Lord Norton of Louth
Relevant document: 17th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee
Lord Norton of Louth (Con)
My Lords, I wish to explain the context of this Bill, detail its principal provisions and, most importantly, stress what it is designed to achieve. Its introduction is premised on a dual need: to strengthen the House in what it does and in how it is seen by those outside.
Many of those taking part in this debate are aware that this is a revised version of the Bill I introduced two Sessions ago. It has been amended in the light of what was said in that debate. However, its genesis goes back much further. Almost 20 years ago, I penned the first draft of what became the House of Lords Bill, better known as the Steel Bill. It was introduced into this House by Lord Steel of Aikwood on behalf of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, a body I founded with my noble friend the late Lord Cormack.
The Bill had four main provisions, which in effect constituted the manifesto of the campaign. It put the House of Lords Appointments Commission on a statutory basis; it ended the by-elections for hereditary Peers; it allowed Peers to retire; and it provided for Peers who commit serious criminal offences to be expelled from membership of the House. It was variously debated, twice in 2007, and enjoyed wide support, but, because of opposition from a small minority of Peers, we were not able to make progress as it stood. We were, though, able to get two of its provisions enacted—enabling Peers to retire and removing those who commit serious offences—through the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, introduced as a Private Member’s Bill in the other place by Dan Byles and facilitated it in its passage by the Government. We now also have the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill going through your Lordships’ House. That means that only one provision of the Steel Bill is, in effect, unfulfilled: putting the House of Lords Appointments Commission, HOLAC, on a statutory basis. For me, this Bill constitutes unfinished business.
This Bill has four main provisions. First, it puts HOLAC on a statutory basis. The case for doing so has always been strong, but is made even more so by the hereditary Peers Bill. Enactment of that Bill will mean there is no route to becoming a Peer independent of prime ministerial patronage. My contention is that this Bill has to be conjoined with the hereditary Peers Bill to ensure that the Prime Minister does not enjoy exclusive, unrestrained power to create Members of this House. Those who have opposed the hereditary Peers Bill for giving too much power of patronage to the Prime Minister need to explain, if they do not support this Bill, what they would do to constrain that power.
Putting HOLAC on a statutory basis would protect its independence. It can be argued that no Prime Minister would think of getting rid of HOLAC, but the point is that they could. It could have been argued that no Prime Minister would ignore a recommendation of HOLAC on the appointment of Peers, but they could—and, as we know, have done. The point is not just one of quality control: fundamental to my argument is that it is core to public trust in appointments to this House. In terms of what the public want from HOLAC and the appointments process, my Bill is a modest one and, as we have seen with the Steel and Grocott Bills, if you do not make modest changes now, the likelihood is that you will eventually end up with more radical surgery.
There are two changes from the Bill I introduced two Sessions ago. The first is made in response to what was said in debate on the Bill, where concerns were raised that putting the appointments process in statute opened up the prospect of judicial review. I have therefore introduced an ouster clause. This is exceptional but, as with the ouster clause in the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act introduced by the Conservative Government in the last Parliament, justified in the context of the measure. It is not a qualified provision of the sort referred to by my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne in Monday’s debate. The clause meets the concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, in the earlier debate; he cannot be here today, but he has authorised me to say that the inclusion of the clause fully meets his concerns and that the Bill now has his full support.
The second change derives from public expectations. The Bill provides that, if HOLAC recommends against a name being put forward to the monarch, the Prime Minister cannot put forward that name for two years. It is not a bar. The name could be resubmitted. However, it forces the Prime Minister to reconsider someone who is not judged suitable at the time.
Secondly, the Bill enshrines the core principles widely endorsed by Members on the size and composition of the House: that is, that it should be no larger than the House of Commons, that no one party should enjoy an absolute majority and that at least one-fifth of the House should comprise Cross-Bench Peers. These provisions enable the House to do what it does well. We are too large and we recognise that we need to reduce our numbers, but size is a second-order issue relative to the need to be seen to be effective in fulfilling our core functions, not least legislative scrutiny. Because no party in government enjoys an absolute majority, it works to persuade the House to accept the provisions of a Bill. In the Commons, there is a culture of assertion; in this House, there is a culture of justification. Ministers need to justify what they bring forward. Ensuring that a significant proportion of the House is independent of party contributes to the independence of the House and provides a route for people who have served in public office and have no party-political affiliation to join it. These in effect constitute goals for the Prime Minister. They provide a core organising framework.
Thirdly, the Bill provides that those nominated for membership must meet the criteria of “conspicuous merit” and demonstrate
“a willingness and capacity to contribute to the work of the House”.
In the light of the Delegated Powers Committee report, I am content to confine it to those provisions. The committee has drawn attention to some subsections of Clause 7—even though the clause is the same as in the 2022 Bill, to which the committee raised no objections.
When the Bill was debated in 2022, some Members thought the criterion of “conspicuous merit” was too broad; others, I know, think that it encapsulates what we need and what the public expect. If we are to do our job effectively—and, in effect, justify our existence—we need to maintain a membership characterised by experience and expertise. We also need to be seen to be bringing in Members who can make a distinctive contribution. In my view, generating guidance as to what constitutes “conspicuous merit” is not the most onerous of tasks as it essentially requires those nominated to show what they have contributed by way of experience or professional achievement. The experience may not be earth-shattering but may, by its nature, be distinctive. I am not opposed to generating a different wording; the key point is establishing a clear threshold of merit.
Fourthly, there is a need for transparency, requiring those party leaders putting forward names for peerages to inform HOLAC of the criteria and process employed for making the nomination. Injecting the fresh air of transparency is a further means of enhancing public trust in the process. When we debated the Bill last time, the then Leader of the Opposition, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, expressed doubts about this provision. Yet the Government have, in effect, conceded much of the principle by publishing citations for nominations. I commend them on that. This Bill pushes a little further in a way that serves to tackle public cynicism.
That brings me to the purpose of the Bill, which is the core reason for this debate. It is to establish the need to change the process by which people are nominated for peerages. It is necessary—not desirable but necessary —for the House to maintain its claim to legitimacy, both in how Members arrive and in the work they do. This House contributes to good law because of a unique combination of membership and procedures that distinguish it from the other place. It fulfils functions that the House of Commons may not have the time or the political will to fulfil. It is recognised as carrying out detailed scrutiny of legislation that enhances the quality of law in this country. However, the public derive their view of this House not from what it does but from how Members are selected and how some behave.
Enacting this Bill will enhance the work of the House through bringing in Members qualified to carry out its functions, and tackle the distrust that now engulfs the nominations process. As I said, the provisions are modest relative to what the public want. There is clear public support for nominations to be taken out of the hands of party leaders and given exclusively to HOLAC. The Wakeham commission recommended that most Peers be nominated by HOLAC. If we do not make changes now, more radical reform beckons.
This debate gives the House the opportunity to send out a clear signal as to the need for reform of the nomination process and a recognition that change is necessary to establish confidence in that process. The defence offered for the existing system, I submit, is not sustainable. In the debate on the previous Bill, we were told that the Prime Minister is the one who makes the nominations and is accountable to Parliament for those nominations. That is constitutionally correct. It is also a practical nonsense. When was the last time a Prime Minister was held accountable, in any meaningful form, for nominations to this House? The Prime Minister is not the one who suffers in any significant manner. It is this House that gets the political opprobrium. Under this Bill, the Prime Minister would remain the sole person responsible for submitting names to the monarch, but he or she would work within a process designed to ensure that those being nominated were, and were seen to be, highly qualified.
