peers were appointed—around six a year. But, more recently, the stream has slowed to a trickle. In the past 15 years, only 21 People’s Peers have been appointed, balanced between 11 women and 10 men.
I would be wary of any suggestion that might tend to increase either the numbers in this House or the proportion of peers who sit on the Cross Benches—but we do have a problem. The removal of 34 hereditaries will not only leave a large gap on the Cross Benches; it will leave gaps in the collective expertise of the House. How would we have navigated the cladding issue without the noble Earl, Lord Lytton? How could we provide a substitute for the remarkable energies of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden? Such gaps will not all be filled by the current trickle of People’s Peers.
That is where Amendment 51 comes in. It would operate independently of any special arrangement for which there might be support, in favour of the Convenor of the Cross Benches and perhaps others. It would increase the flow of People’s Peers—at least for five years—but the increase would be modest and well within the bounds of precedent. Four a year is somewhere between the current rate and the rate as it was under the last Labour Government.
The noble Earl, Lord Devon, has honourably made it clear that the purpose of his amendment is not to provide a route back to the House for hereditary Members who have been expelled—but, equally, there is no reason why such Members could not apply. I cannot speak for HOLAC, but surely a track record of superlative contribution to the work of the House could only be of assistance to Cross-Bench hereditaries who wish to try their luck again by a route that is open to all.
That leads to my last point. We are right to focus in these debates on the qualities of those who are already here, including the hereditary Peers who contribute so greatly to our work. But let us not neglect the qualities and the potential contributions of those candidates who have already applied to HOLAC or might be encouraged to do so. Though the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, as chair of HOLAC, cannot speak on this issue, I suspect she would agree that among those applicants are some of our very brightest and best—their expertise valuable and current. Let us give them a real chance, however small, to join this House.
The People’s Peers scheme has shown that the reputation and effectiveness of this place is capable of being enhanced by those who do not come from noble families, who do not benefit from political patronage and who are not members of a political party. I hope the Minister will agree that a modest but immediate revival of the People’s Peers, to which she could commit without accepting this amendment, could help to replace the Cross-Bench wisdom that will sadly be lost when the hereditary Peers leave us.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
My Lords, the amendments in this group raise some very serious questions—perhaps the most obvious being the opaqueness of HOLAC and how it will work and conduct its business under these proposals. Why on earth would the public be happy for Peers who are their legislators to be appointed by a group of people most of whom they will never have heard of and who are, frankly, regarded just as members of the same elite club?
This is a political Chamber where the Prime Minister of the day needs his ideas turned into law and the Opposition need champions to challenge them respectfully. The PM and the leader of the Opposition must be allowed to choose their own team. The team need not be political people or people with political experience, but they must be people who the PM and the leader of the Opposition will regard as being helpful to what they want to achieve. A while ago, the Labour Party, I think—forgive me if it was another party—went down the route of their Cabinet being selected by someone other than their leader. It was an absolute disaster, as indeed it would be here.
As my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising said—I do not agree with him that HOLAC should be got rid of; I think it has a very useful role—one can see that, under these proposals, it could overreach itself and decide for itself who to appoint on grounds that might be a mystery to the rest of us but feel good to it. The very minimum is, of course, that such people who are appointed are fit and proper, but that is not enough by any stretch of the imagination. Under these proposals, we do not know on what grounds people would be selected in the future.
In previous Bills that have tried to address this issue, there has been discussion of conspicuous merit. I think the Bill brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, with whom I agreed on everything he said this afternoon—talked about “conspicuous merit”. How does define one that? I am not sure that I could say I have any conspicuous merit. I would ask each of your Lordships to ask yourselves whether you really do have conspicuous merit. Is long service conspicuous merit? We see that some sports people are put in here on conspicuous merit. I do not think that has gone particularly well. As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has quite rightly reminded us, what this Bill has got to focus on is hereditary Peers. I was taken by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Moore, about the point being that people should be in this House to contribute—to make it more effective, to deliver—which is not a function of what they have done in the past but a function of what they will do in the future. Personally, one reason why I was very keen on hereditary Peers is that they do not come here to get a title, as many people do; they come here knowing, with their eyes wide open, that there is a job of work to do, and, by and large, they do the job of work.
An argument is also made that every person coming here must, in effect, be vetted by HOLAC, and that vetting is to be binding. I note that proposed new subsection (1B) in Amendment 47 would allow representations to be made, but, as ever, my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne addressed the problem of those representations leading to further judicial review. However, there is no right of appeal—as far as I can see in this legislation—so that cannot be right. Of course, if we go down the route of judicial review—which, as my noble friend Lord Howard pointed out and the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, suggested in the previous debate, would happen—I suggest that very few people would want to sit on a committee knowing that they were going to be subject to the awful process of a judicial review.
If HOLAC were to be made all-powerful—much more powerful—that committee would need to be investigated very carefully. Is it going to be balanced in ethnicity, gender, age, geography, politics, religion or diversity? We can see a real mess developing. Why would that committee be given so much power when it seems to me that we appoint a PM as we trust his—or, hopefully soon, her—judgment and we must let them get on with it? We elect our MPs to select their leader and, like it or not—obviously I do not at the moment, but I have in the past and I respect the will of the people—we must allow them to get on with their job.
If HOLAC is to be on a statutory basis, or if its recommendations are to be binding, surely we will need much greater access to its deliberations. Does HOLAC now work fully effectively? No, clearly it does not. In my case, I was told on 12 December that I was going to be elevated to the House, but it did not happen until the following December, so there was a huge gap, and I was told that part of the reason for that was HOLAC deliberations. Therefore, the idea of giving HOLAC more power, just when government has said that it wants to reduce the number of quangos, seems to me inappropriate.
Lord Northbrook (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak briefly. While I can understand the logic behind the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I believe that HOLAC, for which I have the greatest respect, is not totally infallible. I examined the issue of my noble friend Lord Cruddas’s rejection by the committee, and to summarise the matter, he was involved in a sting with Sunday Times journalists. He was then cleared by the Electoral Commission of any wrongdoing, sued the Sunday Times in a court and was given extensive damages. He is a respectable businessman, so I feel that, in that case, the Prime Minister was right to overrule HOLAC. There should be some sort of appeal mechanism in that case.
Lord Mancroft (Con)
My Lords, before this debate concludes, I think this House owes a great debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who has confirmed for the Committee now what I feared in the past: that it is HOLAC’s duty to advise the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister’s duty to advise the King, and the King’s job to appoint. That is as it should be. What he does confirm, however, is that the sole power of appointment to the Second Chamber, from the passage of this Bill onwards, now rests in the hands of the Prime Minister, who has the majority in the House of Commons. If that is not an unbalanced and damaged constitution, I do not know what is.
Lord Norton of Louth (Con)
My Lords, I will speak very briefly, mainly because I endorse the words of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and agree with virtually everything he said. I do not think it is appropriate for these amendments to be in this Bill for two reasons. First, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, about scope. This is in essence a one-clause Bill with a very specific purpose. Secondly, the amendments—though I agree with a number of them—are, in essence, disparate and discrete, so it is not appropriate to embody them in a Bill of this sort. They need to be drawn together. If there is going to be change, it needs to be in a clear, coherent Bill that addresses the concerns that we have heard today.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, I do not want to detain your Lordships long. I feel that I also have to swim rather against the current, as my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley was doing. Is there not something intrinsically wrong with a committee of the great and the good getting to appoint one of our two legislative Chambers? Why bother to get yourself elected to another place and be one among 651, when you can get yourself appointed to a committee which would then, in its turn, appoint a huge chunk of one of the two legislative Chambers? Is that not the very definition of oligarchy?
I am conscious that what I am saying is going to be unpopular here, because we are all, I suppose, to a greater or lesser extent, beneficiaries of the existing system, and I am also conscious that it is going to be unpopular beyond this place. In my years as an elected politician, I found that the most popular thing you could say about any subject was: “This is too important to be a political football. Why don’t we just get all the elected politicians out of the way and let the experts get on?” If you wanted a round of applause on “Question Time” or “Any Questions”, all you had to do was say, “Trust the professionals”, because on some level, everybody loves the idea of an expert. Everybody loves the idea of a disinterested patriot who can raise his eyes above the partisan scrum and descry the true national interest. However, I have to tell your Lordships that no such person exists. We all have our prejudices and assumptions—the expert more than anybody if, by expert, we mean somebody who has spent their entire career in one particular field. The idea of having such people appointing jolly good chaps like themselves is the antithesis of representative government.
I heard all the arguments that were made about what is wrong with concentrating this power solely in the hands of the Prime Minister, and I agree with that. If this were happening in Xi’s China or in Putin’s Russia, we would all say, “How terrible—imagine having the Executive filling one of the two legislative Chambers. What a travesty. What an affront to democracy”. I slightly fall back on saying that, if we are not happy having the Prime Minister doing it all, and we do not want a committee replicating itself like some Borg in “Star Trek”, we have to come up with an alternative. My own preference would be to keep something closer to what we have, where we would at least have some diversity, with some of our Members having been through some kind of election, albeit with a small enfranchised group.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, I think we can all agree that we want the same thing: a House that serves with integrity, a Second Chamber that commands public trust, and an appointments process that preserves the best of our traditions while adapting to the demands of modern democracy.
The House of Lords Appointments Commission provides a non-statutory safeguard within the process for appointments to your Lordships’ House. It has a clear but limited role: to recommend non-party-political Members for the Cross Benches, ensuring that this House benefits, as many noble Lords have pointed out, from independent expertise; and to provide vetting advice on nominations for life peerages. Crucially, its recommendations are advisory and do not bind a Prime Minister.
Many of the amendments in this group seek to place the power of nomination to this unelected Chamber in the hands of an unelected committee, as my noble friend Lord Hannan emphasised. This includes proposing significant changes to the powers and operation of HOLAC, including making its recommendations binding, rendering it statutory or altering its remit entirely. While I deeply respect noble Lords’ intentions in tabling these amendments, I must express my concerns, which were echoed by several noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley, about the direction of travel that most of these proposals suggest.
I appreciate my noble friend Lord Dundee’s Amendment 45 and the clarification that my noble friend Lord Hailsham has suggested in Amendment 46. These amendments would establish HOLAC on a statutory basis and establish a cross-party board to oversee its work. They received support from my noble friends Lord Attlee and Lord Norton of Louth, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. Their aim—to secure greater legitimacy and transparency for HOLAC—is honourable. Their effect, however, would be disastrous: a great mistake, as my noble friend Lord Howard pointed out.
Placing HOLAC on a statutory footing would not clarify its role; it would fundamentally alter it. Legislation would create a legal framework against which HOLAC’s decisions could be formally challenged in court, opening the door for the malicious and the litigious to claim it had failed to fulfil its legal duties. Candidates who were not recommended for appointment as Cross-Bench Peers could contest the basis on which they were excluded. Those who failed the propriety test, which is based on judgment rather than law, could argue it had been misapplied. Instead of providing independent advice to the Prime Minister, HOLAC would become a body subject to judicial review, forced to justify its reasoning in court, constrained by legal precedent and bound to operate based not on judgment, but within the narrow confines of justiciability. The Prime Minister’s discretion, exercised on HOLAC’s advice, would be second-guessed in not this House but the courts—a point made brilliantly by my noble friend Lord Howard. The process would become slower, more contested and more uncertain, exposing every appointment to challenge, delay and dysfunction. We should be under no illusion: making HOLAC statutory would not reinforce its authority but undermine it. It would not enhance trust but erode it, and it would not improve the system but entrench its weaknesses.
Lord Norton of Louth (Con)
In the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill, now an Act, we included an ouster clause. Why could that not be included in this measure?
Baroness Finn (Con)
I defer to my Front-Bench colleague, my noble and learned friend Lord Keen: because of the way the ouster clause would be interpreted in court.
Amendment 43 in the name of my noble friend Lord Dundee takes a step further by transferring the responsibility for proposing peerages to HOLAC and away from the Prime Minister. This amendment would strip the Prime Minister—the only person in this process with a democratic mandate—of the power to propose life peerages and hand it to an unelected body. That would be a well-intentioned mistake. The Prime Minister does not act alone. HOLAC already plays an important advisory role by scrutinising appointments and applying the propriety test; but, crucially, it is the Prime Minister who makes the final decision. That balance matters. If HOLAC gets it wrong, if it misjudges a candidate or applies the propriety test too narrowly or too loosely, the Prime Minister can correct it. If the Prime Minister gets it wrong, he or she faces scrutiny, challenge and, ultimately, the judgment of the electorate. This is a system that holds both in check. If the Prime Minister is stripped of that role, HOLAC’s decisions become final. There is no backstop, no political oversight, no democratic accountability.
More than that—this point was made eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Butler—the amendment breaks a fundamental constitutional principle. The Prime Minister is the monarch’s chief adviser. It is not for an unelected commission to take on that role. Appointments to this House must be made by those who answer to the people, not by a body with no democratic mandate, no political accountability and no direct link to the people. We all want higher standards, but high standards must be upheld in a way that strengthens, not weakens, our democracy; in a way that builds trust, not erodes it; and in a way that reinforces the legitimacy of this House, not undermines it.
Amendment 44A from my noble friend Lord Hailsham seeks to add an additional test: that nominees must be fit and proper and independent-minded. While I entirely understand the intention behind this, I struggle to see how one could determine legally whether a potential appointee is independent-minded. It is, by its nature, a subjective judgment, and in a democracy such judgments should ultimately rest with those who are accountable to the people, rather than with those who are accountable to no one.
Amendment 12, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and Amendment 47, in the name of my noble friend Lord Hailsham seek to prevent life peerages being conferred if HOLAC has recommended against the appointment. Amendment 12 establishes this power as absolute, but Amendment 47 concedes that HOLAC must give an explanation and allow representations before a decision is final. Amendment 116 merely amends the Short Title of the Bill in relation to Amendment 12.
