House of Lords

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Tuesday 1 April 2025

14:30

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Southwark.

Oaths and Affirmations

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

14:35

Baroness Scotland of Asthal took the oath, and signed an undertaking to abide by the Code of Conduct.

Death of a Member: Viscount Craigavon

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

14:36

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, I regret to inform the House of the death yesterday of the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon. On behalf of the House, I extend our condolences to the noble Viscount’s family and friends.

E-scooters: Trials

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

14:37

Asked by

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to release the results of the trials of e-scooters in England.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I refer noble Lords to the Private Member’s Bill that I have before the House at this time, creating new offences for illegally used e-scooters.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

The last evaluation of the e-scooter trials took place in 2021, and the results were published in 2022, but, despite saying that they would, the last Government took no further action. As travel patterns have continued to change, the Government have decided to undertake a second evaluation, due to start this spring. This evaluation will be important to collect up-to-date and robust evidence on safety, mode shift and usage to inform future legislation. It will finish in May 2026.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, while I am grateful for that Answer, it begs the question: how many evaluations do we need? There are 1.2 million e-scooters currently illegally used in general circulation, and 47 people have been killed since 2019. The status quo cannot continue. E-scooters are mounting pavements at speed, terrorising pedestrians. I urge the noble Lord and the Government to ensure that, if the current ban on illegally operated e-scooters is not going to be observed, they look to introduce a regulatory framework with proper insurance, otherwise it is going to be a complete drain on the resources of the Motor Insurers’ Bureau.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Your Lordships’ House will know that there have been several Questions on this subject in recent weeks, and certainly in one of them I referred the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, to the regulatory regimes of 21 European countries, which, sadly, have huge variation between them with regard to minimum ages, whether you have to wear a helmet, and so forth. So the Government need up-to-date evidence. Evidence raised in 2021 could have informed legislation in 2023 and 2024, for example, but that did not happen, but now we have to inform ourselves. In the meantime, it is quite clear that hazards are involved as the noble Baroness describes—although, of course, enforcement is a matter for local police chiefs.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that half the trouble with e-scooter and e-bike rentals, and with buying them, is the batteries, which catch fire for no particular reason when they are not linked to the equipment concerned? Is not it more important to have some proper standards for quality and for the way in which batteries are fixed to cycles and scooters so that they do not cause the trouble that they have done; for example, causing TfL to ban non-folding electric bikes from its trains—and why non-folding? I hope that the Government will be able to look into this soon.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. On batteries, last October, the Department for Business and Trade launched the “Buy Safe, Be Safe” campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of buying faulty and unsafe e-bikes, e-scooters and components such as batteries, for the very reason he suggests. Noble Lords who have seen the recent film of the spontaneous e-bike fire at Rayners Lane station will understand perfectly well why Transport for London has taken that view, because anybody standing remotely near that incident would have been severely injured, if not killed, by the spontaneous explosion and subsequent fire.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, given that these rental e-scooter pilots have been running for some five years, since 4 July 2020, what is the Minister’s definition of a trial? Or is this in reality the legalisation of e-scooters by the back door?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

It is certainly not legalisation by the back door. As noble Lords will know, there are many of these things on the streets and, sadly, on the pavements of towns and cities, where they should not be, but to frame the appropriate legislation—bearing in mind, as the noble Baroness knows, that there is considerable variation in regulation across other countries—it is right to understand how they are currently used and how best we can regulate them. There is no intention to let this drift, because it is an important matter, and many people, including vulnerable and disabled people, are badly affected by the way that these things are used—and not used, being left on pavements to be tripped over and cause injury.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, there may be no question of letting it drift, but the Government are letting it drift until May 2026, with the prospect of legislation no doubt in the second half of 2026 or early 2027—who knows, we might be into a general election before we get to anything. This is all a distraction from the real experience of e-scooters, because the trials that will be examined are highly artificial constructs where particular areas and locations are designated for legal use of specific hired scooters, which are usually clunky and highly coloured. Examining the evidence from the trials will tell one almost nothing about the real experience of the use of e-scooters by private individuals. Is it not time that the Government simply got on and legislated for both standards of behaviour and technical standards, such as on batteries?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Gosh—I do not much care to be lectured about drift by somebody who represents a party that did an experiment in 2021, published some results in 2022 and then did nothing. In any event, these things are becoming part of life, whether we like it or not and whether they are brightly coloured or not. The point at issue is to discover how they are used—rental trials in various towns and cities are as good a way of finding out as any—and then to work out what the legislation should say. It is a challenge for anybody, including the noble Lord opposite, to work out what the right standards are from the variety of regimes in the 21 European countries. We shall work that out carefully.