The other objection raised was that the Bill would give too much power to HOLAC, a body that is unelected and not accountable for its actions. I believe that is based on a false premise. HOLAC would be created by law and if it was seen to be acting in an inappropriate way, its role could be changed by law. In any event, the powers being conferred are limited and, I believe, proportionate. The only power will be one of restraint, requiring the Prime Minister to wait two years before being able to resubmit a name. The more significant challenge to the Bill is not that it gives too much power to HOLAC but that it confers too little.
We are now in March. This Bill is not going to make it to the statute book unless the Government facilitate its passage or take it over. I am not overly optimistic that the Minister will make such a promise. What we can do is use this opportunity to acknowledge the need to reform the process by which Members reach this place. We have to embrace change to enable us to do even better what we already do well and, even more crucial to this debate, demonstrate that we recognise public discontent with the process as it stands. Doing nothing is not a viable option. I beg to move.
Baroness Mattinson (Lab) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it is a huge honour to follow the excellent speech by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, and to speak here for the first time.
It has been a whirlwind few weeks and I am so very grateful to everyone who has helped and supported me: Black Rod and all the staff here for the incredibly thorough induction process and wonderful, warm welcome, as well as my noble friends Lord Dubs and Lady Hodge, both of whom have been so crucial in my career to date and have helped enormously in making my formal introduction a tiny bit less scary.
Having survived that a couple of weeks ago does not make it any less daunting to stand here, not least because I usually never speak without the prop of a full deck of PowerPoint slides. Frankly, I was disappointed to learn from my noble friends Lord Kennedy and Lady Smith—who have been so helpful in every other way—that I would not be able to use slides here this morning, so please bear with me as I speak unadorned.
I am new here, but I am not new to politics. My first election was in 1987, when—along with the late, great Philip Gould—I worked on Labour’s campaign. Young Labour Party staffers I spoke to recently were amazed by this, as most had not even been born then, and pressed me for quaint stories about the olden days. I can see that many noble Lords here will not need any such briefing.
I have worked on almost every general election since, and often on what happened in between too. Overall, if my career has been about anything, it has been about keeping the organisations I have worked with—businesses, government, political parties and their leaders—in closer touch with those whom they serve. Focus groups and polling have been the tools of my trade. In my view these are not dark arts, as some characterise them, but an effective way of creating an open, sustained and positive connection. And politics—let us face it—needs that positive connection; it is very much a work in progress.
Disappointingly, we have been heading in the wrong direction. Trust in politics has plummeted to its lowest score for 40 years. This is not a party-political point. Fewer than one in 10 people trust politicians, of any hue, to tell the truth—although your Lordships might take heart from being slightly more trusted than estate agents or journalists. But the grim statistics speak for themselves: only 28% say they have any confidence in the House of Commons. In focus groups, Prime Minister’s Questions—the one set-piece debate that the public watch—is seen to epitomise everything that is bad about politics. It is shouty, it is point-scoring, it is partisan and, frankly, it is rude.
Here in this place, I gather we like to do things differently. Certainly, from what I have seen so far, noble Lords are nothing if not courteous. However, the same poll revealed that confidence in the Lords was 8% lower than in the Commons, at just 20%. This is not something any of us can afford to ignore. If people lose faith in our institutions, our democracy weakens, and a weak democracy loses legitimacy. A recent poll suggested that more than half of Gen Z voters—that is, very young people—would rather be led by a strong dictator who does not bother with elections. Even if that is only half right, it is pretty scary. Our democratic institutions are facing the biggest sustained attack since the Second World War. This is urgent. It is harder for us here than it is in the other place; there, they are accountable to an electorate every few years and that sure focuses the mind. We are going to have to work a lot harder on building that positive connection. Like my noble friend Lady Chapman, I am from Darlington. I often ask myself, “What on earth would Darlington think?”. We must all keep asking such a question and we must make it our duty to know the answer.
How we are appointed here and, crucially, how the public perceive how and why we are appointed here, really matter too. It is just one part of the wider package of reform that people voted for when they voted for change so resolutely last July. The most significant change we could make, by some distance, is removing hereditary Peers. Nearly 70% of the public strongly support this move. That must be our main focus in reform.
There is also a lot that we can do to shine a light on the excellent work that is done here every day—day in, day out. Two-thirds of people say they know little or nothing about what happens here, and that is on us. That is why we need to shake things up and transform our reputation and performance. There is a lot at stake, and I am very much looking forward to playing my own role here in the future.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, it is my great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Mattinson. We expected an excellent maiden speech from her this morning and we were not disappointed, because the content, as well as the delivery, lived up to expectations. I congratulate my noble friend. As it happens, her speech was entirely in line with much of what was said by my friend from university days, the noble Lord, Lord Norton, in relation to reputation.
I owe my noble friend Lady Mattinson a debt of gratitude. As she described, her entry into the wider political arena was in 1987. She said that did not engage in the dark arts, but I seem to remember she was working with someone who did, who is now our ambassador in Washington. I owe her one, because I entered the House of Commons in 1987 with the largest majority that I ever got—of over 24,000—and I never matched it again, so I thank my noble friend very much indeed for that.
My noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Norton, talked about the reputation of politics and the way in which people see us—both in Parliament and outside—and the critical nature of the threat to democracy and the way in which we conduct ourselves. That is true in terms of young people. I did a citizenship class earlier this week with a school and discovered that none of the 28 young people read a newspaper. Only six of them ever regularly watched the evening news, but over half of them had, either deliberately or by algorithm, been affected by Andrew Tate. We have a major problem and we here in Parliament have to set an example.
I know—because I have supported my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Norton, on previous occasions—that the tortoise, and not the hare, is the way in which we conduct ourselves. When the tortoise gets shot, rather than the hare, we are in difficulty. I say to Members opposite that had the Grocott proposals been supported by the whole House, and they were by the majority, the historic Disraeli way of doing things from the Conservative Benches might have achieved a different outcome from the Bill we are dealing with in Committee at the moment.
On the Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Norton, transparency, clarity and support for the reputation of having people nominated to this House in a way that is understandable and justifiable are really important, as is the intent of the Bill to reduce numbers to no greater than in the House of Commons.
If my noble friend the Chief Whip will forgive me—I do not think he will—I want to finish by saying that I think there is a cunning plan. The cunning plan is that we are kept here until the early hours of the morning until the numbers drop by dint of the Grim Reaper. It is time that, even within our self-regulation, we got a grip, because there is not a trade union leader in Britain who would put up with the way we do things in terms of timetabling. It is time now to take on board both the first speeches here this morning and get the reputation of politics back on track.
Baroness D'Souza (CB)
My Lords, it seems that we never stop talking about ourselves to ourselves, but I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Norton, on securing a Second Reading of this well-aired Bill and want to touch on three aspects.
The first is the significant amendment to the House of Lords Appointments Commission remit to include the criterion of
“a willingness and capacity to contribute to the work of the House of Lords”.