These amendments do not simply tweak the appointments process; they fundamentally recast the role of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. HOLAC was created as an advisory committee: to advise, not to command. To make its recommendations binding is to transform it from a source of counsel into the ultimate arbiter of membership of your Lordships’ House. It would no longer be a check, but a gatekeeper. This is not some dry technicality. It is a profound shift in constitutional authority. At present, the system balances expert scrutiny with democratic accountability. HOLAC advises; the Prime Minister decides. If a Prime Minister presses ahead against its recommendation, the commission ensures transparency by informing Parliament. The check is there, the scrutiny is real and, crucially, it is the Prime Minister, not an unelected committee, who must justify their judgment to the country.
We do not strengthen the system by stripping discretion from those whom the people can ultimately hold to account. The power to recommend appointments to His Majesty should rest where it always has: with a democratically accountable Prime Minister, not an unelected tribunal with the right of veto. That is the system we have; it works. These amendments would replace it with something far more rigid, less democratic and more dangerous.
This brings me to Amendment 12A in the name of my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising. This amendment proposes the opposite of the rest in this group, rendering HOLAC ineffective. While I am incredibly sympathetic to my noble friend’s position, especially on the untameable growth of committees and quangos, I accept that HOLAC has some role to fulfil, even if it should be limited. HOLAC plays an important role in safeguarding propriety and ensuring that this House retains, and is seen to retain, its reputation for expertise and integrity. I am sure that the Prime Minister, like his predecessors, will continue to place great weight on the commission’s careful and considered advice. The House of Lords Appointments Commission has an independent and important advisory role, but it is and must remain advisory. It also has a clear remit and that too must remain clear.
There was a suggestion while I was serving in government that HOLAC might seek to dictate the timing or publication of a peerage list. That is clearly not part of its remit and illustrates a potential tendency of the commission, even in its non-statutory form, to succumb to the temptations of overreach.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 51 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and my noble friend Lord Dundee, which seeks to encourage HOLAC in its current form to confer life peerages on up to 20 Cross-Bench hereditary Peers. As my noble friend Lord True set out so eloquently last week, we firmly believe—
The Earl of Devon (CB)
The amendment does not seek to apply 20 life peerages to hereditary Peers; it merely suggests life peerages to refill the Cross Benches.
Baroness Finn (Con)
I apologise to the noble Lord. His amendment seeks to confer life peerages for up to 20 Cross-Bench Peers. As my noble friend Lord True set out eloquently last week, we firmly believe that all hereditary Peers serving in our House should be permitted to stay as they are, albeit without being replaced or granted life peerages.
No advisory body is truly neutral and objectivity is hard to achieve. HOLAC is no exception. It offers judgment, not infallibility, and expanding its powers risks creating a system neither accountable nor impartial. We must be wary of trading one form of discretion for another, especially when it moves further from democratic oversight. The balance we have is not perfect, but it preserves scrutiny and responsibility. To abandon that balance is not reform but retreat.
Lord Mancroft (Con)
Before my noble friend sits down, will she join me in congratulating the Government Chief Whip on the brilliant management of business in the House this afternoon, whereby there is virtually nobody sitting on the Government Benches? Apart from the wonderful noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, and the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, representing the dinosaurs, I do not think a single Government Back-Bencher has spoken in support of the Government’s Bill today. They have now even brought in Ministers to sit behind the Front Bench so that everybody watching on screen thinks that the Government are being supported. This is not the sort of management of business that we expect to see in your Lordships’ House.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, what is so unfortunate is that I was about to welcome and celebrate the tone of the debate that we had just had. So I am going to move on with the tone of the debate and celebrate the contributions that noble Lords have made, which have been—in overwhelming number— thoughtful and considered. I am grateful for that. I think all noble Lords—as the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, highlighted—want the same thing for this House: colleagues who meet the highest standards of public service, who are dedicated to our country and who want to ensure that our legislation is fit for purpose.
The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, allow HOLAC to veto the Prime Minister’s and party leaders’ nominations to the House of Lords. The amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, also specifies HOLAC’s composition and purpose in statute. The Government are grateful for the discussion on these amendments today. We committed in our manifesto to reform the appointments process, but we cannot, unfortunately, accept these amendments, which fundamentally alter the roles and responsibilities in the appointments system.
Constitutionally, it is on the advice of the Prime Minister that the sovereign appoints new Peers, but it is not just the Prime Minister who makes these nominations. The Prime Minister, by convention, invites nominations from other political parties. After all, as was pointed out earlier in Committee, I was appointed by the former Prime Minister Truss. It is the responsibility of party leaders to consider who is best placed to represent their party in the House of Lords. This is an important principle. The Prime Minister and other party leaders are democratically elected and accountable to Parliament, and ultimately to the electorate, for the political nominations they make to the House of Lords.
The House of Lords Appointments Commission vets all nominations for life peerages to ensure the highest standards of propriety in this House. The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, would seek to make HOLAC’s advice defunct. If HOLAC recommended a nominee, the Prime Minister would be unable to proceed with their appointment. I hope it is obvious to your Lordships’ House why we cannot accept this, not least given the conversation we had earlier about People’s Peers. HOLAC’s proprietary advice is important to the Prime Minister as he discharges his duty to advise the sovereign on life peerages, and he of course considers it carefully. The Government are very grateful for the work that HOLAC, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, does to provide this advice.
This advice, however, forms part of a process that also ensures democratic accountability in the appointment process. Party leaders must accept responsibility for their appointment. We cannot and should not expect HOLAC to take on that responsibility. Handing HOLAC, an unelected body, the role of recommending new life peerages directly to the sovereign, or giving them the power to veto the Prime Minister’s recommendations, as in the amendment put forward today, would undermine that accountability.
The Government believe that nominating parties should be properly held to account for their nominations to the House of Lords. As my noble friend the Leader of the House set out on the first day of Committee, we have already taken a straightforward but important step to introduce a requirement on all nominating parties to provide public citations that clearly set out why individuals were nominated. I was pleased to see the first set of citations published on GOV.UK following the recent peerage list in December of last year.
The amendment from the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, seeks to introduce a new oath for new Peers and requires HOLAC to be satisfied that new Peers will participate. This is a thoughtful suggestion, but, as a reminder, new Peers already sign our Code of Conduct when they take their seat. As we have said during the passage of the Bill, we are working on developing a participation requirement to ensure that we become a more active Chamber. It matters less what Peers say they will do than what they actually do when they come here. I am, however, grateful to noble Lords for their suggestions on how this could work and ways to take it forward.
More widely, the Prime Minister has made clear that he is committed to restoring trust in Parliament and takes the advice of all ethics bodies seriously. The Government are committed to keeping our ethics bodies under review and, where necessary, delivering reforms to ensure the highest standards in public life. Indeed, the Government have already demonstrated their willingness to strengthen the independent protections provided by the standards landscape. The Prime Minister has, for example, significantly strengthened the remit of the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards, ensuring they have the ability to initiate investigations into ministerial standards without requiring the Prime Minister’s consent. However, as I have made clear, the amendments proposed today would undermine the manifesto commitment to look at the current system and the democratic lines of accountability that currently exist in the appointments process.
I now turn to the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, which would give HOLAC the power to recommend 20 individuals to the sovereign for non-party political life peerages over the next five years. The Cross-Benchers bring expertise and diverse perspectives to the House, which I welcome, and I thoroughly enjoy working with many of them. They make valuable contributions. Retirements and other departures mean that new Peers will always need to be appointed to ensure that the Lords has appropriate expertise, and I acknowledge that the Bill will have a particular impact on the number of Cross-Benchers. As my noble friend the Leader of the House said to the Committee last week, she has committed to discuss this with the relevant parties.
As it stands, new Peers can be appointed to the Cross Benches through nominations by the House of Lords Appointments Commission. HOLAC runs an open-application assessment process to identify and select new Cross-Bench Peers, and the Prime Minister passes HOLAC’s nominations to the sovereign. Many excellent Peers have come to your Lordships’ House this way. The number of Peers that HOLAC is able to nominate is decided by the Prime Minister, and in doing so he of course takes into account the political balance of your Lordships’ House. Prime Ministers can also recommend a limited number of additional Cross-Bench appointments over the course of the Parliament for those with a record of public service. As with all new Peers, they are subject to propriety vetting by HOLAC.
I note that the noble Lord’s amendment allows HOLAC, rather than the Prime Minister, the role of recommending 20 life Peers to the sovereign. As I addressed earlier, constitutionally it is for the Prime Minister, as principal adviser to the sovereign, to recommend new life Peers. I appreciate that the purpose of this amendment is to ensure that the Cross-Benchers remain a significant presence in your Lordships’ House. To give HOLAC, an unelected body, the role of providing advice to the sovereign, even in this limited way, would, however, be a clear break from our constitutional arrangements—one that would require careful thought, as today’s debate has demonstrated, and one that the Government do not support or think necessary.
As we have repeatedly stated, the Government committed in their manifesto to reform the process of appointments to this place, to ensure the quality of new appointments and to improve the representative balance of the second Chamber so that it better reflects the country that it serves. We have heard—and I am sure we will continue to hear—interesting proposals from across the House, and we welcome the discussion on appointments. However, it is right that we take time to properly consider how to take forward our manifesto commitment to reform in this area, as part of the wider standards landscape, in a way that reflects the importance of those lines of democratic accountability. It is also not a debate for this Bill. As has been stated, this is a focused Bill that delivers the Government’s manifesto commitment to bring about an immediate reform by removing the right of the remaining hereditary Peers to sit and vote in your Lordships’ House. It is not the vehicle to consider all reforms to the House of Lords. I therefore respectfully ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for a typically interesting debate. As I said at the outset, we were not seeking a fundamental reform of the way that HOLAC operates; we were seeking to do something uncontroversial that I thought nobody could possibly disagree with. I have been in your Lordships’ House for only 27 years, so what do I know?
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Butler, that our amendment does not break the link between the Prime Minister and the monarch. The Prime Minister would still make the recommendations. I am sure there are many other areas in which the Prime Minister gives advice to the monarch where that advice is constrained by various outside bodies, so I am not persuaded by the noble Lord’s argument.
In a way, the problem was set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, who said that the Prime Minister does not act alone. The truth is that he did act alone in this case. That is why we have the amendment. There was no constraint on the Prime Minister in making some proposals. HOLAC could not then do anything about it. I am not saying that it was a whim of the Prime Minister, or done without thought, but it was certainly his decision and his alone.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. As I read his amendment, the Prime Minister could not recommend somebody if HOLAC had said that he should not. Would that not give HOLAC a veto and constrain the Prime Minister’s powers?
Lord Newby (LD)
Yes, it would constrain the Prime Minister’s powers; that is what I want to do. In my view, the Prime Minister has, on rare occasions in the past, acted in a manner that has allowed people who HOLAC thought improper to become Members of your Lordships’ House. That is what I want to stop.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, does it not strike the noble Lord as interesting that, in this amendment, he recommends the power of appointed people over elected people whereas in previous amendments he recommended the exact opposite?
Lord Newby (LD)
It may be interesting to the noble Lord; I think it is totally irrelevant to this case. We are obviously done with this issue today. I will withdraw my amendment but I will come back to it on Report.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)
Before I deal with Amendment 12, the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, moved his Amendment 12A; does he wish to withdraw it?
“15 year terms for life peers(1) A member of the House of Lords who has sat in the House by virtue of a life peerage for 15 years or more ceases to be a member of the House of Lords at the end of that Session of Parliament, subject to subsection (2).(2) A member of the House of Lords who has sat in the House by virtue of a life peerage for 15 years or more may apply to the House of Lords Appointments Commission for reappointment for a further five or more years up to a maximum of 15 years, but no member may sit in the House of Lords by virtue of a life peerage for more than 30 years in total.”
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)
My Lords, the first and most important point to make about this amendment is that it was not dreamed up by me. It is one of the key recommendations of the royal commission on House of Lords reform. This commission, which reported in 2000 and of which I was privileged to be a member, was chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham. It had representatives on it of all political parties and came to unanimous conclusions.
The commission argued for a mixture of appointed and elected elements, and this proposal for a 15-year term was designed for both kinds of Member. The point was that Members of the House of Lords should not be driven by short-term considerations or looming elections but should be able to take the long view, and 15 years was considered appropriate.
As proposed new subsection (2) of the amendment indicates, this term could be extended in the case of a particular Peer by the independent Appointments Commission. When a 15-year term came to an end, a Peer might find themselves a Minister, chair of a key committee, or deeply involved in an important piece of legislation or some other work that was deeply appreciated by the House. Their term could be renewed, in the first instance for a further five years, but such instances would, perhaps, become the exception. Most Peers would expect to serve 15 years.
Like others of your Lordships, I am very disappointed that the Bill as set out deals only with hereditary Peers and not with the wider issue of Lords reform. I entirely accept the Government’s good faith that they want to bring forward some further reforms but I am deeply sceptical as to whether they will ever be able to get round to doing it. This is because, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, stressed earlier, Parliament is still deeply divided as to what form major reform should take. Furthermore, other ideas about reform have come forward since the royal commission, notably from the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, for a second Chamber representing the nations and regions. Building a consensus for that or for any major reform could take decades.
Viscount Hailsham
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, my Amendments 14 and 15 would have very limited impact. The problem with Amendment 13 from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, is that it flies in the face of the attempt—which I think is felt within your Lordships’ House—to get the numbers down and to refresh this House. I have nothing against the extension proposed by the noble and right reverend Lord provided that it is confined to this Parliament and limited to five years. Otherwise, we will run the risk of extending terms for substantial periods. That is not what I think this House wants.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, although, with apologies to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, it does not actually mention hereditary Peers. This debate has ranged much more widely. At some stage we will need to discuss the next steps for reform. I hope that we will not overlook the work of either the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, or the noble Lord, Lord Burns, who had some very sound proposals in his report that we somehow seem to have swept under the carpet.