[Lord Rogan (UUP)]

My Lords, earlier this year from the Dispatch Box, the Minister, with his customary good grace, committed to

“consultation with all the enforcement authorities”

before any changes in the law on e-scooters. He also gave an assurance that any new law

“is framed in a way that can be enforced both in Northern Ireland and elsewhere”.—[Official Report, 7/1/25; col. 612.]

To that end, has any representative of His Majesty’s Government been in recent contact with the PSNI to inquire about the ongoing experience of e-scooters in Northern Ireland, where they remain banned on public roads?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

If the noble Lord is accurate, I must have been correct in what he reports I said, so I am sure that I did. I cannot immediately answer him on whether and to what extent there has been consultation in Northern Ireland, but I take his point. I will take it away and write to him about it.

[Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)]

My Lords, they glide among us on illegal, uninsurable vehicles, delivering our groceries and our takeaways. What are the Government going to do to help the workforce who use these types of vehicles and go after the faceless bosses who employ them, rather than the low-paid workers themselves?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a really good point. That is one of the subjects which the Employment Rights Bill seeks to remedy. I do not think that we cannot do it directly through road traffic regulation, although when there are rules for these things, it will be incumbent on the employers of the people who ride them to comply with the rules as well as the people who ride them.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords—

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

We will hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very glad that the Minister raised the issue of poor parking of hire e-scooters and e-bikes. At Aldwych Kingsway, it is now almost impossible to get access to the bus stop, not just if you are in a wheelchair or with a guide dog but for a passenger as well, because there are sometimes as many as 100 of those vehicles parked around them. What powers do the police have to corral—perhaps that is the wrong word—these bikes and scooters and make sure that access to buses continues?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes an excellent point. I strongly sympathise, as she knows, with the difficulties that people with any sort of disability have boarding and alighting buses and using pavements. The intention is that local authorities correctly control hire schemes so that the people who run them are obliged to make sure that the bicycles or scooters they hire are properly parked, collected and moved on.

RHS Garden Wisley: Roadworks

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

14:47

Asked by

[Baroness Benjamin]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of disruption to the operation of the Royal Horticultural Society Garden Wisley and its environmental and research centre because of the roadworks around Junction 10 of the M25.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and, in doing so, draw attention to my non-financial interest as a vice-president of the Royal Horticultural Society, RHS.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, the impact of the M25 junction 10 scheme on RHS Garden Wisley was considered from the project’s early stages in 2016. National Highways incorporated mitigation measures where possible and has considered major planned events at Wisley in its plans. Major weekend closures were scheduled to avoid conflicts with key events and extensive signage was installed to guide visitors through the works along the most direct and convenient routes.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. The RHS Garden Wisley is a centre of excellence for horticultural science. It provides a green lifeline to over 30,000 schools, 5,500 community groups and 25 NHS trusts. This work relies on visitor income, but the ongoing M25 A3 roadworks have caused visitor numbers to fall dramatically by 25%. So I ask the Minister: what commitments can the Government give to ensure the RHS can continue its vital work by supporting the ability of environmental charities such as the RHS to deliver public benefit? Will the Minister agree to meet me and the RHS to discuss the long-term impact of the roadworks and ensure that this charity can continue to thrive?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

To answer the last part of the question first, I would be delighted to meet the noble Baroness. It would be a pleasure to talk to her and the Government. I talked this morning to my noble friend Lady Hayman about the RHS and the importance of the work that it does and we recognise the important part the garden plays. So I would be pleased to meet her.