The emphasis was, and is, on maintaining the quality of the House of Lords by recruiting from a pool of those with conspicuous merit. The Bill enjoins the nominating bodies—be they political parties or other organisations—to submit, along with the nomination, the procedures and criteria involved in the initial selection of potential Peers. This points to the elimination of individuals who may offer only their donor credentials, rather than those of suitability and/or conspicuous merit.
Secondly, the requirement for the House of Lords to be no larger than the House of Commons imposes on the Prime Minister an obligation to be mindful of the number of Peers nominated by his or her office. The “one in, two out” procedure first put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, would, in time, contribute to a reduction in the size of the House if further augmented by a renewed effort on the part of group Leaders to ask non-contributors to retire. As the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, presciently said in November 2022 when discussing the earlier Bill, a lack of restraint on numbers might cause a future Labour Government to feel justified in introducing stricter mechanisms. This we know to be true.
Thirdly, while many of these changes do not require primary legislation—all that is needed is the agreement of the Government and, hey presto, we could, in a short time, have a smaller, more effective, less expensive and a more justifiable Chamber—they do require the willingness of the Government of the day and, in particular, the Prime Minister to relinquish a measure of patronage power. It can only be hoped that this Bill, and other internal and external pressures, will create a culture in which this can happen. What I mean by this is that current and future Prime Ministers will feel bound to nominate new peerages very sparingly and with the new HOLAC criteria in mind.
This second attempt to adopt a modest, practical and effective Bill is once again before us and I hope that it might go significantly further this time around.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted to speak in this debate, not only because of the privilege of hearing from my noble friend Lady Mattinson, whom I am sure the Conservatives fear because of her incredible knowledge about the thinking and behaviour of voters, but to support the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, with whom I now have the privilege of co-chairing the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. Indeed, as he described, much work has already been done by that campaign, not on my watch but before then, under his tutelage and that of the late Lord Cormack, much missed in this parish.
The Bill has been here before, as we heard, but without the then Government’s support. Interestingly, the Norton Bill was in some ways juggling for attention along with other Bills from my noble friend Lord Grocott to end hereditary by-elections, which the then Conservative Government refused to support—although I see that now they are out of office, they somehow think it is the best thing since sliced bread. Perhaps, now that Boris Johnson can no longer nominate reams of Peers—some not entirely to the liking of HOLAC—the Conservatives might also suddenly see the wisdom of today’s Bill and rush to its support.
The purpose of the Bill has been well elaborated by its sponsor. Therefore, I just want to do one thing: to underline the importance of the fact that if this change is enacted, it will have emanated from your Lordships’ House. That seems an important item. It is not a matter of us “pulling up the drawbridge” after we are all safely over it but of using our understanding of the role we play here, the demands made of our Members, the need for appropriate participation, the importance of balance between the two main parties, and the vital role that, as we all know, is played by the Cross Benches. It is about putting that together; we know there is a better way of scrutinising who should join us and the criteria for who should join us so that we have a House able to meet the very demanding asks we make of our Members.
There are of course issues in the Bill, not those referred to by the Delegated Powers Committee—which were a little over the top for a short Bill, but never mind—but others, which I hope we will be able to discuss in Committee. But this principle has to be right, and I am delighted to support the Bill in its Second Reading.
Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)
My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Mattinson, on her most accomplished speech this morning. We are old friends and colleagues from another place, and although we have different political views, I look forward very much to hearing more from her in the period to come. I also thank my noble friend Lord Norton for the way in which he introduced this Bill, although I am afraid that I do not support it—I will explain why.
When the House debated the Burns report some years ago, I was one of the few Members who spoke against the recommendations. That was because it proposed that the House of Lords, an unelected House, should decide on the size and composition of itself, and I thought that was fundamentally wrong. I have the same objection, I am afraid, to the Bill before us today. It proposes to take away from the Prime Minister the power to appoint Members of this House. The last word on who sits and does not sit in this House would rest with members of the House of Lords Appointments Commission—not the elected House of Commons, the elected Government or the elected Prime Minister, but the unelected HOLAC. This is absolutely no criticism of the members of HOLAC; as far as I can tell, they are of unimpeachable integrity and wise and experienced —but they are not elected.
The Bill sets out two criteria, one of which is “conspicuous merit”, although I know my noble friend said he was not wedded to that particular form of words. I looked up “merit” in the dictionary, and it is defined as “excellence”. Of course, if we were looking for excellence in nursing, the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, would pass with flying colours, and if we were looking at media, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, would pass with flying colours. But it is such a woolly definition, and I am not sure why we should not have people in the House of “inconspicuous merit” as well.
I return to my core point. I cannot accept that Members of this House should be appointed by unelected people, however great and good they are. They are not elected.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, I start by declaring my interest as a HOLAC-nominated Peer, and before I speak to my key point, I want to speak briefly about the impact of the HOLAC process on those of us who arrive through it.
Applying to HOLAC is much like applying for a job: you research the role and the organisation, complete an application and then articulate your suitability at interview. The panel has to be convinced not only by suitability but by capacity and your understanding of the House and the role of a Peer. That does not make us better or worse Peers but it shapes expectations and instils a strong sense that, while membership is a great privilege, it is also a job of work.
The key point I want to raise in relation to the Bill is criteria and, specifically, the clause allowing for additional criteria with
“regard to the diversity of the United Kingdom population”.
There is no constitutional requirement for this House to be representative, but most of us share an aspiration that it should fully reflect a diverse UK, and I understand this to mean not just religious and ethnic diversity but socioeconomic and geographic diversity. We want this House to include younger Peers, Peers who come from all parts of the country, from different faiths, ethnicities and socioeconomic groups, and we want them to attend on a regular basis.
Yet without some creative thinking, this aspiration will remain just that, because the combined effect of our procedures and systems and the London property market militates against the ambition to include people from outside London and the south-east—and particularly those who are younger or from lower socioeconomic groups. Without access to accommodation in or around London, Members are not only subject to the exorbitant cost of overnight stays but cannot be at home to meet caring or family responsibilities, and it is only by living within striking distance of the House that Peers without additional means can combine regular attendance with the kind of job that will allow them to secure and sustain a mortgage or accrue a pension.
This means that we risk having to choose between socioeconomic diversity, age, regional representation and attendance. A London-based schoolteacher could make it work, but it is hard to imagine how a 35 year-old teacher from, say, Bolton, could actively participate in the House while holding down her job.
Noble Lords might argue that our membership already includes young Peers from outside London, and of course it does, but the size of the sample group is hardly statistically valid. They might also argue that life Peers have managed this conundrum since 1958—but times have changed. Without radical thinking about our procedures and systems, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, has already said, and without taking any account of intersectionality, we risk a situation in which our efforts to increase diversity may have the opposite effect.
A final point, in the minutes I do not have left, is the potential for HOLAC to fulfil a skills audit function, tasked over a fixed period with assessing what skills the House will lose on the departure of the hereditary Peers and then actively recruiting an agreed number to bring those skills to the House. In many cases, departing Peers would be the strongest candidates and would rejoin in a transparent and open process. It might uncover some brilliant new Peers but its real value would be that it had the continued effectiveness and reputation of the House at its heart. That is the intent of the Bill, and it should underpin all our efforts to reform this House and its membership.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
My Lords, I rise to agree largely with the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, and to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Mattinson, on her excellent maiden speech. As has been said, we are very aware of and respect her political expertise; we do not fear it. We welcome her to this House. I am quite sure she qualifies as having “conspicuous merit”.