I have been here for nearly 18 years and I have no wish to retire, but it is possible that, if I still have my marbles in another 12 years, I would be grateful for an honourable way to go. Most of us are appointed because we have expertise in a particular field, but it is quite possible that, after 15 years, our expertise is not quite as lively as it was when we first came in, so having this sort of term seems to make quite a lot of sense.
I cannot understand why noble Lords have not grouped more amendments in this debate. This seems an unnecessary waste of your Lordships’ time and, I fear, the sort of thing that brings this House into disrepute. I note that the ungrouped amendments all seem to come from the Conservative Benches. I wonder why.
Viscount Thurso (LD)
My Lords, my Amendment 66 has been grouped with these amendments. I will briefly explain what the amendment does and then make a valiant, though likely unsuccessful, attempt to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that it would be worth accepting.
My amendment seeks to address the fact that there is broad agreement across the House that in some way, shape or form the length of time that people sit in the House should not be indefinite. The concept of a seat for life has no more validity than a seat for life that has been inherited. The report from the noble Lord, Lord Burns, suggested 15 years, as referred to in Amendment 13. I have chosen a term of 20 years precisely because 15 years sounds like something I can imagine, whereas 20 years sounds somewhat more gentle. The number has been chosen so as not to frighten the horses.
The amendment would amend the Life Peerages Act such that the right to receive a Writ of Summons would be limited to 20 years from the moment someone took their seat in the House. That would mean that if somebody happened to be just under the 20 years when an election was called, they would get a Writ of Summons and could get up to 24 years. If they were lucky—or unlucky, depending on your point of view—to have sat for 20 years when an election was called, that would be their lot. By referring to a Writ of Summons, the amendment has the merit of meaning that anyone who was limited would get to the end of the Parliament they were sitting in so that if they were chairing a committee or running a Bill, they would be able to complete their work.
The amendment is deliberately designed to affect peerages granted after the passage of this Bill. There is quite a lot of feeling, one way or another, about the concept of changing the terms of employment, as it were, for people who are already here. Therefore, people given a peerage in the future would know precisely what they would be doing and the length of time they would serve.
An alternative for terms of reference, which will be debated later, is a retirement age. I do not favour retirement ages because I have met people of considerable age with great faculties and abilities and some people of not very great age who do not have great faculties and abilities. I would rather have, as happens in the other place, a term limit based on moment of arrival and moment of departure, rather than an arbitrary one based on age.
The key difference between this amendment and virtually any other that will be tabled is that it does not affect anybody who is currently sitting in the House. Why, therefore, have I brought it forward? I hope to persuade the Leader of the House that it may be worth considering and possibly accepting.
As I mentioned in the debate on the last group, I have been around the houses on Lords reform for the best part of 30 years, across two Houses. Apart from the fact that anybody who engages in that requires a certain degree of stamina, I have noticed that progress has been remarkably small and often barely incremental. The amendment therefore seeks to put in a longstop. If it is accepted, it would change nothing at the moment. If the Government go ahead, as promised, and bring something forward in the remainder of this Parliament, nothing has changed; this is perfectly reversible and whatever changes might be thought appropriate by the Government can go ahead. It has no impact on anything that might be discussed. But if the circumstance arises—and the odds are probably in favour of this circumstance—that for one reason or another, such as international affairs or all sorts of different reasons, time is not found in this Parliament for any further reform, and the electoral maths changes so that the next term might be more difficult, we would be back to having another 10 or 15 years before something happens.
If, therefore, we are really interested in the size of the House coming down—I think we all wish to see that—and if some form of limited term is appropriate, the amendment puts this out into the distance. It is exactly like crown green bowls, where you put one ball right at the back, just in case. If nothing happens, there would be a longstop that would start to see a reduction in the numbers.
I would like to think that my amendment has been drafted in a way that has some elegance and grace and would solve a problem that I hope we will not have and therefore could be disregarded. But in case we do have the problem, it is a mechanism planted into the future that would have some control over the size of your Lordships’ House. For those reasons, I hope the Government might consider this amendment, or something very like it, as a workable proposition, and use the Bill for this tiny addition that would have no impact on the vast bulk of what they are seeking to achieve.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
My Lords, instinctively, I like limited terms. It is like running a board: you know who is leaving, when they are leaving and what skills they have, and you recruit to replace them in an orderly way rather than relying on the grim reaper to do it for you. I often say about 15-year terms that it is five years to learn the job, five years to be effective and five years to go out of date. I fear that I may offend a few in the Chamber today by making that mathematical assertion.
In practice, there is one point that we need to consider with regard to limited terms: what then? If people have spent their peak career earning years in this House and then leave at 50 or 60—with no pension from this employer, by the way—are we in danger of putting people off from joining us because they have nothing to look forward to as a support beyond the time they spend here? I worry that your Lordships’ House would become more attractive to people of independent means and less attractive to people who are not in that lucky position.
Viscount Thurso (LD)
May I respond to the noble Lord briefly, as we are in Committee? If one looks at the average age at which people come into this House, it is at the end of their careers, just below or above 60. Therefore, 20 years takes most people who come into this House from mid-50s to mid-70s or early 60s to early 80s. Under the current arrangements, there are relatively few people who come into the House as a full-time occupation who are in their primary working years. I know that there are exceptions, and exceptions always prove the rule. However, if we wish to have some longstop, my amendment takes care of most of the points he has made. If people know in advance that they are being offered something for 20 years, they always have the choice of declining.
Lord Desai (CB)
My Lords, I have many things to declare. One is that I came here not as a hereditary Peer but was appointed by John Major, who conspired with Neil Kinnock—the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock—to get me here. Secondly, I have been here for 34 years, so I obviously do not qualify to be a sane, sensible person, because I am too old. I am 85, and after 34 years I am clearly not qualified to be here at all—so I have to fight for my life, because I actually like this place.
When I came here I did not swear an oath, not being a believer, but I affirmed one. I affirmed an oath to serve Her Majesty the Queen, her heirs and successors. I did not say “Till death do us part” but I definitely came on the promise that I was appointed for life. I was not appointed on whether I was qualified, whether I was sane, whether I was solvent, or anything like that. Okay—if I violate the rules of conduct, I may get thrown out. Apart from that, given the logic of your Lordships’ House, I do not see any reason whatever to have age limits and term limits retrospectively. Yes, have a Bill which is not to do with the hereditary Peers but with House of Lords reform. If you want to reform the House and reduce the number of people and so on, then say that normally at such and such an age you would qualify.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
My Lords, with apologies for interrupting the noble Earl, I want to draw noble Lords’ attention to the subjects coming up for debate in later groups and remind them to try to stick to the subjects of the groups.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness is of course absolutely correct on her point and I strongly support her.
The issue of fixed-term peerages or membership of the House is indeed closely related to the issue of age limits, so I have some sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, said. I think that the overall answer to both issues is a retirement age that is agreed or understood at the time of appointment for new Peers. I hope that gives some comfort to the noble Lord, Lord Desai.
Once the hereditary Peers have gone, the remaining Peers who are over 70 now will come under considerable media pressure. It is no use avoiding this point. To an even greater extent than younger Peers, such older Peers are, rightly, not very responsive to what the media think or what the media want them to do. Rather, they do what they believe is in the public interest and in accordance with the Nolan principles. I am not sure that that is what the media want. I think that having 80 year-old Peers will be made to seem just as indefensible as hereditaries are incorrectly claimed to be today.
I would not underestimate the value to the House of Lords of having some Peers whose experience goes back a very long way. For instance, I advised a noble Baroness on the Cross Benches who was faced with an assisted dying Bill. She erroneously believed that she could not try to kill the Bill at Second Reading; I advised her that she could and that I had seen it done some time before. Sure enough, she succeeded in her endeavours. Unfortunately, when drafting this speech, I could not avoid the words “kill”, “fatal” or “euthanise” or the phrase “put out of its misery” when talking about the procedure related to an assisted dying Bill.
I am not opposed to term limits, provided that those who propose them are clear about what they want the House to do. However, the Wakeham report identified a danger, in that term limits could deter potential new Members—a point well made by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell.
Lord Burns (CB)
My Lords, perhaps I could comment on one or two of the points being made. The Lord Speaker’s Committee, which I chaired, did indeed make the proposal that there should be either 15-year or 20-year term limits. We looked at both of them and came down in the end marginally in favour of 15-year term limits.
That was against the background not of this Bill, of course, but of also promoting the idea of a ceiling on the size of the House of Lords. The great argument in favour of term limits is that it generates a predictable number and a predictable flow of levers, which can then work alongside a limit on the size of the House. It then provides the scope for both refreshment of the House and a change in the political balance over a period of time, which is also very important, and it all can be done in an orderly way. The proposal that we made was in this context of several other changes that were suggested, rather than something which was standing on its own.
The proposal we made was also to be applied only to new Peers. We said that it should begin then and was a long-term proposal. It was the only real mechanism we could find whereby you could stabilise the numbers over time and have the capacity to make changes. After all, there are term limits for most people in most legislatures. Most of them are determined by the electorate and by what happens to people when they meet the voter. There is nothing new about this: it is a very useful mechanism, but not really a mechanism for this Bill. I accept that it is for another day, but in the argument about a more balanced and wider group of changes being made, I would be very supportive of this important mechanism at that time.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, my Amendment 73 is included in this group and supported by my noble friend Lord Wigley and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I thank them for their support.
Most noble Lords will be aware by now that my goal is to see this place abolished and replaced with a democratic second Chamber. However, in the meantime, I am determined to push forward even small steps that can have a meaningful impact. Amendment 73 is a simple step towards achieving radical reform. I am asking His Majesty’s Government to implement a term limit for Members in this place, capped at no more than 10 years.
While I commend the tabling of several other amendments by noble Lords proposing term limits, the shortest among them is 15 years. By international standards, 15 years is extremely long for an appointed Chamber. In fact, it is three times longer than the most common term length of five years, with the next most common being just four years. Based on this evidence, we can also see that 10 years is extremely abnormal. However, I wish to note that my amendment seeks to establish a ceiling and not a target.
I have drafted Amendment 73 with a 10-year ceiling to allow His Majesty’s Government to investigate the various ranges of term limits before bringing forward a final proposal. I tabled the amendment because I firmly oppose the prospect that anyone should have a job for life. It is absurd in most settings, but completely inappropriate for an establishment that is supposed to be accountable to the people of these nations. We cannot honestly believe that someone can be forever representative of others.
Others have tabled amendments that would set a retirement age, which we will cover in the next group. Although this could be a good practice to introduce, I fear that setting a retirement age without a term limit would fail to address the imbalanced composition of this Chamber. This approach would not solve the issues that the Bill and these amendments aim to address—namely, the number of Members and the diversity of this Chamber.
Following my advocacy for term limits at Second Reading, I was asked by a Member of this House where I would get a job after my term was up. Would I not struggle with the loss of power and influence after being a Member of this place? I have reflected on this question, and I cannot escape the conclusion that it reveals a deeply flawed perception of what this institution should represent. It is precisely this kind of thinking that underscores the urgent need for term limits. No one in our position should see this role as a source of power. It is and must always be a responsibility, a duty to serve—not a privilege to cling to. If we ever lose sight of that, reform is not just desirable but essential. Therefore, I stand by my statement that term limits are the best way of addressing these issues. Implementing this amendment would guarantee that the Chamber undergoes regular renewal and revitalisation, with Members carrying out their duty with a strong sense of responsibility and commitment to their role, knowing that their time in office is limited and impactful.
Some argue that regular and continuous changes to the second Chamber might be disruptive. However, this amendment does not propose changes that would result in Members being unable to stand for re-election. I propose that we counter the supposed issue of turbulence by following the example of the Australian Senate. There, term limits are six years, with half the Senate elected every three years. This provides a staggered approach that ensures that at least a proportion of the upper Chamber is elected less recently than the lower Chamber. It means that membership is less affected by changes in the political mood. Implementing a term limit can also prove an effective way to ensure that Members of this Chamber do not exceed a certain number, and that representatives better reflect the voices of the public.
I would be grateful if the Minister could share with us some of her thinking about term limits. Does she see this as a possible reform that His Majesty’s Government would consider as part of this Bill or as a short new Bill? What is His Majesty’s Government’s view on life appointments?
Lord Remnant (Con)
My Lords, in view of the hour, I shall attempt to be brief, but I would like to speak in support of the thrust of the amendments proposed in this group. I do so in the context of the Government’s wider manifesto commitments.
I do not want to trespass upon or pre-empt discussion of the next group of amendments, which cover retirement on account of age. But if the Government’s objectives are to reduce the size of this House and continually to refresh the skills and experience of Members, retirement based on term rather than age is a viable and, I argue, preferable alternative. Given that the manifesto commitment to a retirement age is missing from this Bill and that, within a year of this commitment being formally made, new Peers above the proposed mandatory retirement age have already been appointed, one might objectively conclude that the Government may be reconsidering the method by which retirement can best be achieved.
Why do I favour the principle of term limits? Discrimination on the basis of age is illegal in many walks of life, including in the workplace. In the corporate world with which I am most familiar, law and best practice have moved away from age and towards terms. As far back as 2007, the Companies Act requirement setting the age limit for directors of public companies at 70 was repealed. This has effectively been replaced by the Corporate Governance Code, which stipulates that non-executive directors should be appointed for terms subject to re-election. This principle is generally considered to have served stakeholders well, and it is extremely rare that any company would seek to contravene it.
So what should that term be? These amendments span a range of 10 to 30 years, with the upper limit being achieved only by a series of five-year reappointments. Again, I take as my starting point the Corporate Governance Code. It provides that any term for a non-executive director beyond six years should be subject to particularly rigorous review and should take into account the need for progressive refreshing of the board. In practice, all other things being equal, directors would be asked to serve at least six years and most up to nine years. That naturally leads me towards the lower end of the ranges proposed.
I believe that there is merit in Members serving for at least two full parliamentary terms, 10 years, and that the flexibility of allowing a five-year extension is sensible. Beyond that, it may be that the balance of, on the one hand, continually refreshing the skills and experience of Members of the House and, on the other, retaining the wisdom and contribution of existing Members starts to become too skewed away from the former.
Most unhelpfully, my views do not conform precisely with any one of the amendments, but they are best aligned in principle and in detail with Amendment 13 in the name of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, as amended by my noble friend Lord Hailsham in Amendment 15. However, I strongly believe that, given the significance of such a change, it must be right for transitional arrangements to be put in place for existing Peers. Amendment 66 in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, distinguishes in this regard between existing peerages and peerages yet to be created, a proposal that has much merit.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, I support the principle behind terms, but I cannot support and would not vote for any of these amendments. The idea behind terms is a great one because it limits our contributions to while we are fresh. I do not agree with prejudice as expressed by age, which I think is irrelevant and hard to justify. Even murderers do not get life any longer, so I think “life” is an inappropriate term.
Finally, as with many of the speeches on the amendments we have heard today, this is not the time nor the Bill to be debating these issues. They need to be referred to and considered in the round, but that is for another day. There are many issues about our constitution that deserve attention. Should we have an established Church? In what relation is the Supreme Court held to Parliament? Many things have yet to be remedied, but not in this Bill. For that reason, I would not vote for these amendments. These are worthy issues that should be debated in another place when we have the time, but not in the time we are taking to debate this Bill.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, this and the next three groups are about related issues, and we cannot avoid moving from one on to the other. They are about limiting the conditions under which one becomes a Member of this House.
When I was appointed to this House 29 years ago, the majority of Members clearly saw this as a part-time job. It was explained to me that it was a part-time job. I managed to go on being a full-time professor at the LSE for another nine years. Now we have a more professional House. We are expected to commit ourselves to working hard while we are here. Life expectancy has risen and more of us have some expectation of living well into our 90s. I am told that my life expectancy, given my parents and my elder sisters, is around 98, so I can perhaps look for many years to come. Clearly, we need to take this on board and the Government need to give us some indication of how they are going to moderate the lifetime rights to sit in this House.
As we have become a professional second Chamber, do we think that retirement, life terms, participation or attendance is the most useful way to do it? I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, that term limits are the easiest way. The 2012 Bill proposed for the elected Members a single term of 15 years, elected in thirds, and a 15-year term for those who were appointed. That, at the time, commanded widespread support. I suggest that the Government look back to this; we have been around this circuit before.
I will also say briefly that we have to remember the context in which we are discussing this. Popular disillusionment with politics in Britain is high; respect for both the Commons and the Lords is low. We have, outside Britain, much that we dislike in populist politics, anti-democratic tendencies, the belief that strong men make politics easier, and we see the problems of systems where checks and balances built into their constitutions are being ignored. We cannot entirely ignore that, as limited outside opinion looks at the way that we as a second Chamber behave. If the Government are going to push this limited Bill through, they must also respond to that for the longer term. The sort of second Chamber to which we might slowly shuffle is one in which term limits are perhaps one of the ways in which one limits the life cycle of Members.
Lord de Clifford (CB)
I support this group of amendments and other groups that follow with regards to Lords reform. I take this opportunity to say again that, as an hereditary Peer, I am not opposed to Clause 1, but having the opportunity to be elected to the House of Lords is not an appropriate way of selecting people to sit in the House in the 21st century, for many reasons. This is a simple Bill with one purpose: to remove the right for hereditary Peers to continue to sit, contribute and vote. It is a great privilege to be a Member of this House, and I am fortunate enough to have experienced it for a short time.
The Bill achieves some reform of an outdated process, possibly the easiest one, as it is a simple one. If this Bill is so simple, why have so many amendments been put down? That concerns me and others such as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries. The fear is that there will be no further reform for many years after the Bill has received Royal Assent and the hereditary Peers have left. The noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal has said on many occasions that further House of Lords reform is under consultation. Sadly, the track record of the House in making decisions on legislative reforms is not a good one, as proven by Bills from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and many others, and the implementation of the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and his committee.
This group of amendments makes suggestions for reform, one of which concerns the length of term a Peer can serve in the House. Having been in the House for only just over a year, I would say that the ways of the House are quite challenging at times, especially if you are not used to the way that government works. A bit of time is needed to understand the way that the House works, to gain experience and to be best able to contribute. I feel strongly that, in the majority of cases, a term of 15 or 20 years is appropriate for Peers to serve in the House. As Peers have many skills and experiences that they can bring during their term, they can contribute to the workings of the House. When they come to the end of a term, there are many outside this Chamber, as some Peers have already commented, who have similar skills and different experience to bring to the House: the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, stated this clearly on the previous group.
Another feature of the 21st century is that there are not very many jobs for life with no formal review process, appraisal or performance review. That privilege and the privilege of the role can be maintained with just half a day’s work every year. I agree that a consultation on this matter is appropriate, and I agree with the amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso. That has great promise, and I agree that it should apply only to Peers who enter the House at this stage. I note what the noble Baroness the Leader of the House said regarding the consultation process that is ongoing. Can I ask when she might bring reform to the House on one or two of the areas that we are about to discuss in the next few minutes?
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, that we are extremely unlikely to see any further opportunity of Lords reform in the lifetime of this Government. It would be the first Government that had ever managed to achieve that in my 35 years in this House, and I do not see why the rules should have changed again, so it is really important that we get the discussion done now and move things forward a bit.
I like the amendment in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, very much. It has the virtue of creating a big change at the end of a Parliament, just when you need a big change so that you can alter the balance of the House a bit and bring in Ministers. In my experience of this place, I think that 20 years is the right time; 15 years feels too short. It takes a good long while to embed yourself, and then one does have a decent, useful life after that, so 20 years feels better to me. I agree with the noble Viscount that we should go for a proper way of remunerating Members of this House. The sooner that pensionable, taxable remuneration comes in, the better. There is no excuse for the current system.
I can comfort the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes: if she ever feels powerful in this place, she will be immensely lucky. We are like waves breaking on the rocks of the seashore. Most of the time, we just bounce off. Occasionally, we manage to shift a grain of sand, and very occasionally, somehow, we all come together and shuffle a rock down the slope and into the deep, as with the unlamented Schools Bill in the last Parliament, or as my noble friend Lady Owen has achieved with her ambitions in this Parliament.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, the problem with any debate on House of Lords reform is that it very quickly descends into self-interest. As a relatively youthful Member of your Lordships’ House, who is already more than one-third of his way through what would be a 15-year term, it may not surprise your Lordships to hear that I am not especially attracted to this idea. By contrast, I am sure that some octogenarian colleagues on the Government Benches, some but not all of whom are in their places today, are perhaps keener on this potential reform than they would be about implementing that part of the Government’s manifesto which relates to a retirement age, but I think that it has been worthy of separate consideration.
When my noble friend Lord Remnant was speaking, I was struck by the fact that age is of course a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, which the last Labour Government brought in, whereas length of tenure is a question of good governance. My noble friend spoke from his own experience in the private sector in making his points. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, that I have asked for one of my later amendments to be grouped with the others in the next group, so I am keen to make good progress.
I note that both the Minister responding and I are in what I suppose would be called in the terms of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, our primary working years—I am glad to see her in her place responding. I was struck by the question of the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, “What then?” not so much from the employment rights angle, although noble Lords have raised some pertinent points about the way that active Members of your Lordships’ House are remunerated, but more from the point that, if we were to be ushered out at the end of a term, those of us who have come in at a younger age would be thinking about what comes next in terms of our careers. In government, we have put in place a sensible mechanism, through the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, to make sure that Ministers are not abusing their position to line up their next gig. I would worry slightly that, if we were to have limited terms here, people who were looking to serve in your Lordships’ House and then leave and do something next, in the next chapter of their career, would be thinking about “What next?” and lining up some lucrative opportunities, whether in financial or political ways.
My noble friend Lord Attlee rightly drew attention to the fact that we have less interest in media coverage or the clips that we might put on social media. I often say, when talking to friends outside the House about our work here, that we do not, unlike another place, play to the Gallery. That is mostly because there are very few people in the Gallery watching debates in your Lordships’ House, but I think that a lot of us are dispassionate, by virtue of the fact that we have taken an oath, as the noble Lord, Lord Desai, reminded us, to sit here and give our dispassionate views for the rest of our service here, and that is something that is worth holding on to. I am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, for bringing this amendment before us for consideration and for highlighting its origins in the royal commission chaired by my noble friend Lord Wakeham under the last Labour Government.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, it has been an interesting debate to listen to. I was brought up properly and told that you are never to discuss a woman’s age, but, in the context of the debate today, it does feel slightly relevant given my own, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. I believe we are currently in the prime of our economic earning, in the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell.
The current average service of your Lordships’ House is 13.74 years, and the average age on appointment in the last Parliament was 56. I will be 57 if we get to 15 years of service, so I would be leaving very quickly and would still be a very young member of your Lordships’ House.
With regard to the substance of the debate today, these amendments concern the imposition of term limits, as we have discussed. It may be useful to summarise what the themes of the amendments in this group have been, not least because they demonstrate that there is not yet a consensus on next steps.
Amendment 13, tabled by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, provides for a 15-year term limit for life Peers. His proposal includes the possibility of applying to HOLAC for reappointment while providing that no Member can sit for more than 30 years in total. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, has sought to further amend this by proposing that Members can apply for reappointment only during the Parliament in which this Bill passes and not beyond. His amendments also seek to limit the length of reappointment to five years, therefore reducing the original total limit proposed by the noble and right reverend Lord from 30 to 20 years.
Amendment 66, tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso—in an excellent speech—goes for a term limit of 20 years, but also for life peerages granted after the end of this year. Amendment 73, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, would require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a draft Bill with proposals for a term limit of up to 10 years.
The underlying intent of the majority of these amendments is to reduce the size of your Lordships’ House—an aspiration the Government share. Some noble Lords, including the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, made clear that they were motivated by the principle that no one should automatically be a Member of this place for life. Both he and I have experienced that at the other end, so making it happen here seems appropriate.
The smattering of amendments in this group demonstrate a range of different ways that term limits could be introduced. It is clear there is not a settled view among your Lordships on the arrangements of introducing a term limit. More importantly, however, the Bill before this House today is not the legislative vehicle for implementing these issues. The Bill is focused solely on removing the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in this House. These amendments, while both thoughtful and considered, are not the central issue of this Bill.
Furthermore, the Government’s view is that the introduction of retirement age, as promised in our manifesto, is a more effective way of reducing our numbers, rather than the introduction of a term limit. As your Lordships are aware, my noble friend the Leader of the House has been having an ongoing dialogue with the House on how the manifesto commitment of introducing a retirement age can best be implemented. The Leader has already had in excess of 60 meetings and she is keen for that dialogue to continue. With respect, these amendments would cut across those conversations. With this in mind, I respectfully ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
I beg leave to withdraw the amendment standing in my name.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)
I thank everyone who has supported this amendment. Despite the opposition of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, to it in principle, there is quite a lot of support for it in the Committee, with different age limits proposed, from five years to 20 years. All I would say in favour of the 15-year limit is that it was proposed by the royal commission and in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Burns. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, referred to the huge loss of numbers from the House, but that ignores the second part of my amendment, which allows people to apply for another five, 10 or 15 years. One imagines there would be a great deal of sympathy in HOLAC if people wanted to stay on when their 15 years were up. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Plan for Neighbourhoods
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I begin by welcoming this Statement on the Government’s plans for neighbourhoods. While we echo the Government’s desire for the growth and renewal of our neighbourhoods and high streets, we must be clear that this builds on the work of and progress made by the previous Conservative Government. In fact, it seems apparent that this Statement is merely a rewrite of the scheme progressed under the previous Government. So does the Minister agree that on funding, allocation and time periods, this scheme is a rehash and an admission by the Government that levelling up was indeed working?
EU cohesion funds were subject to accountability to both the UK Government and local representatives. The previous Government’s levelling-up strategy aimed to address the very challenges highlighted in the Statement by mobilising a broad range of national resources. We understood that local leaders were seeking investment, and we acted on this by allocating a £2.6 billion fund to the regeneration of our communities, a £4.8 billion levelling-up fund to support vital assets like pubs and theatres, and a £1.5 billion long-term plan for tax reforms. That, if my maths is correct, is £8.9 billion, compared to the £1.5 billion over 10 years that this Government are suggesting.
We should acknowledge that the Government delivered this Statement while their own financial choices, made in the October Budget, are damaging local communities. This modest announcement is inconsequential when considered against the jobs tax, the increase in business rates in the hospitality and retail sectors, the changes to business property relief and the multi-million-pound funding gap that appeared in council budgets as a result of the October Budget. This is before we address the impact of the loss of the rural services grant and the community ownership fund, which sought to provide support to communities that need it most. Will the Minister confirm what assessment has been made of the impact of the Chancellor’s tax hikes on local economies, such as those His Majesty’s Government are about to fund?
We have reservations and concerns about the Statement made last week, so I look to the Minister to provide some clarity. First, I ask the Minister to confirm what measures will be in place to ensure appropriate oversight and accountability of the proposed neighbourhood boards. It is essential that the boards include democratically elected representatives of those communities. We are concerned about the role of trade union representation. Can the Minister confirm exactly what role those trade union representatives will play on these community boards? Local democracy is vital if these boards are to work effectively.