I have some questions on this Bill, which restricts the Prime Minister’s ability to appoint Peers with an effective size restriction, but does not impose the same restraint on the commission, which could nominate unlimited numbers to this House, effectively restricting the Prime Minister’s capacity if we were to keep to the 650. There is a minimum size of 20% but not a maximum. Why is that? Strangely, the Bill then excludes people who have supported a party in the past two years from being four out of the nine nominated to the commission. Why is that? This is a political House, and politics determines our Members. Why should an unelected, opaque committee run by the elite to perpetuate the elite be allowed to veto a person the elected PM, who is elected by MPs to get to that position, wants to be part of the legislature? That is how it will be seen by the public.
Although I wholeheartedly approve of a mechanism to ensure that your Lordships’ House contains people who remain committed to work in the House, I do not believe the Bill achieves it. All it requires is that nominees must show
“a willingness and capacity to contribute”
at the time of being introduced—as if anyone would say, “Oh, I don’t have the willingness or the capacity”. I am an employee of a financial services company. I chair four charities. I am on the board of five others. I chair a public company. I am a treasurer of the party. If anyone looked at my record, they would say, “Well, he doesn’t have capacity”, but I have an 82% voting record.
I am also unhappy with the effective veto the commission would have over the PM’s choice. Nominations frequently come from opposition party leaders, thankfully. There is one case about which I happen to know more than most and in which, in my opinion, HOLAC was possibly ill informed and possibly then gave an ill-judged view. I would feel very uncomfortable that a commission of unelected people, however eminent, could overrule the democratically elected Prime Minister of this country. Who are they to determine what is “conspicuous merit”? That is fine, but what does “conspicuous merit” mean? As we discussed on the hereditaries Bill this week, is it people who just served well in their job, be it in the Commons, the judiciary, the civil service or business, who are entitled to be in this House? I argue not. Anyone who is to be elevated must show they have contributed to society over and above their paid, salaried day job. That does not seem to be envisaged in this Bill. Most importantly, they must show that they are able to contribute in areas where greater contribution is needed.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, indicated, the Bill allows the commission itself to propose additional criteria without any approval from Parliament or government. This is a very dangerous open invitation to allow a private, secret, unelected group to determine who it thinks are appropriate Members of this House, when clearly that should remain with our Prime Minister —and, of course, other political leaders. The issue of judicial review, as eloquently explained by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, is still not determined. I welcome reform, but I do not believe this Bill addresses the real issues we face in this House.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, in my view the Bill is clear and proportionate and gives HOLAC powers I believe it should have possessed when first established. In the very short time I have, I shall speak to two challenges the Bill engages, but first I thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, and congratulate him on bringing it before your Lordships’ House. I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Mattinson on her excellent maiden speech. The undoubted merit of it was, and here I paraphrase the words of Robert Burns, the Scottish poet—who wrote them, by the way, in my former constituency—the gift to help us see ourselves as others see us.
On that subject, in recent years your Lordships’ House has been criticised as unrepresentative, but one way in which it has mirrored British society and economy is in the fact that it has suffered from gross inflation. Clause 3 stipulates that the Prime Minister, when recommending new life Peers, must have regard to the principle that the membership of the House of Lords must be no larger than that of the other place, as well as other measures ensuring political balance. It is possible to have too much of a good thing, and this measure is a good step towards rationing the number of ornaments to the legislative process who can serve in your Lordships’ House.
Clauses 2 and 7 amplify the power of HOLAC in its interaction with the Prime Minister of the day. Noble Lords will be familiar with the “good chaps” theory of government of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy: the notion that our conventions, including those around patronage, are predicated on the idea that those at the top of government could be relied on to behave ethically. In this connection, I feel that the decision of a previous Prime Minister to overrule HOLAC for the first time strengthens the argument for the provisions we are considering today. I understand the constitutional concerns of those who believe that granting HOLAC the power to refuse a prime ministerial nomination interferes with prerogative powers, but given that the two chief criteria by which such a refusal might be made are “conspicuous merit” and
“a willingness and capacity to contribute to the work of the House of Lords”,
I do not think these measures, while increasing public confidence in the process by which appointments are made, will meaningfully dilute prime ministerial power.
It is difficult to see how public life is improved by allowing the Prime Minister to appoint an unmeritorious Peer or one who is unwilling or unable meaningfully to contribute to our proceedings. It is rare that I venture a footballing analogy on the Floor of your Lordships’ House, but I see this improved HOLAC as something analogous to VAR. Where the Prime Minister has made, to use footballing phraseology, a clear and obvious error in nominating someone unfit, HOLAC gives the Prime Minister the chance to think again and, if appropriate, resubmit the name after a two-year interval. There are many other merits that the Bill possesses but, mindful of time, I shall resume my seat and allow other noble Lords to continue to enumerate them.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, when I was a Member of the European Parliament, I was canvassing one day, and I came across a man who had the simplest imaginable concern, which was to do with speed bumps. I said, “I tell you what I’m going to do; I’m going to get you the leader of your district council”. He said, “Oh yeah, that’ll be the day”. I said, “No, he’s just down the road”, I left the two of them together, and then the leader of the district council came back and said, “I’ve sorted him out”. I said, “That’s wonderful. What are you going to do about the traffic calming?”. He said, “I don’t mean that; I mean he’s voting for us”. I said, “That’s great, but what about the issue the poor fellow had about the speed bumps?”. He said, “Well, that’s not really to do with me; that’s county”. I said, “Hang on, wait a minute; you are a county councillor”—which he was, as well as being leader of his district council. He said, “Well, I say county; it’s really highways authority”. There we were, representing three of the four tiers of government under which this poor man was governed—and if the MP had been there, it would have been no different—and we could not begin to address the simplest concern he had about something that affected his life every day.
Now, is it any wonder that that man, and millions like him, have stopped voting? They no longer see any connection between where they mark their ballot and any consequential changes in their life. Power has been shifted from elected representatives to unelected officials. Where are we allowed to drill for oil? What sentences can courts impose? On what terms can disruptive children be excluded from class? On what terms can people who entered this country illegally be deported? These are no longer decisions made by people who are in any sense accountable to the rest of the country. We have this myth that somehow when people are appointed to these quangos and expert bodies, their prejudices and assumptions disappear and they become magically wise and disinterested simply by virtue of being appointed. But that is not true of other quangos, and it is not true of HOLAC.
I very much welcome what the Secretary of State for Health has just said about not just abolishing the large quangocracy at the top of the NHS but this being part of a broader democratisation process. I hope we all support the Government in that endeavour, but how can we then say that one of the two legislative Chambers should be appointed by a bunch of good chaps without any direct oversight by the population? By the way, who appoints HOLAC—quis custodiet ipsos custodes? At the moment it is appointed by the Prime Minister, but since the whole object—the purpose, if I understand it—of my noble friend Lord Norton’s Bill is to try to take away that power from the Executive, presumably there would have to be some different method of appointing it. How are we going to do that? It seems to me that the only fair way of ensuring an appointments mechanism that is genuinely answerable to the population would be to elect HOLAC. Hang on—if we are going to do that, why not go the whole hog, totus porcus, and elect your Lordships’ Chamber too?