Next, what exactly is the purpose of these resources? Will these funds go primarily towards making up the shortcomings that the Budget created in other areas of government spending? Finally, I echo the worry expressed in the other place that the resources will not be allocated in a way that reflects the needs and particular circumstances of communities. By widening the criteria and choosing to use broad national statistics, the unique and local understanding of a community’s needs and risks are being overlooked. As the representatives of their areas, local authorities are in a unique position to be able to identify the specific requirements of their communities, and a bidding process allows them to present a plan to the Government. If the Government proceed with the process of allocation, as suggested, those who can do the most to regenerate our high streets and communities may lose out in favour of those who are able to meet the Government’s criteria. I look forward to receiving a clear but also a positive response from the Minister.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I have relevant interests as a councillor in Kirklees, which includes Dewsbury, one of the towns on the list. I am also a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
I welcome investment in towns across the country that have higher than average levels of deprivation. I hope that the Minister will agree that the regeneration needed by so many towns reflects the many years of neglect by previous Governments in funding and supporting long-term regeneration programmes by local councils for their areas.
I have a number of questions for the Minister. First, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, asked, can he confirm that this programme is a continuation of the long-term plan for towns fund, which was introduced by the previous Government? As far as I can tell, the list of towns is precisely the same. Secondly, can the Minister provide detail on the selection criteria, given that, as the Statement says, the towns in the list were all in the bottom 20% of the index of multiple deprivation? Of course, the list does not include them all—it is not an inclusive list—so which towns, under those deprivation criteria, have been rejected and why? If the Minister does not have an answer to that question, which I accept is quite detailed, I would be happy for him to give me a written response.
It is positive that the Government have extended the list of potential uses of the funding, compared with its previous iteration. However, each town is to get £2 million a year for the next 10 years. Does the Minister agree with me that making a sea change in a town will require more than that level of funding? That is not to decry the funding, which will be helpful, but simply to note that this will not make a strategic and long-term difference for those towns as a whole. There will be improvements, given the money available, but that level of funding is inadequate for a major uplift.
I will give the Minister an example. Dewsbury in Kirklees is included in this list. The swimming pool and sports centre that served the town, and which were run by the local council, had to be closed due to RAAC. The council said that it will not rebuild or further provide either a sports centre or a swimming pool, so there will be no other provision of those facilities in that town of, say, 80,000 people, which suffers from considerable deprivation. Replacing them would be a major investment in the health and future of young people, yet the funding provided in this plan for neighbourhoods will not go anywhere near meeting that.
Can the funding available be used as match funding, or provision towards capital spending or revenue spending, for such long-term investment? The funding available is split 75% capital and 25% revenue. Is there flexibility within that? Perhaps the first five years could be capital funding, with revenue at the back end of the scheme. It would be worth knowing from the Minister whether there could be some flexibility there.
Finally, it is good that each town has to create a town board to make funding decisions and that those who serve on that board are committed to the town’s future. However, can the Minister explain the reasoning for excluding local councillors elected to represent the town in making those decisions? Can he say what accountability mechanism there will be for all the funding? Will there be annual reports to the House on the progress being made? Overall, the plan is good, but there is more to do.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)
My Lords, I appreciate the support from both Front Benches.
I believe that I speak for us all when I say that promises made to the people of this country ought to be kept. We have a duty to mend the broken physical and social infrastructure of this country. That cannot begin without first turning our attention to rebuilding trust in our democracy. That is why, through the plan for neighbourhoods, the Government have made good on what these 75 places were promised by the previous Administration, but on which they had no idea as to how they would follow through. Now communities can breathe a sigh of relief, before once more rolling up their sleeves and getting on with the job at hand.
Through our three strategic objectives of creating thriving places, building stronger communities and empowering people to take back control, the decade-long plan for neighbourhoods will both drive down deprivation and kick-start growth. The Deputy Prime Minister’s foreword to the prospectus notes that
“deprivation … for too long has been tackled with sticking plaster politics”.
The need for a long-term, holistic, grass-roots programme could not be greater. That has been underscored by the points raised today.
Last week, the Minister for Local Growth announced the plan for neighbourhoods in the other place and first made the Statement we are discussing today. I thank him and his officials for their hard work, which has helped to ensure that we can make good on the promises made to these places, while launching a new programme aligned with the missions of this Government. Places will not be left in the dark at any level. We will shortly also publish further technical guidance, outlining details of the requirements of the neighbourhood boards’ governors, and launch the associated submission process, so that places can swiftly reconfirm their board arrangements and boundaries.
The Government’s plan for neighbourhoods marks a major step in delivering their wider plan for change, with a relentless focus on economic growth to raise living standards. Through the plan for neighbourhoods, the Government will work in partnership with residents, businesses and grass-roots campaigners, alongside local authorities, to deliver for local people.
If we are serious about rebalancing the economy, nowhere can be left behind. As the Deputy Prime Minister wrote in the programme’s foreword,
“everywhere has a role to play in our national prosperity”.
This is just the start—no more sticking plasters, no more short-term fixes. Through the plan for neighbourhoods and the wider plan for change, this Government will fulfil their promise of change and a decade of national renewal.
As to the specific points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Byrook, this is a new programme that puts communities at the heart of making these changes. The money will be spent on a broadened set of interventions, and it has completely different objectives. The locations and funding remain the same, because we are delivering on what places have been previously promised. It is the repeated breaking of promises that undermines trust in our democracy. We have doubled the number of interventions that communities can spend the money on. We are focusing on three long-term aims: building thriving places, strengthening communities and empowering people to take back control, instead of sticking-plaster politics.
We are giving local people their say by strengthening our consultations. It is not misleading to claim that this is new money. The long-term plan for towns was an unfunded commitment for which the previous Administration had no plan as to how that promise would be delivered. Our plan for neighbourhoods programme delivers on the Chancellor’s confirmation of funding at the Budget. This Government are committed to making good on what places have previously been promised. It is the repeated breaking of promises that undermines trust in our democracy.
The noble Baroness talked about levelling up. Levelling up failed because it asked communities to beg for funding and then tried to micromanage how it was spent. This is about the transfer of power and investment, so that communities can drive change themselves. In particular, the noble Baroness talked about economic growth in relation to the issues that she raised about tax changes. I cannot talk about tax changes as they are outside my remit, but on the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised, we want to make it clear that we are putting power in the hands of local people to address deprivation and regenerate their local area. We are unleashing the full potential of places that have for too long been overlooked.
Neighbourhood boards, bringing together residents, businesses and grass-roots people, will draw up and implement plans for how they will spend up to £20 million of funding, whether for repairing pavements and high streets, setting up community grocers, providing low-cost alternatives or for neighbourhood watches to keep people safe.
On accountability, the relevant local authority will act as the accountable body for the funds, with responsibility for ensuring that public funds are distributed fairly and effectively. A monitoring and evaluation strategy will be published in the summer. This will set out the framework for assurance and accountability expected from grant recipients.
On the noble Baroness’s point about match funding and potential borrowing from local authorities, yes, there is clearly the opportunity for neighbourhood boards to make that decision. But the point is clear: no more top-down approach; this is bottom up, with local authorities leading the way and local people deciding what they want most for their communities.
On the places that will get funding, all 75 towns across the UK that were originally selected to receive long-term plan for towns funding will receive the plan for neighbourhoods package. The long-term plan for towns programme was never fully funded. The money was supposed to come from the government reserve, which has been spent three times over. That is why we are making good on those commitments, giving each of the 75 places certainty that they will receive up to £20 million of funding and support over the next decade.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for ensuring that we get the chance to speak on this Statement and to ask questions. I am name-checked in the Statement because, in my previous life as a Minister, I introduced the new deal for communities along with my boss, John Prescott. It has been evaluated as the most effective neighbourhood and regeneration programme in the last 45 years.
I now chair the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods, and I am reliving all that. We are changing what we are looking at, which involves asking how we ensure that the poorest neighbourhoods in our country get the opportunity to develop, find opportunities for the most disadvantaged and build effective partnerships with government, local government, civil society and, very importantly, local people, but also with public services in those neighbourhoods.
Does the Minister see this as the first step, as I hope? We in the independent commission have identified 613 neighbourhoods across the country which are the most deprived but where we know that change can happen. They are the areas that most need the five missions of the Government. With the right support and development, they will be able to bring real growth because they will be able to link economic and structural development with social development and the building of social capital. These are the essential elements to ensure that neighbourhood policy works right across the board. I understand why the Government have made sure that the commitments made to the 75 towns have been respected. However, we can do much more by investing and working with the neighbourhoods that I am talking about.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, I extend my appreciation to my noble friend for all the work that she does in this area. She speaks with great experience, skills and depth of knowledge.
I do not want to pre-empt the upcoming spending review by making any commitments to expansion, but I recognise that other places want to join the plan for neighbourhoods—this was raised also by several Members in the other place. While I cannot make any commitments, the Government welcome correspondence from interested parties. We have taken inspiration from the new deal for communities, the work of John Prescott that my noble friend was talking about, which provided the stability of long-term funding, backed by the support of central government. We have learned what has worked well in the past and are utilising that same methodology.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I welcome the Statement, which builds on initiatives from previous Administrations. The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, referred to her pioneering work at the beginning of this century. Going back even further, I was a Minister in the Department of the Environment in the 1980s. We had inner-city partnerships, where the Government provided two-thirds of the money and the local authority one third. We funded a range of projects exactly the same as the projects that are hoped for under this programme.
I can see a range of bids coming to the neighbourhood boards. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned improved recreation facilities. Looking through the Statement in the other place, I see there were demands for community shops. People may want to rescue a theatre. However, the first priority listed in the Statement is the modernisation of social housing. I am all in favour of social housing being modernised, but there is a mainstream programme to do that. To what extent will the smaller projects that I have been referring to and which the programme is aimed at be swamped by the modernisation of social housing? Is that really one of the objectives, or is that put in to patch up a deficiency in another mainstream government programme?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very interesting point. My only answer at this time is that, of course, as a country, we want to see the modernisation of social housing. The Deputy Prime Minister has announced that 1.5 million houses are to be built in this Parliament, and that is still the ambition, but the specifics of what the money can be spent on are entirely up to the local regeneration neighbourhood board—the people. They need to look at what the priorities are for their area and work out how they can put this £2 million a year into various projects. If that means putting some money into modernising housing, it is a decision for them to reflect upon. As central government, we have our focus and manifesto commitments on housing overall, but whatever is needed in the local area is for the board to deliberate and decide upon.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I entirely agree with this Statement that, in the former Government’s levelling-up programme, the Tories’ instinct was to “hoard power”, and that “inflexible restrictions” were placed on how this money could be spent. I entirely welcome what the noble Lord just said: that it is up to the town’s boards and the local communities to decide how money will be spent, which appears to be the opposite of what the Tories were doing. Except that is not what the Statement actually says. It talks about the broadened objectives, which I think are the three long-term aims elsewhere in the Statement:
“These new, broadened objectives will give communities the tools to make informed decisions, with a list of interventions aligned with this Government’s central missions”.
So, which is it? Do they have to be aligned with the central missions—the famous five pillars we have all heard about many times—or with the long-term aims in this Statement, or is it that the communities can decide for themselves what to spend the money on?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, I have already spoken about our three main objectives and what we want to do, but it is ultimately up to the local people to decide what they want to do. It is not mutually exclusive for local people to decide areas of improvement in their local communities which are not in our missions. The whole idea is to drive growth, to have safer streets and to have neighbourhoods that people take pride in. That is the focus of this announcement: to ensure that people can feel pride in their area but can also take control and decide for their future.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I like the idea of the structure very much, as I did with the previous Government, but how do this Government propose that local people will hold the boards accountable for the choices that the boards make? As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, there is great potential for all the money to disappear into the local swimming pool because that is what the councillor on the board likes. Is a structure being produced that will allow local people to influence the board’s decisions?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
To reiterate a point I have made before, local authorities are part of the whole process. They will work with central government and my department in particular to have regular, continuous monitoring of how the work is going. That is how we will communicate, but local authorities are heading part of this and they are signing off the board.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
As usual, I will have to talk about my interest as a councillor in Central Bedfordshire. Unfortunately, no one in Central Bedfordshire received the money so I do not have the interest that the noble Baroness has. I just wanted to understand the accountability and the structure. We are going to have community boards. Who will the money, and the decisions on it, lie with? Will it be the board or the council? Who will be the accountable body for the money? Who will determine who will be on that community board? Several noble Lords have mentioned democracy and who the representatives of the people are, so can the Minister please clarify that?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
The relevant local authority will act as the accountable body for the funds, with the responsibility for ensuring that public funds are distributed fairly and effectively. A monitoring and evaluation strategy will be published in the summer. This will set out the framework for assurance and accountability expected from grant recipients, so watch this space.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I apologise, I should have declared that I am vice-president of the Local Government Association and the NALC before that last question. I am still looking for a bit of clarity, so perhaps I can come at this question another way. If a local community decides that it wants to prioritise public health, improving its green spaces, or tackling child poverty, then none of those things, without a great deal of verbal gymnastics, appears to line up with the Government’s five missions. Focusing on public health and improving green spaces can be made to look as if they are good for growth, but they are not clearly directed at it. Can the Minister confirm that the Government would consider any of those things entirely appropriate to spend this money on?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, I cannot pre-empt what local authorities and local neighbourhoods will want to do in their particular areas. The whole idea behind the exercise is to give more power to local people. However, on the point that the noble Baroness is alluding to, there will be a plan called the regeneration plan, which will be submitted to central government. More guidance and a framework will come out on this. The regeneration plan will set out the board’s vision for the next decade, alongside a more detailed investment plan for the first four years of the programme. The submission window for regeneration plans will open in spring 2025 and close in winter 2025. Further details as to the content, form and submission timetable for the plans will be set out in the forthcoming guidance.
We know that places have worked hard to engage their communities and develop their long-term plans for the previous Administration’s long-term plan for towns. That progress is not for nothing and should not be undone, nor should places undo their governance arrangements. Communities should feel empowered to build and adapt their existing plans. Our reforms seek to build on and improve the previous programme with a new set of strategic objectives aligned to this Government’s plan to kick-start growth to be delivered by a broader range of policy interventions.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, in my area, Eastbourne, the process of going unitary will mean that Eastbourne Borough Council is abolished, and we currently have no town council. Which council will be involved with our neighbourhood fund? Will it be the East Sussex unitary council or some new council created in place of Eastbourne Borough Council?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord asks in particular about an issue of devolution. I say again that whichever council is established through negotiations as per the usual channels, it is up to the local area and the neighbourhood board to establish whether it is to be the recipient of funding. I cannot comment on any individual examples—it would not be appropriate—but it is for whichever area has received the funding to decide how it wants to move forward its proposals. There are boundaries as well, and there is clarification that it can receive about what is and what is not its boundary.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I will follow on from the questions about the membership of the neighbourhood boards. The Statement says that they
“will include representatives from social housing and workplace representatives and, in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the representative in the devolved legislature”.
I have no objection to any of those, but it is a rather limited list. Does the Minister agree that these neighbourhood boards should have representatives for young people, disabled people and, where relevant, minoritised communities?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness makes an interesting and good point about having diversity and inclusion from a cross-section of society. We will set out further guidance on this issue. I will say again that it is for local neighbourhood boards to come out with proposals that will benefit their area, and the best benefits are where everybody is included as part of the whole deliberation, discussion and finalisation of neighbourhood boards.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
Can I get some clarification? Are the Government going to clarify in some guidance who should be on these boards, or will the composition of these boards be something that local councils decide? That is very important. I come back to the unions: in some areas of this country there may not be any union representatives who want to be on the board but there may be in others. Will that be something that the Government say has to happen, or will it be purely a local decision?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, I said repeatedly in the Statement and say again that it is for the local neighbourhood boards of the 75 places to decide who is on their board, with the guidance of the local authority. Many of those 75 places have already created neighbourhood boards and regeneration plans and, again, it is for them to adapt those. We will be giving more framework guidance—in particular, clarification on the capacity funding.
My noble friend Lady Armstrong talked about the new deal for communities led by John Prescott. It has been clear from the evidence that on the year-zero plan, where local authorities can plan before the funding is distributed, in particular on paperwork and architectural designs for capital projects, there is a lot to learn from the evaluation of the new deal for communities. We are following that plan. We have been inspired by the new deal for communities and what it achieved for our country, and we will implement this plan for neighbourhoods to make sure we give more power back to regional and local areas in the 75 places. I reiterate that it is a local-led initiative—it is bottom-up, not top-down.
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill
Lord Blencathra
“Retirement from the House of Lords at 80A member of the House of Lords who reaches the age of 80 during a Session of Parliament ceases to be a member of the House of Lords at the end of that Session.”Member’s explanatory statement
Alongside other amendments in the name of Lord Blencathra, this amendment has been tabled to permit the House to vote on three options for a retirement age in ascending order. According to analysis of Library figures, this could remove 327 peers by 2029.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, this is one of those rare occasions when I can honestly look the Leader of the Lords in the eye and say, “I am not from the Government, but I am here to help you”. I can help the noble Baroness deliver on a manifesto promise.
The Labour Party manifesto said:
“Too many peers do not play a proper role in our democracy. Hereditary peers remain indefensible. And because appointments are for life, the second chamber of Parliament has become too big. The next Labour government will … remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords … and we will introduce a new participation requirement as well as strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced members can be removed”.
Noble Lords will note that I have also tabled amendments in the next groups that tackle those last two issues as well.
I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is not in his place at the moment, because I was going to say how much I enjoy the wonderful speeches he makes after hereditary elections when only two or three people have voted. He complained today that there were too many amendments—a wide range of amendments—that were not specifically related to hereditary Peers. The point is that the government manifesto promised six things in constitutional reform: the Lords is too big; hereditary Peers are indefensible; a mandatory retirement age of 80; a new participation requirement; and the removal of disgraced Peers. The one thing to be kicked further into the long grass was consultation on having national and regional balance.
On retirement ages, I have tabled three options for discussion: a retirement age of 80, 85 or 90. I shall speak to Amendments 16 and 18, and my noble friend Lord Hailsham will speak to Amendment 17. I do not necessarily believe that a retirement age is necessary, but if the Government believe what they said in their own manifesto—that the Lords is too large, even though only about 450 Peers regularly attend—then a retirement age at some appropriate age and the removal of inactive Peers is a far better way to reduce numbers than kicking out the hereditaries, who actually do attend and do work hard.
We can all guess why the Government are not taking forward the retirement age of 80, as in their manifesto. We all know that manifestos are written by 20-something whizz-kid spads, who bunged in getting rid of hereditaries as a Labour Party no-brainer and then, without any research, thought, “Let’s also get rid of the old fogeys over 80 and those who do little”. That was signed off, no doubt by the national executive, and it appeared in the manifesto. Then, after the election, I suspect that the Leader and her team looked at the numbers and said, “Oh my God, a retirement age of 80 means getting rid of about 327 Peers by 2029”. Further number crunching showed that it would include 94 Labour Peers but only 90 Conservative Peers. That was not what was intended, so the retirement at age 80 had to be dropped—and rightly so, since removing 327 Peers during one Parliament would be excessive, and among that number are many of our most able and active Peers.
Of course, the Government will not admit that they made a tactical blunder here, so they came up with the excuse that they will consult. Exactly whom will they consult on a retirement age for Peers? The Pensions Regulator? The Department for Work and Pensions? Age Concern? Martin Lewis? Saga Holidays? There is only one organisation with a legitimate opinion on this, and that is the Government. There is only one body of experts who know all about the potential retirement ages for Peers, and they are in this House, and some of them are sitting here tonight. Over the next hour, let us do the consultation for the Government, and we might just get a consensus on the way forward for Report.
Before Report, I suggest that noble Lords who have not yet seen it ask the Library for the Blencathra Excel spreadsheets, particularly the one entitled “Filter of House of Lords Members by Age and Attendance”. The brilliant Mr Tobin has, at my request, entered into it the names of every Peer from 2019 to December 2024, our party or Cross-Bench affiliations, our ages, our ages in 2029, and our attendance record in the last Parliament, which will be relevant for the next debate. I am aware that there are a few little errors in there: one of my noble friends says that she is not included, and another noble friend says that his age is wrong, but generally speaking the spreadsheet gives an indication of what the effect would be of removing Peers at the age of 80, 85 and 90. Given that it is an Excel spreadsheet, you can select any criterion. Just enter a possible retirement age from 50 to 100, and you get a list of names and numbers. The Library has circulated that Excel spreadsheet to Peers who have tabled amendments, but it will not do a mass mailshot to everyone, and I do not have the capacity or skill to do it for every Member of the Lords.
The spreadsheet is highly instructive, as well as giving endless hours of fun picking random retirement ages just to see who would then be retired. Naturally, I would deplore such behaviour. I think we would all agree that a retirement age of 80 is just not on, so what about 90? First, the figures I have put in the explanatory statements for the ages of 85 and 90 are quite wrong, and I apologise for misreading my Excel spreadsheets. The correct figure is that a retirement age of 90 by 2029 would remove or retire only 16 Peers, including nine who attend more than 50% of the time, and some of them are still active. I leave it to noble Lords to draw a conclusion, but I think we would be open to ridicule if we set a retirement age of 90, and it does not do much to reduce our numbers.
That leaves another of my suggested options, namely, retirement at 85. A retirement age of 85 would mean the retirement of 185 Peers, including some highly active Members, including 14 who attended more than 70% of our sittings in the last Parliament, and some who are Deputy Speakers. However, we have 25 who attended fewer than 50% of our sittings in the last Parliament, and 12 who attended fewer than 30% of the sittings. It is my opinion that a retirement age of 85 would be equitable and justifiable. It would still be the highest retirement age of any organisation in this country, except farmers and the self-employed. It would reduce our numbers somewhat, and if we coupled that with the removal of Peers who fail to attend at all or beneath a minimum number of attendances, we could make an even more substantial reduction. At least this retirement age of 85 would remove the jibe that we just carry on being Members for potentially 30 years longer than the state pension age or 20 years longer than judges. I believe that we can justify a retirement age 10 years later than that of a judge.
I do not intend to offer any firm solution here but to provoke debate with these probing amendments; however, I think we might just get a hint of consensus for Report. I see that other noble Lords have tabled similar amendments, some with different ages. My amendment suggests retirement at the end of the Session when a Peer hits the selected retirement age, but perhaps that is wrong and the end of the Parliament might be a better time, and certainly less harsh.
I have also tabled three other amendments which tweak my three options, in order to give more control and flexibility to the House. If any of the options were agreed to—retirement at 80, 85 or 90—our hands would be tied on the timing. We might want some more time to organise ourselves, and then to produce the retirement requirement when the House concluded that we were ready for it. These amendments are not essential, and noble Lords might think that that would give us an excuse not to do it. Well, that could happen, but I do not think the House would tolerate it.
Thus, I say to the Leader of the House: do not be afraid to support a retirement age that the House wants and votes for. Politically, the Government will get more opprobrium for kicking this into the long grass of meaningless consultation than for opting for a retirement age of, say, 85, instead of the manifesto promise of 80. By the time of the next election, the electorate will be making judgments on far more broken Labour promises than the promise of a retirement age of 80. I beg to move.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, in speaking to my amendment I will be very brief. My noble friend Lord Blencathra articulated a very powerful argument in favour of retirement with which I agree; I have suggested the age of 85 in my amendment. I wish to make three general points and two specific ones.
The general points are these. First, we do need to get the numbers in this House down, and retirement age is one way of doing it. Secondly, and coupled with that, is the need to refresh the membership; that too is important and points to a retirement age. The third point is a difficult one to dwell on too long. In a long political career, both at the Bar and in politics, I have seen an awful lot of people who reached the age of 85 who should have retired—both judges and Members of Parliament, and indeed Members of this House. We need to focus on that.
Turning to my two specific points, the first was touched on earlier in the debate: the fact that our expertise does decay. There was a time when I knew an awful lot about criminal law and practice. I have not practised as a criminal barrister since 2010, and I would hesitate to express any really informed view as to the practice and procedures in the criminal courts today. That is an example of one’s expertise decaying. Similarly—although not quite the same—as one gets older, one has to recognise that one’s expertise on many current subjects is not what the House would wish to have. For example, we are going to be regulating on artificial intelligence. If you ask me what I know about artificial intelligence, the answer is nothing. The same is true of social media too. I do not do social media at all, but we are asked to regulate it. The truth is, there does come a point in one’s life when one’s expertise is not such that the electorate would want us to regulate in any kind of detail.
Therefore, to be brief, I am in favour of a retirement age. We could argue sensibly whether it should be 75, 80, 85 or 90. I plonk at 85, but the truth is that we could properly go for any of those figures.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, I rise briefly to speak to Amendment 65 in my name, which is a further variation on the introduction of a retirement age. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, for adding his name. I would also like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who discussed this amendment with me, and who addressed the topic so wisely in his speech at Second Reading.
As with the other amendments in this group, Amendment 65 gives effect to the Labour Party manifesto commitment. However, contrary to the other retirement-age amendments, this one introduces important leeway for those who join your Lordships after the age of 70, as it provides that retirement is at 80 or the 10th anniversary of the Member’s introduction to the House, whichever is the later. This is an important distinction, as it does away with the arbitrary 80 year-old age limit. Having noted the number of recent appointments of Members over the age of 70, my amendment would permit such Members to enjoy at least a full decade of activity in your Lordships’ House, irrespective of the age at which they are appointed.
I should perhaps note in the spirit of full disclosure that I am not an octogenarian. Indeed, as a hereditary Peer in his late 40s, I will likely be removed from this House before I turn 50, let alone 80, so I have no dog in the fight. However, I have hugely appreciated the wise contributions of elder Peers and consider the sagacity of our membership to be one of the House’s most valuable features. I remember vividly a Cross-Bench discussion on the constitutional crisis arising from Boris Johnson’s ill-advised efforts to prorogue Parliament, during which a wise voice piped up, saying, “It wasn’t as bad as this during the Suez crisis”.
Just as hereditary Peers provide a length of institutional memory that spans centuries, so individual Members over the age of 80 provide an invaluable personal memory that spans decades. We abandon that at our peril in our rush for youth and the appearance of vigour. Amendment 65 permits us to temper the age-based guillotine, at least a little. On that basis, I recommend it to your Lordships.
The Earl of Dundee (Con)
My Lords, my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lord Hailsham eloquently compare 80, 85 and 90 as different options for a retirement age from this House. Within this grouping, and following my own amendment in favour of 90 as a retirement age, I would therefore also support Amendment 101D in the name of my noble friend Lord Blencathra, which calls for a resolution to enact this.
The argument is that, compared with the other options, a retirement age of 90 far better assists a transitional House, a reformed House and, not least, the present House itself.
Regarding the necessary transitional period between the present House and a reformed one, as your Lordships are aware, a short while ago the noble Lord, Lord Burns, produced a very useful report. One of its recommendations was that, in a given year, the collective total of life Peers who retire or die are replaced at 50%. This means that, in a natural way and over not too many years, current numbers of temporal Peers, at just under 800, will come down to 600.
Obviously, numbers would come down more quickly if life Peers were coerced to retire at either 80 or 85. Yet surely it would be much wiser not to enforce that. Instead, with a retirement age of 90, the transitional period can be expected to be over five years, with the advantage that some new Peers, when they first begin to serve for a fixed period of time, will do so alongside some existing life Peers, thereby becoming all the more able to develop and uphold the skills and democratic efficacy of this House as a revising Chamber.