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I praise the noble Lord, Lord Norton, for his perseverance on this subject. I spoke at Second Reading on 18 November 2022, and am privileged to do so again. Once again, his timing is exemplary. The previous debate took place in the wake of a previous Prime Minister’s rather generous showering of new Peers on this Chamber—a syndrome I have referred to on more than one occasion as long Boris. This time, we have a new Government and a lot of talk about House of Lords reform, most of it far less focused than this quite small, modest Bill.
I speak as somebody who is a hereditary Peer of clearly inconspicuous merit, but somebody who has professionally advised on appointments for 31 years as a headhunter. Putting boards and executive teams together is rather like constructing a jigsaw; each piece is slightly different. I also chair a fairly active nominations and governance committee.
If we look at what this House does best, we find that it is very simple: it is scrutiny of legislation and it is committee work. In the House of Commons, it is all about numbers and getting your legislation through or opposing the other side through thick and thin. In the House of Lords, it is more about getting it right, which sometimes means losing a vote or having thoughtful interventions—heaven forbid—by one’s own party colleagues. Getting it right could be greatly improved by a more thoughtful and strategic approach to who is appointed and why. The people’s Peers are quite a good example of that.
If we look at the 30 new colleagues announced on the Government’s side in December, we see that 22 of them—in other words, 73%—are a combination of ex-Members of Parliament and ex-members of trade unions or leaders of unions, and that six have worked with and for the party. I in no way question their collective or individual merits. Indeed, as Nick Thomas-Symonds wrote on 5 December:
“It is for party leaders to consider who is best placed to represent their party in the House of Lords when nominating individuals for appointment”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/12/24; col. 21WS.]
Is this a sufficiently thoughtful and strategic way of building the necessary capability for this House to do what it does best? We should use the opportunity given by the debate about reform to look more broadly at the bigger picture. Justification versus assertion is a good basis on which to proceed.
Clearly, this Bill is a stalking horse, and a very good one, for thinking about appointment to this rather extraordinary institution as part of a broader debate about reform. I urge the Government to co-opt it and to assist the noble Lord, Lord Norton, in nudging us bravely into the second quarter of the 21st century.
Lord Janvrin (CB)
My Lords, I add my voice once again in support of this Bill. It is a useful measure to enhance the effectiveness and credibility of this House. I say in passing, if I may, that I really enjoyed the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Mattinson. She will make a huge contribution to the work before us.
I welcome this debate for three reasons. First, there are the merits of the case for this Bill, which were well spelled out by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, this morning. It is aimed at increasing public trust in the process by which Members are appointed to this House. The measure enjoys widespread support in this House, among constitutional experts and among the public at large. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, has listened to comments made on his previous draft Bill and has produced a revised version. It deserves considerable attention and further consideration.
Secondly, I want to use this opportunity to urge the Government to deliver on their manifesto commitment to continue with a programme of wider reform of the House of Lords. It is not enough for the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill to be the end of the story. There is so much more to be done. It will take parliamentary time, but it will be time well spent if it results in better lawmaking and greater trust in Parliament.
This brings me to my last point. I, like others, want to put this proposed reform in the wider context that is on all our minds. Our democracy is under threat as never before: externally, from a radically more unstable international environment, and internally, from the erosion of public trust in democratic institutions. We can and we will respond to these challenges. One imperative among many is to redouble our efforts to strengthen our own parliamentary system through a clear agenda of constitutional reform. This modest but sensible proposal is part of that process.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Mattinson on her excellent speech; I look forward to many more contributions.
I give broad support for this Bill. This is the third day this week that we have debated, in effect, this House. As a Deputy Speaker, I have sat at the Table listening to some very interesting speeches This Bill is about the future and, when the history is written of the reform of the 2020s, if noble Lords do not mind my saying so, I think that my noble friend Lord Grocott, the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the noble Lord, Lord Norton, will all have their place in it. I speak as a fellow member of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. Our current system of appointments is widely thought to be inadequate to protect the reputation of the House and, hence, to protect the credibility of its work. After all, and despite the surroundings of this building, we are a workshop, not a museum.
In the time available, I want to make a couple of brief points. To start with a word about Part 3, I listened to an exchange earlier this week between the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, about whether putting it on a statutory basis would make it justiciable. I am not a lawyer, but I am convinced, partly by the exchange and partly by Clause 3, that that would not be a problem for the future. It is right for HOLAC to give advice, but it is still right for the Prime Minister to refuse it. What this Bill will do is to strengthen the position of HOLAC vis-à-vis the Prime Minister. I do not blame Prime Ministers—I do not think that there is anyone here, if they became a Prime Minister, who would not be tempted by the power of patronage. For every person you appoint, you can keep 10 people hovering about trying to do what you want anyway.
I look at this Bill in the context of British political and constitutional history: the struggle for the franchise; the struggle of Parliament over the monarch, and now the Executive. We have fought kings in the past. I remember that, in the previous debate we had on this in November 2022, our noble and dear departed friend Lord Judge made a wonderful speech about this, which is well worth listening to. This Bill has its place in the story of reform. It may be that the Government do not choose to support it today, but, when we look ahead, I think it will form part of the future and a wider package of reforms, which we do not have time to discuss at length now. On that basis, this is a Bill that is worth debating and worth giving a Second Reading to today, so that the debate can move forward.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
My Lords, I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Norton, said about this Bill—it is essential to our democracy. In the democratic principles, Parliament makes the rules and the Executive are meant to carry them out, enforce them and run things. The Prime Minister is the head of the Executive; he is the First Minister of the Executive. However, because of accidents of history, he is also the King’s adviser. A lot of the powers that the Prime Minister has were the old prerogative powers of the Crown before Magna Carta, when some were taken away because we did not want to circumscribe those things. Certain things were left with the Crown, including the power to make war and make treaties, and to appoint Lords to create new peerages. It is a relic of the past.
People have said, in rubbishing some of the issues around the hereditary peerage Bill, that this is okay and is democratic because it goes through the democratically elected Prime Minister, who recommends to the King that the Peers should be appointed and brought to the Lords. The trouble with this is that our system is, as Lord Hailsham described it in 1976, an “elective dictatorship”. For five years or thereabouts, the Prime Minister has a lot of absolute power, and there is very little control over that—it is not quite as democratic as one thinks.
This Bill would allow a certain amount of parliamentary control over that right of the Prime Minister, which dates back hundreds of years, after they have been elected, when they may no longer be subjected to as much parliamentary control. Very often, Governments are not elected by the majority of the public anyway, so there are issues like that. This Bill goes a long way to addressing that. We can toy around with things, but we should start with the Bill and then move forward from there.
The Bill addresses the big concern that Parliament, certainly the Lords, will lose its independent voice. This is a brilliant way of ensuring that the Cross-Bench element, and the various members of the public who are not interested or do not have the mindset to become politicians—who can be very different from people who have technical mindsets or particular interests—are still maintained in Parliament at some level. That is essential. This Bill goes a long way towards resolving it.