Then, for a reformed House, there will be many excellent candidates who have just retired from their professional careers, yet who are still prepared to dedicate their time and considerable abilities here. If new Peers serve for 15 years—and I agree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham that they should—a retirement age of 90 thus enables a commencement age of up to 75.
Regarding the present House, research figures already on the face of this Bill give us the mathematics, as my noble friend Lord Blencathra has just reminded us. By 2029, while a retirement age of 80 would cull 327 life Peers, and that of 85 would cull 187 life Peers, a retirement age of 90 would remove 78 instead. Clearly, that is a much more balanced and acceptable figure. In any case, before reaching the age of 90, life Peers playing an active part here after the age of 80 should surely be left to decide for themselves when they will retire.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 86, which forms part of this group. The noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal was not in her place in the last debate when I pointed out that I had asked for this amendment—which was initially down to be debated on its own—to be grouped with these amendments so that we can deal with expeditiously in recognition of the points that she and other noble Lords have made.
I raised my concerns with an arbitrary age or time limit in our debate on the last group, so I will not address the merits of the other amendments that noble Lords have moved so far in this group, other than to ask one question. When I was reading my copy of the Daily Mirror this weekend, I saw that the Leader of the House had given an interview saying that she would like to move quite quickly on the matter of a retirement age, which was in the Labour manifesto. She said it might not even require legislation for that to be done. So, to echo the point raised by my noble friend Lord Blencathra a moment ago, if your Lordships’ House votes during the passage of the Bill for a retirement age that enjoys the support of most noble Lords in this House, will the Government keep it in the Bill and implement it so that they can act with the speed the noble Baroness says she would like to move on this?
My Amendment 86 would make it clear that a peerage can be conferred on anybody over the age of 16. I am sure that, when some noble Lords saw this on the Marshalled List, it caused a few raised eyebrows and they may have wondered whether the point was entirely serious. It is—I have tabled this amendment in order to probe the Government’s thinking in relation to their other manifesto commitment to lower to 16 the age of voting for elections to another place. Is it the Government’s intention also to lower to 16 the age at which somebody can stand for election to the House of Commons, or do they plan to give 16 and 17 year-olds the vote but not yet give them the opportunity to put themselves forward for election if they find that there is nobody on the ballot paper who meets their approval?
As noble Lords will know, for many years after the Representation of the People Act 1969, there was such a discrepancy. People could vote from the age of 18 but had to wait until 21 to stand for election. That was changed in time for the 2010 general election—I think the noble Baroness the Leader of the House was a Minister in the Cabinet Office—and the two ages were finally brought into line. I would be grateful if the Minister who is responding could say a bit more about the Government’s intention on the age for candidacy as well as for election.
Whatever the answer to that question, I have tabled this amendment to see the view of His Majesty’s Government on allowing 16 and 17 year-olds into your Lordships’ House to scrutinise the decisions that are made by a lower House which is to be elected and perhaps also partly filled by 16 and 17 year-olds. A bit of scepticism sometimes accompanies the arrival of a relatively younger Member of your Lordships’ House to these Benches, but we have seen in recent weeks and through the valiant work of my noble friend Lady Owen of Alderley Edge, supported by Peers of all ages from across your Lordships’ House to tackle the scourge of deepfake pornography, the benefits of having a multigenerational House, looking at issues that affect our fellow citizens of varying ages.
There is a barrier to having such a multigenerational House in our Standing Orders. Standing Order No. 2 says:
“No Lord under the age of one and twenty … shall be permitted to sit in the House”.
I see that that Standing Order was adopted on 22 May 1685, so, while it is relatively recent in the history of your Lordships’ House, it is a Standing Order of fairly long standing. Does the Minister think that this 17th century barrier should still be in place, given the Government’s wider commitment to give 16 and 17 year-olds the right to vote for and perhaps stand for election to the other House of Parliament?
Lord Dobbs (Con)
My Lords, I shall say a few words in support of the amendment in my name and that of the noble Earl, Lord Devon. I hope I shall be forgiven, and not accused of parliamentary shenanigans, if, like my noble friend Lord Blencathra, I quote from the Labour party manifesto—although not at the length he did. The words are quite important to our understanding of what is going on. The manifesto says that
“reform is long over-due and essential … The next Labour Government will therefore bring about an immediate modernisation by introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age”.
Same paragraph, same breath, same thought. There is a full stop between those two very important aspects of parliamentary reform, but that full stop seems to have been decisive in the Government’s approach to this matter. It appears that the Government have indeed come to a full stop on these issues. As much as I like the sound of that, it is not quite the point. How can a full stop be a justification for abandoning the ambitions for a comprehensive and properly considered set of reforms?
Why, if it was promised in the manifesto, have the Government suddenly had a change of heart? After all, a retirement Bill—or a retirement amendment, as we are discussing here—would in many ways be much simpler than the Bill that is in front of the Committee. But this Bill is, of course, not so much a breath of fresh air as a sigh of relief on the part of so many Members on the Opposition Benches.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
My Lords, almost everything in life has a retirement age. I put it to the Committee that having the age of 80 as an upper limit is what most people would expect as being a normal upper limit of something that was still credible.
The second issue is something that I raised both in my speech in November, in our House of Lords reform debate, and at Second Reading in December: the wisdom of imposing a retirement age on the current membership of the House retrospectively, as it were. That would probably produce a cliff edge, which would lead to what I termed an “organisational shock”. The loss of organisational power or human capital, in something which I think is adjudged by many to be performing well, would be a great shame and an unnecessary piece of self-harm. It takes some time to train up new Members. Indeed, it takes some time to find new Members, as HOLAC would be able to tell your Lordships. Accordingly, in the commercial environment, one would look for transitional arrangements and try to find some way of doing that.
The very pleasing Amendment 65, which was so well introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, proposes a simple set of transitional arrangements with two legs that would reduce that organisational shock enormously and allow the House to transition to an age limit of 80 without pain or any loss of our capability and effectiveness. The first leg would impose the age limit only on new Members. This was how, as I remarked in November and December, the judges of the higher courts in England and Wales did it about 35 years ago, as they were worried about the loss of institutional power at that time. They found that a number of judges in fact imposed a retirement age on themselves retrospectively, as it were. They could have gone on forever but chose to retire at the new retirement age. I would expect that to apply, as I said then, and still expect it today. The Cross Bench has a slightly higher average age at 73, so we have a number of people who are in this zone. I expect that would apply with us as well, so imposing it on the new is the first leg of this very clever amendment.
The second leg would give everyone who comes in a minimum of 10 years. Selfishly, from the Cross-Bench point of view, one of the things that we need is judges. We need to supply judges in various circumstances. We needed to supply two for the Holocaust Memorial Bill Committee recently and I have to supply others for other private Bills that are coming through. These are just some examples. Some of the judges we need come from the Supreme Court and they do not retire until they are 75. Only having five years of them, with it taking a couple of years to train them up because they are no longer Members of our House beforehand, would mean that it is better for everyone to have a minimum period. That feature of the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, is also to be commended to the Committee.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, as I intimated in the previous group, noble Lords who remain after the hereditaries have gone will come under increasing media pressure on the grounds that many are far too old and unelected. Even now, we often see colourful descriptions of noble Lord’s bios, especially when how they speak and vote is not to the particular medium’s liking.
In 2010, on my own initiative, I looked at a list of Peers in age order, expecting to find some age at which noble Lords became ineffective. I can assure the Committee that there is no such point, but over 33 years, what I have sadly seen time and again is Peers losing their mental faculties, alongside a relatively quick physical decline. Now that we have a system of retirement, there is not the moral drive to keep attending past the point of effectiveness, although a few do.
I think we can all agree that octogenarian Peers can be effective and add value. However, at 68, I am beginning to worry that I am out of touch and out of date with the things that I think, and I am experienced in, and that I am out of date with modern society. That is partially why I want to retire in the spring. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, made the point about social media. I do not use social media; I have not got the foggiest clue how to use it. Wisdom and experience are valuable to the House, and I frequently seek the counsel of very old Peers.
The problem is this: the maximum practical limit of the size of the House is about 800. I suspect that is part of the reason why the Government want to get rid of hereditary Peers, despite our experience. What matters is the number of active Peers, not the size of the House, but we also have too many active Peers. My theory is that, after a certain size, the effectiveness of each individual Peer is inversely proportional to the number of active Peers—so each Peer has fewer opportunities. For instance, in Parliaments before 2010, if I got fed up with what the Government were doing, I could roll into the Minute Room and say “Right, Oral Question; I want the next available slot”. They would laugh at me if I did that now; you have to go into a ballot. We never used to have to do that.
The problem is not the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of older Peers; the problem is bed-blocking. We should have Peers on both the political Benches and the Cross Benches who have succeeded in their chosen careers, bought and paid for their house, and secured a decent occupational pension—that is to say, appointment at about the age of 55 to 63. There is no shortage of really good-quality people in this situation. The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, talked about precisely that. We cannot have them because we have around 200 octogenarian Peers.
I am not saying that we should not have much younger Peers. I am saying that the older Peers are bed-blocking younger potential Peers. I think the solution is to make it clear to new appointments how long their term will be. How long that should be is another matter, but I think we should make it absolutely clear how long new Peers are expected to be here. I do not think it would be fair to retire older life Peers, as they would have believed that they would be here for life. We hereditary Peers have known that we were on borrowed time since 1911.
Lord Burns (CB)
My Lords, I want to make two comments on the figures of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. He has given us the figures on what the impact of various age limits would be; what he has not described, of course, is what the consequential effect in future years would be. My examination of these numbers suggests that the impact of an age limit is quite large to begin with, but after that the impact is really very small. I did an exercise of trying to look at the past and to judge, using one of these spreadsheets, what would have happened if we had had an age limit of 80 in the past. What would have been the effect on the size of the House and on what has happened through time?
The result is that the House would have been smaller, but if the same number of appointments had taken place, it would have still shown exactly the same upward trajectory over time. If we put in place an age limit of 80 that comes into effect in 2029, for the following few years only 20 or 30 people would fall into the bracket of hitting the age limit, which is not such a different figure from the number of retirees that we have in any case. So, I caution against thinking that this would solve the problems, in a sense, going forward over a longish period. There is no doubt that if one wants to bring down the size of the House quickly, an age limit is a very effective way of doing that. If one wants to make sure that one has a balanced profile going forward, so that leavers match new appointments, it will not help that much with regard to that.
That is why I also slightly take issue with the noble Baroness speaking for the Government when she said, just before dinner, that there is somehow a choice between term limits and age limits. To me, they have a very different purpose. An age limit is very effective in bringing down the size of the House, but it does not do very much to ease the challenge of keeping it down at that level. What term limits will do is create an onward larger flow of leavers at a time that we can predict in advance, which leaves scope for appointments and changes in the political balance in the House.
My other point is that, of course, if we are going to have an age limit, we do not have to choose between 80, 85 or 90 for ever. We could begin with an age limit of 85 and then, for the following Parliament, have an age limit of 80: we would get two bites at the process of bringing down the numbers. I support what my noble friend Lord Kinnoull says. I think the transition arrangements for this are just as important as they have been in the whole debate about hereditary Peers.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, I feel I am again swimming against the current, but I am very much against having an age limit in this House. I feel it would leave us poorer, thinner and more meagre. I am delighted that Ministers appear determined to break their manifesto commitment on the subject, and I urge them to take the same wise, measured and judicious attitude to the stuff on the other side of the full stop which my noble friend Lord Dobbs was mentioning earlier. We would be deprived of a great deal in this House without the wisdom of the full range of our Members. He is not here at the moment, so I hope it will not embarrass him in his absence if I say that the best speech I heard in tonight’s debate came from the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, with his erudition and his experience, explaining the role of the Crown prerogative in appointing Members of this House. Again, I hope that he will not think this in any way impertinent, but he would fall on the wrong side of my noble friend Lord Hailsham’s age limit, and I think we would all be the poorer for it.
My noble friend Lord Parkinson spoke about a multigenerational Chamber; I think there is a real importance in having a multigenerational polity. It is important in an age when elected politicians are becoming younger, the 24-hour news cycle and social media are more exhausting and elected politics becomes more of a young man’s game to have a space in our national discourse for people from every generation. It is kind of a variant, if you like, of Burke’s point about a nation being a partnership between the dead, the unborn and the living.
Viscount Goschen (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lords who tabled the amendments in this group have done the House a service in a number of different ways. Given that the 80 year-old retirement age was an important part of the Government’s manifesto, this debate gives us the opportunity to test their motivation for both bringing forward these measures and for not including them in the Bill.
The engagement we have had over the two days so far in Committee have been remarkably good-natured and constructive. They have been conducted in the right House of Lords spirit. An awful lot of what the Committee has been trying to get to the bottom of is around motivation: why measures have been brought forward and what their desired outcome is. You cannot test the efficacy of an outcome without understanding what the question is in the first place. I contend that the first day in Committee was really about whether the hereditary Peers performed better or worse than life Peers. There seemed to be a very broad consensus that there was a neutrality between the two groups.
We then, therefore, had to get to the bottom of why the Government are bringing forward that set of measures. We got on to a deep discussion of the Grocott proposals and why they were right then and wrong now, and how the only person who does not believe in the Grocott proposals is the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and so I look forward to his intervention on this group. We were talking of dogs in fights, and I think he has got one in this group as well in terms of his distinguished vintage.
We are all very clear that age has got very little to do with how well Peers perform in the House. We are Peers: we are equals, and that is how we are treated. We do not look at someone in their late 80s as any different to a Peer who might be in their 40s. I had the good fortune to come here a very long time ago; I have been here for 37 years, and I am still 12 years under the average I believe. I have seen it over a considerable period of time.