If the Government were to add this Bill’s provisions to the hereditary Peers Bill, it would go some way to fulfilling the Privy Council oath, given that the departure of the remaining hereditary Peers would be linked to democratic reform of the Lords. Personally, I would insert it there and we would do the whole thing in one go; I and the other departing hereditaries would be much happier with that.
The point about the ouster clause is a good one. The problem of judicial review over these appointments was raised in the other debate. It is a good idea; it would prevent that.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I oppose this Bill, both on principle and because I think it is piecemeal in nature, poorly drafted and pernicious. It fails to address important questions: will it widen participation and make this House more democratic, more efficient, more effective and more inclusive?
Putting HOLAC on a statutory footing will embed semi-permanently an already closed and opaque system of appointment. It will result in the establishment of an unaccountable, undemocratic and self-perpetuating body whose Members share the same liberal, metropolitan viewpoint and hostility to those who take a contrary opinion. It will weaken the reputation and legitimacy of this House and, more fundamentally, undermine the Prime Minister’s long-established constitutional prerogative right to appoint Peers on a case-by-case basis in an open system that guarantees accountability to Parliament, to his or her constituents, to the media and to others. HOLAC adjudicating on propriety is one thing, but suitability is a step too far.
The Bill also continues the regrettable trend of the accretion of power and decision-making away from elected politicians and towards quangos—and more recently, inter alia, activist judges. It is predicated on the idea that HOLAC is a model of success, but is it? Although noble Lords appointed by HOLAC are of course noted for their knowledge, skills, experience and wisdom, they remain drawn from a narrow educational, social, political, economic and demographic cohort. Will we see more working-class men from Yorkshire and the east Midlands? Will we see more young women, people from south Wales and disabled people? I doubt it.
As my noble friend Lord Hannan said, it is a myth that any public body can be truly independent and impartial. Every sentient, thinking person is subject to predisposition, prejudice and assumption. I come back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton: the “good chap” theory of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, was never about heavy-handed legislation. It was always about enduring conventions; it is a value judgment whether they have been observed.
Finally, the Bill contains a number of clauses that are deeply worrying. The words “as it deems appropriate” do lot of heavy lifting in Clauses 5, 7 and 8. I am particularly concerned about the ouster clause, Clause 10 on non-justiciability, which I believe is unprecedented and problematic and will potentially be struck out in Committee.
In conclusion, we all know that, to a certain extent, this legislation arose from one hard case under the premiership of Boris Johnson in 2020. That is regrettable because, as we know, hard cases are very likely to make very bad law.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I support the Bill and the process of making HOLAC statutory. I profoundly disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, but I do not have time to explain why today. In my view, there are more important issues affecting this House before we consider election, the age of Members and other similar matters. The excellent maiden speech gave us a great deal to think about and reflect upon; I am very grateful for that.
In my view, the reputation of this House is much affected by its size. We are the largest House in the world apart from China. I do not think that goes down all that well with the public. Why are we so large? It is due to the prerogative and to the appointments made by successive Prime Ministers over the years I have been in this House, which is quite a long time. Some of them are bringing in more than 200 Members during a period of six or eight years. There is no requirement on somebody invited to become a Member of this House to make any sort of contribution, and there is no requirement to attend. When you think about it, is that not extraordinary?
So we have those who do not attend. I asked for some statistics from the Library. I understand that 127 Members had attendance rates of between 0% and 9% last year, while 110 Members were between 10% and 19%. All attended less than 20% of our sittings, and some almost nought. Moreover, we have leaves of absence. There is one Member who has been out for eight and a half years on a leave of absence, and quite a number who have been away for several years. We now have a rule that if people cease to attend altogether, they cease to be Members, but only 16 people have ceased to be Members under that rule.
We are losing the hereditary Peers—it is right that they should go because the way in which they come in is unacceptable nowadays—but the fact is that they have made an enormous contribution to this House, yet no one is doing anything about those who do not attend or contribute. There is no suggestion to deal with that from the Government. Could not this House, by our own rules, look at what we might be able to do and perhaps, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said, become the hares, not the tortoises?
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, on his tenacity in working with other Members of this House to advance issues that improve our reputation and effectiveness, and on his masterful introduction to his Bill this morning. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Mattinson, on her striking maiden speech. She brings to the House great knowledge and understanding of what people think; her statistics about the reputation of the House were devastating and must, I believe, be acted on.
In this House there are radical reformers, those who support only modest and incremental reforms, and a few Members who can hardly be regarded as reformers at all. The principles of this Bill have appeared today to have the general support of all but the third group. The objections of the noble Lords, Lord Sherbourne, Lord Leigh and Lord Hannan, appear to be based on far greater trust in the people who become Prime Minister than most people have. I and my party are in the first group: radical reformers. We would go much further than this Bill. Moving to an elected Chamber has been our stance since Liberal Governments had to fight general elections on the issue of House of Lords reform before the First World War.
Being radical reformers does not by any means put us on the opposing side of serious attempts to improve both the reputation and the effectiveness of the House. The urgency of enacting the kind of reforms proposed in this Bill has increased over time since the House of Lords Appointments Commission was created in 2000. Soon afterwards, the cash for honours scandal erupted. In the investigation that followed, I was personally thanked by the former Scotland Yard assistant commissioner known as “Yates of the Yard” for the information I provided to him about how Peers were nominated and how political parties recorded donations. Exactly 100 years after Lloyd George’s selling of peerages was supposed to be banned by the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925, the link between major party donors, who are legally allowed to give unlimited sums of money, and the creation of new peerages continues to cause controversy.
It is not just cash that causes controversy over our appointments. The scale of them—the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, referred to the condition of “long Boris”, and I think we know what he means—the lack of transparency and sometimes their appropriateness cause genuine concern. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, referred to the significant ethical concerns about some appointments. The lack of effective scrutiny backed by investigatory powers, and the present powers of the Prime Minister to simply override objections from HOLAC, make it harder for some Peers to be seen as worthy Members doing a good job.
The argument has been advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and others, that we should not interfere with the role of the Prime Minister as adviser to the King. Previous monarchs, such as Edward VII, found themselves embroiled in controversy by entreating this House to either support the People’s Budget or to face the creation of hundreds of Liberal Peers committed to it. Such controversy is unthinkable in the 21st century, so there is absolutely no constraint on the Prime Minister acting as adviser to the King.
It has been suggested that Prime Ministers are somehow subject to the democratic accountability of the electorate. But how was the electorate able to exercise its judgement over the 79 life peerages created by Boris Johnson, especially those on his resignation list, or the 32 peerages created by Liz Truss after being Prime Minister for just 49 days? Even Prime Ministers who face a general election are not subject to proper scrutiny over their nominations to this place. Has anyone here ever seen specific references to a person being made a Peer in a candidate’s election address, a party broadcast or a press conference? No; we do not have real scrutiny over prime ministerial nominations, especially when objections from HOLAC can be overruled.
Sometimes, our only weapon is ridicule. I recall the pithy response of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, who is not in his place, saying of Boris Johnson’s appointments that he was reminded of Caligula appointing his horse to the Senate. That was prevented only by the assassination of Caligula. How can Prime Ministers be held accountable for their appointments when they have had to be defenestrated by their own party before facing a general election?
This Bill is not a radical reform but a sensible step forward, and we should not oppose modest reforms just because we believe that they may not go far enough. We need greater checks and balances in our system. There is too much power with an Executive who are not directly elected, and not enough with the legislature—both parts of which should be chosen, in our view, by those directly affected by the laws that it passes.
Before the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, replies to the debate on behalf of the Government, I remind him of the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, when she wound up for the Opposition at the end of the Second Reading of a similar Bill in November 2022. She said:
“We are broadly in agreement on where we are seeking to get to, with occasional differences on the right way to achieve that”.—[Official Report, 18/11/22; col. 1122.]
I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will assure us of government support, at some point, to take this measure forward with further scrutiny and enable a necessary and worthwhile reform to take place.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth on securing the Second Reading of his Bill and thank him very much for setting out his arguments with such clarity. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Mattinson, on her interesting and informative maiden speech. I wholeheartedly agree with her that we should promote the excellent work of your Lordships’ House.
I think we can all agree that we want a House of Lords that serves with integrity and 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, HOLAC, currently provides a non-statutory safeguard within the process for appointments to this House. It has a clear but limited role: to recommend non-party-political Members for the Cross Benches, ensuring that this House benefits 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.
A number of noble Lords have emphasised the modest nature of the changes in my noble friend’s Bill, but it proposes significant changes to the powers and operation of HOLAC, including making its recommendations binding and placing it on a statutory basis. It also places greater powers of nomination to this unelected Chamber in the hands of an unelected committee, as my noble friend Lord Leigh so effectively highlighted, as well as putting de facto limits on the number of Peers that can be created. Although I deeply respect my noble friend’s intentions, I must express my concerns regarding the direction of travel that most of these proposals suggest.
The Bill would establish HOLAC on a statutory basis and strengthen the commission’s role in the appointments process. The aim—to secure greater legitimacy and transparency for HOLAC—is honourable. The effect, however, would be disastrous. 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 both the malicious and the litigious to claim that it had failed to fulfil its legal duties. These concerns have been raised previously by my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne, who has served on the commission, and by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, a distinguished former chairman.
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 not based on judgment but within the narrow confines of justiciability. Candidates not recommended for appointment as Cross-Bench Peers could contest the basis on which they were excluded. Those who failed the conspicuous merit test, which is based on judgment rather than law, could argue that it had been misapplied. The Prime Minister’s discretion, exercised on HOLAC’s advice, would be second-guessed not in this House but in the courts.
I appreciate that Clause 10 seeks to make the commission’s recommendations non-justiciable, but the courts have shown increased willingness to interpret and disapply ouster clauses, particularly where fundamental principles of legality and procedural fairness are at stake. I share my noble friend Lord Jackson’s concerns on this point. The courts should have no role in determining the membership of your Lordships’ House. That would run contrary to the principle of a separation of powers.
Clause 2 would strengthen the commission’s role in the appointments process in two key respects. First, the Prime Minister would be required to refer the name of an individual to the commission before recommending them for a life peerage. Secondly, it would require the Prime Minister to wait until the commission had advised on whether a nominated individual met specific criteria before recommending them to the Crown, in effet, giving it a veto over nominations. This would represent a profound constitutional change. The Prime Minister—the only person in this process with a democratic mandate —would be restricted in their ability to recommend life peerages and the power would be vested in an unelected and ultimately unaccountable body.
The Prime Minister does not act alone. HOLAC already plays an important advisory role, scrutinising appointments and applying the propriety test, but, crucially, the Prime Minister makes the final decision. That balance matters. If HOLAC gets it wrong—if it misjudges a candidate or applies the conspicuous merit test too narrowly or 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 system holds both in check. If the Prime Minister were stripped of that role, HOLAC’s decisions would become final. There would be no backstop, political oversight or democratic accountability. More than that, it would break a fundamental constitutional principle, as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, emphasised so effectively earlier this week. The Prime Minister is the monarch’s chief adviser; it is not for an unelected commission to take on that role—a point reinforced very eloquently by my noble friend Lord Sherbourne.
Appointments to this House must be made by those who answer to the people, not a body with no democratic mandate, no political accountability and no direct link to the people. The principal criteria for appointing new Peers in Clause 7 of the Bill are
“conspicuous merit, and a willingness and capacity to contribute to the work of the House of Lords”.
While I understand the intention behind this, I struggle to see how one could determine legally what constitutes conspicuous merit and how contribution would be measured. We have endured a number of debates on that very issue this week. These are by their very nature subjective judgments 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.
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 command. To make its recommendations binding is to transform it from a source of counsel to the ultimate arbiter of membership of your Lordships’ House. It would no longer be a check but a gatekeeper. This Bill claims to fortify the appointments process by placing HOLAC on a statutory footing, yet at the same time it strips away one of the most fundamental principles of good governance: accountability. It grants HOLAC the power to block nominations for two years but then shields its decisions from judicial review.
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 her head against its recommendation, the commission ensures transparency by informing Parliament. The check is there, the scrutiny is real. Crucially, it is the Prime Minister, not an unelected committee, who must justify their judgment to the country.
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. I also commend the Government’s decision to introduce a requirement to provide citations for all new appointments to your Lordships’ House.
As my noble friends Lord Hannan of Kingsclere and Lord Jackson of Peterborough made very clear, no advisory body is truly neutral and objectivity is hard to achieve. HOLAC is no exception. It offers judgment, not infallibility. Expanding its powers risks creating a system which is 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 that we have is not perfect, but it preserves scrutiny and responsibility in a way that reinforces rather than undermines the legitimacy of this House.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, on securing the Second Reading of his Bill. He has shown persistence in pushing forward this issue over the last few years and has led this debate with his customary thought and consideration. I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Mattinson on a wonderful maiden speech. I have known and worked with her for many years and look forward to hearing from her many more times. She will make a great contribution to this House in our deliberations in the years to come.
As we have heard, this Bill would put arrangements for the House of Lords Appointments Commission in statute for the first time. The commission would maintain its role of nominating Cross-Bench Peers to the Prime Minister, but would also be able to set out new criteria against which it should judge and advise on political nominations to your Lordships’ House. This would require the Prime Minister to follow the commission’s advice. The Prime Minister would not be able to recommend Peers to the sovereign where the commission has deemed that they do not meet the suitability criteria. The Bill also stipulates considerations that the Prime Minister must make when recommending new Peers, relating to the size and composition of the House.
A similar Bill received support in this House back in 2022. However, the context this time is different from the context of the noble Lord’s previous Bills on this topic. The Government agree that we need to reform the appointments system and we remain committed to wider House of Lords reform—a pointed raised by the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin. We have an ambitious programme of reform for this House, which we have made an immediate start on. When the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said that he wanted to remind me of certain words, I was pleased that they were not my words. However, I do believe that there is a desire for reform across the House. We have made a start in line with our manifesto commitments.
The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill is currently in Committee in this House. It will remove the right of hereditary Peers to sit and to vote in this place. I recognise the contribution that hereditary Peers have made to this House over many years—a point made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. The Government have committed to reforming the process of appointments to the second Chamber, to ensure the quality of new appointments and improve the national and regional balance of your Lordships’ House. However, this Bill represents a fundamental shift in the roles and responsibilities of the appointments system. That, as I will outline, risks undermining the proper lines of accountability.