However, the Minister needs to tell us in her response to this group why the Government originally brought forward the age limit. Was it to reduce the numbers of the House? I think we all agree that is a valid direction of travel. Or is it because the Government felt that those over 80 gave a contribution of less quality than others?
I think we need to know why the Government brought it forward and what their current view is. Of all the speeches I have heard over the last two days in Committee, the most powerful and moving was that given by the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, who cautioned the Committee that if we are to amend the constitution to change the make-up of this House, we need to do so for the right reasons, for logical reasons, with the right motivation and with a desire to improve this House, and not for any other reason. I look forward to the Government’s response.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I should begin by saying that the reason I am speaking to this group rather than my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire is not simply that he has a conflict of interest, which he would have to declare. My noble friend has his 84th birthday this coming Wednesday. He intends to spend it as he has spent today, which shows that he has a great sense of fun.
This group of amendments, the previous group and the next two groups are all about how to reduce numbers and make sure that people who are in the House of Lords play a full and proper part. To state the blindingly obvious, there is one way to deal with this, which is to make sure that the House of Lords is elected—but I think we may have discussed that previously.
As for a retirement age, I think I am right in saying that every profession has a retirement age. In your Lordships’ House, we see the Bishops retiring at 70.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, that is actually not right. The self-employed, for example members of the Bar, do not have a retirement age, and nor indeed do solicitors.
Lord Newby (LD)
It is always very dangerous to make a general comment in your Lordships’ House. But judges have a retirement age of 75.
We know that bishops aged more than 70, and indeed judges aged more than 75, in many cases have undiminished mental powers and are able to play a very considerable part in whatever it is they continue to do. But there is a reason for retirement ages, which is that exceptions do not prove a rule. We know here that many Members of your Lordships’ House stay on well beyond a point at which it would be in their best interests to retire. We, the usual channels, have no levers in order to help them leave at a point when, objectively, it would be in their and the House’s best interest. My Chief Whip and I had a signal success last week in persuading someone in their mid-90s to retire, but it was slightly touch and go—and that, frankly, is not acceptable in my view.
If we are to have a retirement age, the question is: what should it be? The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said that 80 was clearly too young. He prefers 85; the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, prefers 90. We often talk about the dissonance between the ways in which the House of Lords and the outside world view things. I can think of no case where there is a greater dissonance than in the view of a reasonable retirement age.
I am afraid that I find it very difficult to accept the idea that 80 is far too young. The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, made a suggestion about how we might persuade Peers to retire without having a set retirement age: by having a retirement age that applies only to new Peers, in the expectation that many existing Peers who are over that age, whatever it is, would retire on the basis that that is what the judges did. In my experience, the problem is that people who most should retire are often the ones who are most reluctant to retire. I am afraid to say to the noble Earl, because it is a very attractive proposition in other ways, that I do not think that it would work, and I certainly do not think it would work to the extent that we would want it to.
This debate has shown that there is absolutely no consensus in your Lordships’ House about what a retirement age should be. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, who said on a previous group that this subject should not be part of the consideration of the Bill. The Government say that they will bring forward a consultation and proposals on it and I believe that it is very important that the impetus for this change, particularly the exact retirement age, should not come from your Lordships’ House. If ever there was a case of turkeys and Christmas, it is Members of the House of Lords determining when they should retire. Therefore, it is incumbent on the Government to come forward with their own proposals—I would be very happy if they were in line with their manifesto commitment—but I do not think an amendment passed by your Lordships on a Bill that is, in essence, about the hereditaries is a sensible way to deal with it.
Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, first, I apologise if my voice fails—although many noble Lords may appreciate that eventuality.
I begin by addressing the amendments moved by my noble friends Lord Blencathra, Lord Hailsham, Lord Dundee, Lord Parkinson and Lord Dobbs and the noble Earl, Lord Devon. However, I divide them into two categories: the issue of a retirement age and the issue of term limits. I will not address the latter in the context of this debate, but I will address the former, because it is one of the Government’s manifesto commitments. They expressly said that.
Here we are, almost at 10 pm, debating whether it is appropriate for us to have a retirement age of 90 years, 85 years or perhaps even younger. The general public would regard such a debate as quite surreal. The question posed by my noble friend Lord Goschen is very much on point. It is incumbent on the Government now to step up and explain why they put the issue of a retirement age into their recent manifesto. It was not done on the spur of the moment; these things are thought out, debated and considered. Yet we struggle to identify the raison d’être for that manifesto commitment; it simply floats in the air.
Comments have already been made about other professions and pursuits and the issue of retirement, but, clearly, no one has ever contemplated an official retirement age of 90. That is why I wonder about the terms of this debate at all. In banking and finance, one would generally expect retirement at 55. Why? Because those organisations want to refresh themselves. In the judiciary, until recently the retirement age was 70; it is now 75. That is not because of the belief that judges who reach the age of 75 are no longer capable of interpreting and applying the law—many are, some are not and some never were.
Be that as it may, there is a further, more important issue. It is the issue of public confidence. If you walk into a court to have a serious issue determined in a court of law and discover that the judge is 92 years of age, you would rightly have reservations about his ability to determine a complex issue. It is no different for those who do not interpret and apply the law but purport to make it. The issue is not whether Lord Mackay of Clashfern was able to contribute to the proceedings of this House into his 90s, or whether the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is still able to do so—I do not doubt that for a moment. But there is a very real issue of public confidence. That is also married to an issue about the numbers in this House, and how we deal with that issue.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, before I begin, it would be remiss of me not to wish the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, a happy birthday. But, as I will probably still be here on Wednesday, I will do it on Wednesday.
What is clear from this short debate on retirement age and the minimum age of participation is that there is a broad consensus on the need for change. What that change specifically should be is clearly still a matter for debate, as we have seen this evening. So let me move on to the specifics of the amendments at hand and try to reassure and answer noble Lords.
These amendments raise important questions on the issue of retirement age that warrant further discussion. The Government are keen to maintain an ongoing dialogue with the House about how best to implement our other manifesto commitments on reforming the House, including the issue of retirement age. I look forward to continuing the conversations with your Lordships, building on the discussions my noble friend the Leader has already had.
As was so eloquently articulated by several noble Lords this evening, especially the noble Lord, Lord Burns, the Government agree with the general direction of these amendments, which is to reduce the size of your Lordships’ House. As peerages are for life— and I am aware that when I say that, that may have slightly different connotations, given my age and what that means—the House has become too big. These amendments show the range of possible retirement ages that could be implemented. The Government, as set out in our manifesto, believe that a mandatory retirement age of 80, at the end of the relevant Parliament, strikes the right balance between setting the limit too high, thus reducing the impact on numbers, or too low, which would have a disruptive effect on your Lordships’ House at the end of the Parliament. In fact, during the last Parliament the retirement age was 81.3, in line with some of the conversations your Lordships have had this evening.
However, this Bill is not the right vehicle to make such a change. This is a focused Bill with a sole purpose: to deliver the Government’s manifesto commitment to bring about immediate reform by removing the right of the remaining hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the Chamber, a principle that was agreed when the 1999 Act was passed. This Bill is completing the work of that Act. It is right that we take time to best consider how we implement the other manifesto commitments, including our commitment to introduce a retirement age, engaging with your Lordships.
Amendments 101C, 101D and 101H include the provision to alter the commencement of the Bill. I note that the noble Lord has replicated this draft in his Amendments 101E, 101F and 101G, which we will debate at a future date. The effect of these amendments would be that the remaining hereditary Peers would be removed from your Lordships’ House at Royal Assent, rather than at the end of the Session in which the Bill is passed, as it currently provides for. Given that the noble Lord previously eloquently listed the individual records of service of hereditary Peers, aided by his now famous spreadsheets, I am somewhat surprised that seemingly, he now wants them to leave sooner.
The noble Lord also wishes the commencement of his other amendments on retirement age to be subject to a further resolution of the House. This means that, were the noble Lord successful in making his amendments, their commencement would be delayed further and perhaps indefinitely. The timing of the implementation of the Bill follows the approach set out in the 1999 Act, which is for it to come into force at the end of the parliamentary Session in which it is passed. This is a sensible approach which strikes the right balance between delivering an immediate reform, as set out in our manifesto, and meeting the desire to minimise any disruption to the work of the House, which could arise if hereditary Peers were to depart during a parliamentary Session.
Finally, Amendment 86, tabled by noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, seeks to lower the minimum age of membership of your Lordships’ House from 21 to 16. I thank the noble Lord for the explanatory statement which accompanies his amendment. The Government were elected on a manifesto promising to give 16 and 17 year-olds the right to vote in all UK elections, strengthening our democracy and increasing the engagement of young people. This is about fostering long-lasting engagement with our democracy and building the foundations for their participation in our electoral processes, and it will be a major change to the electoral franchise, with implications for the wider electorate. However, this commitment does not extend to lowering the age at which an individual can hold elected office at a national or local level, or other positions such as police and crime commissioners. The Government do not plan to change the minimum age eligibility criteria for elected office, nor for membership of your Lordships’ House. As I have said before, this Bill is solely focused on removing the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I thank the Minister for her clear answer. There is a further discrepancy, in that the age at which someone can become a Member of your Lordships’ House is 21, but to stand for election to another place it is 18. Does the Minister think that this discrepancy should continue, or should the two Houses be equal in that regard?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I was just going to touch on that point. As the noble Lord mentioned during his contribution, as always, the content of our Standing Orders is a matter for your Lordships’ House.
Bearing all this in mind, I respectfully ask that noble Lords do not press their amendments.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, we always say, “This has been an interesting debate”, and when I put down these amendments I expected it to be a fascinating debate, which it was. The Government always complain that this is a narrowly focused Bill, so why on earth are we talking about these other issues? It is because it was in the Labour Party manifesto. It is a narrowly drawn Bill only because, politically, they decided to make it a narrowly drawn Bill. It does not have to be that narrowly drawn.
My noble friend Lord Hailsham, in supporting my amendment that colleagues should retire at 85, made the valid point that we experience decay and that we are now getting a bit out of date on the things that we were expert in a few years ago. I like the idea from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, of retirement at 80 years old or after 10 years of service, whichever is the later. That is an interesting idea and it would permit Peers aged over 70 to get a 10-year term in here. My noble friend Lord Dundee supported an age of 90. He made a good case, but I am afraid we would not convince those on the outside that it was a serious measure to retire at 90.
My noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay made an intriguing point about reducing the age to 16, to match the age at which people may become MPs. God help us if we have MPs aged 16. I am glad I will not be in the House of Commons if that ever happens.
My noble friend Lord Dobbs supported the noble Earl, Lord Devon. I liked his “full stop” quote; will I have to pay him royalties if I ever use it again, him being a great novelist? The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, in supporting the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, said that 80 is still very high for most organisations and that people retired a lot earlier than that, but I liked the point he made about transitional arrangements and allowing new Members to come in.
My noble friend Lord Attlee said that what matters is having active Peers, and that many over the age of 85 are highly active. I agree. I am privileged to serve on the Council of Europe. While I was in Georgia observing its elections a few months ago in my wheelchair, and going through a mob who were trying to ruffle us up and sabotage our vehicle, I felt quite active for a 72 year-old, as I did on a committee where the noble Lords, Lord Griffiths and Lord Foulkes, were considerably older than me—I believe they are in their 80s. They are also highly active Members. I accept that you can be over the age of 80, 85 or 90 and still be active here.
The noble Lord, Lord Burns, made an intriguing point that if we had a retirement age of 85 it would reduce numbers considerably in the first fell swoop, but it would have a diminishing effect afterwards. That will be the case if we continue stuffing in new Peers. He suggested that we could lower the age at a future time. I suggest he looks at my Amendment 32, which we will come to later, which makes that case. It sets up a procedure whereby if we decide that the age is wrong, we can tweak it with a statutory instrument rather than further primary legislation.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Hannan that it is the quality that matters, not the age, but the Government want to reduce the size of the Lords and they have chosen to throw out the hereditaries. I merely suggest in my amendments that a better way to do that would be to have a retirement age. I agree with my noble friend Lord Goschen that Peers of all ages make a valuable contribution. He asked the legitimate question, which my noble and learned friend Lord Keen also asked: will the Government explain why they have adopted this age of 80 as retirement?
I too will wish the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, well if he is here on Wednesday. I am not sure whether he drinks, but I will happily buy him a glass of champagne to celebrate a marvellous birthday. But the noble Lord, Lord Newby, made a good point that it might be in the interest of some Members to retire. Occasionally we see colleagues come into this House and I always say, “I hope my Chief Whip will tell me to get out at once if I get that far gone and poor”.
My noble and learned friend Lord Keen made the valid point that the age of 90 is a bit too late. It is a public confidence thing. Yes, some colleagues perform well in their 90s, but it is not credible to the outside public that we have people making legislation which affect their daily lives at that age.
The Minister said that more discussion is necessary before action. When will we get that action? When will we get the consultation paper on reducing the age limit to 80 or 85? We need it, but we get the feeling it has been kicked into the long grass.
I end as I began. The Government say that this is a very narrowly focused Bill, but it does not have to be. They are trying to reject the amendments that we have suggested, and the others to come, because they do not fit into the mode of getting rid of hereditary Peers. The Bill could easily be extended in a few little areas to include the issues we have discussed in Committee.
Before Report, I hope we can get some traction on two issues: retirement at 85, which some of us have suggested; and the suggestions by the noble Earls, Lord Devon and Lord Kinnoull, for transitional arrangements of about 80 and a 10-year time limit for new Lords coming in, and the suggestions by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, that we can tweak the age down, perhaps starting at 85 and a few years later lowering it to 80—I think there could be traction in that.
I hope that noble Lords will get together with better brains than mine and decide what we want to run with on Report to try to get something that may get the support of a majority of Members in this House. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment 16.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, it is a convenient point to conclude our proceedings today, so I move that the House be now resumed.