There has been much discussion about the Prime Minister’s role in appointments to this House, so I will first address the roles and responsibilities of the appointments system that the Bill seeks to change. Constitutionally, it is for the Prime Minister, as the sovereign’s principal adviser, to make recommendations on individuals appointed to this place. By convention, the Prime Minister invites nominations from other political parties, which decide who is best placed to represent their party in the second Chamber. The Prime Minister passes on the nominations of the party leaders without comment, provided that they meet the commission’s propriety checks. This is important. The Prime Minister passes them on to the sovereign without comment.
As my noble friend Lady Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent made clear in Committee on the hereditary Peers Bill only this week, this is an important principle. The Prime Minister and other party leaders are democratically elected and accountable to Parliament and ultimately to the electorate, and they should be held to account for the political nominations that they make to your Lordships’ House. The House of Lords Appointments Commission advises the Prime Minister on the propriety of individuals nominated to the party Benches in this place. This propriety advice is important to the Prime Minister as he discharges his duty to recommend new life peerages to the sovereign. The commission also has an important role in nominating individuals to the Cross Benches. As with nominations from party leaders, the Prime Minister will pass these on to the sovereign.
The noble Lord’s Bill attempts to put in statute that the commission will judge political nominees not only on their propriety but their suitability, and that the Prime Minister must follow this advice. This would give the commission, an unelected body, the power to veto the Prime Minister’s and the party leaders’ nominations to this place. The noble Lords, Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury and Lord Leigh of Hurley, and other noble Lords, made this point.
As I have set out, it is for party leaders to give due consideration to the quality and suitability of new Peers. Party leaders must accept responsibility for their nominations to this place. We cannot and should not expect the commission to take on this responsibility. In my nearly 15 years in this House, I have made many great friends on all Benches. We have wonderful Members who do great work in this House and did great work before they came to this House. They should be congratulated on that.
This Bill would represent a fundamental shift in the responsibility to make appointments to this House and would risk undermining the democratic lines of accountability that currently exist in the appointments process—another point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne. The Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Norton, also requires that the Prime Minister, in considering recommendations for new peerages, should have regard to the fact that at least 20% of the membership of this place should be non-party political, that no party can have an absolute majority in the House of Lords and that the membership should be no larger than that of the House of Commons. It also gives the commission the ability to advise the Prime Minister on reducing the size of the House.
The House may be sympathetic to these principles that the noble Lord has set out. I note that in recent years no party has held an overall majority in this place. Indeed, since the removal of the majority of the hereditary Peers in 1999, no party has held more than 40% of the seats, nor has the proportion of the Cross-Benchers been below 20% in the Chamber during this time. But the Government share the concern regarding the size of the House: it has become too big. We have committed to reforming your Lordships’ House to achieve a smaller, more active Chamber that better reflects the country it serves. I note that noble Lords made this point, including the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza.
Our manifesto commitments set out how we intend to achieve that, by reforming the process of appointments to this place, as well as by introducing a mandatory retirement age, which will bring down the size of the House, and a participation requirement. As an immediate step in our reform, we have introduced the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill, which, as I said, will remove the right of the remaining hereditary Peers to sit and vote in this place, completing the work of the 1999 Act.
We are in a very different position from when the noble Lord first introduced his Bill. The Government of the day now have a clear manifesto commitment for reforms to this place and we have an ongoing dialogue to consider the options of how we can best implement these commitments. Setting in statute requirements around the size and composition of the House and giving the commission a role on advising on reducing its size would cut across the dialogue on the wider reforms to the House that the Government are proposing.
The Government have already taken the straightforward but important step to help shore up trust in the appointments process, introducing a requirement that political parties must, on nominating individuals, provide a citation explaining why individuals have been nominated, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, mentioned. These citations are published on the GOV.UK website following a nominee’s successful appointment, in order to provide greater clarity for the public about how and why party leaders chose their nominations to your Lordships’ House. This will encourage political parties to take greater responsibility for their nominations, which, as I said, are for party leaders to decide and to be held accountable for.
It is right that we should take the time to properly consider how we reform the appointment system and the commission’s role within it as part of the wider standards landscape. The Prime Minister has made it clear that he is committed to restoring trust in government. We are committed to keeping the 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 within the existing standards landscape. The Prime Minister has, for example, significantly strengthened the remit of the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards, giving them the ability to initiate an investigation into ministerial standards without requiring the Prime Minister’s consent. However, we do not think that this Bill’s proposals are right for the House of Lords Appointments Commission or the wider appointment system at this time.
In conclusion, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, for raising these important issues and provoking a discussion on reforms to the House of Lords appointments process. We know that there is work to be done to reform this House and we have an ambitious programme to do just that. We are eager to maintain the ongoing dialogue with your Lordships’ House about the reforms to this Chamber. We need to allow time to consider how best to implement our manifesto commitment to reform the appointment system as part of our wider programme of reform. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, so eloquently set out for us during the Committee stage of the Hereditary Peers Bill:
“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”.—[Official Report, 10/3/25; col. 514.]
In the end, the Prime Minister has to take responsibility. The Bill would represent a fundamental shift in the roles and responsibilities of the appointment system that the Government cannot accept. The Government, therefore, have reservations about the Bill.
Finally, I should say that I have huge respect for the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. His contributions to this House are always thoughtful, challenging and considered. His role will help the Government in the further work that we want to bring to this House.
Lord Norton of Louth (Con)
My Lords, I think that I am in order in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Mattinson, on her excellent maiden speech. The noble Baroness noted that the public do not trust politicians to tell the truth. Opinion polls show that the public trust professors to tell the truth; I shall therefore speak as a professor.
There have been some excellent speeches. I am especially grateful to those who have added their voice in support of the Bill, which has been the overwhelming majority of those who have spoken. I will deal briefly with those who took a contrary view. My noble friends Lord Sherbourne and Lord Leigh of Hurley may not appear dangerous radicals but, de facto, I am afraid that that is what they are. If we do not make modest change now, much more radical change will come later, and neither of my noble friends advanced alternatives to what I am proposing to deal with the problem that we have identified.
My noble friend Lord Jackson uncharacteristically got one or two things wrong: first, the Bill predates the Johnson premiership, as I explained in my opening speech; and, secondly, Clause 10 is not unprecedented, again as I explained. My noble friend Lady Finn did not explain why the ouster clause will not work in this Bill but apparently will work in the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act. I also note that my noble friend did not engage with or come up with any alternatives to the present system, which attracts the criticism that we have heard and has been well adumbrated by Peers in this debate.
The assertion as to the Prime Minister’s accountability for making nominations is built on thin ice. I will not digress on to the point about party leaders being elected: Governments are elected through elections to the House of Commons, while party leaders are elected by their own parties. The point is accountability. I am about to write a chapter on Maundy Gregory for a book on political fixers. His activities led to a change in the law: the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925. There is no reason why there should not be a further change in the law and every reason why there should be.
I reiterate the need for reform of the nomination process. We do not exist in a vacuum, although some noble Lords have spoken as if we do. We need to achieve public trust in that process. This Bill is designed to make it clear that we recognise that. As I tell my students, Private Members’ Bills do not normally make it to the statute book. Their value is in raising issues and getting them debated. They help to bring issues on to the political agenda. This debate has achieved that purpose.