The Government are not able to use taxpayers’ money for direct compensation, but there are two further issues. One is that there is some land-take, which RHS Wisley has a claim for and could—and should—pursue. The other is that there may be other ways of helping the gardens recover from this event. Of course, the benefit of the highway scheme will be to make access permanently better, because the old junction was congested for years. I would be delighted to meet the noble Baroness, with National Highways and the contractors, to see what else we can do that is legitimate and will help the gardens in their very brilliant work.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, as one who opposed the original plans before they were ever put into practice, I feel very angry that the views of the RHS and of any of us who felt the same were not taken into account. As a result, the RHS has lost no less than £6 million because of visitor decline and, by the time these roadworks are finished, it will be £11 million. Will the Minister elaborate on what possible measures might be taken to recompense the RHS, including perhaps in the longer term having a better compensation scheme for National Highways, which has a scheme that is ill-suited to a charity such as the RHS?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The questions about compensation schemes are obviously about the wisdom and appropriate use of taxpayers’ money. I cannot answer for the design of the original scheme, because it is nearly 10 years old. But, as I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, I am very happy to sit down with the RHS, National Highways and the contractors to see what else we can do, in particular as regards a better future for visitors, more visibility of the gardens and more signage and so forth, when the works are completed.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, all these issues are about the past. Can the Minister remind us who was in charge in the past? It seems that Ministers made no decisions on all these matters and it sounds as though they were getting their money under false pretences.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

That is an easy answer, is it not? It was the previous Government, not this one.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, although I acknowledge the initial response, does the Minister agree that the existing methods used by National Highways to assess the impact that roadworks have on charities such as the RHS are in need of a review, and will he request such a review?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am not sure whether the procedures are appropriate, but I will go away and get the department to look at them in order to see whether they are appropriate.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, the RHS is clearly very well represented in this place, and rightly so, but perhaps I might put in a good word for rural communities, and businesses in rural communities where you have road and lane closures. The public and business see these roads that are closed, but there is no indication of when they will reopen and, although the roads are closed, there is no work or activity being done during the road closure. So I have a suggestion. When the local authority planning department or the highways department closes the road, it could put an indication of when the work will be completed and, if it cannot do that, it could give a telephone number that the public could phone to find out why not.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I will not go down the cones hotline route—that did not seem to be a tremendous success. That point is well made. It is a continued frustration for drivers of all sorts that apparently unattended road works last for so long. The power to levy lane rental was started in London and it is rolling out. That is a way in which local authorities can put pressure because, frankly, they are not usually highway works but utility works, and the number of utility works that are left open for a long time is legion. So there is a point there and lane rental is one of the solutions to it.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I live down the A3, so I use junction 10 quite frequently. Can the Minister confirm that we have seen the last full weekend closure of that junction?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

This is a new version of doing travel information in the House. I believe that there is a closure in April. The noble Lord probably knows where Painshill is better than I do. Then there are planned to be four more, one on the M25 and three on the A3, and that will be it, so far as I understand.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I understand—perhaps the noble Lord could confirm this—that the works are due to continue until the middle of 2026. Is that the case? Returning to the Royal Horticultural Society, what assessment has his department made of the effect on the long-term sustainability of the gardens after such damage to their visitor numbers?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The works on the M25 will continue until this autumn. I believe the works on the A3 will continue into 2026, and they have been delayed by bad weather. I am sure that, if the noble Lord asks hard enough, he will discover whether his colleagues in the previous Government did that assessment about the RHS. We inherited this scheme. The best thing that we can do is to finish it. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, I will meet her and the RHS with the contractors and National Highways to see what else we can do for the future of what is a much-prized and very valuable institution—which I go to quite often, despite the roadworks.

[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that the Highways Agency, as the client, has a major responsibility for ensuring that roadworks are undertaken as quickly as possible? The massive level of disruption on our national highway network affects individual drivers, but also commerce travelling around the country. What is it going to do about improving the performance of the contractors and ensuring much shorter times of works on these roads?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend is quite right that it is very important to do them quickly. In recent years, the safety of highway maintenance workers has been much considered, because it has hitherto been a very dangerous occupation. Therefore, some of the works last longer because they are better protected for safety. I cannot believe that this House would not sympathise with that aim, but I agree with my noble friend that it is incumbent on National Highways, which manages the works, to deliver them as quickly as possible.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister talked about lane rental being rolled out. It has been being rolled out for the last 20 years, has it not? When will it actually going to operate?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I will be very happy to write to the noble Baroness and tell her exactly what the position with lane rental is. It is complex and needs administration, but the intention is to force particular utilities to do their work in an effective and timely way.

Knife Crime: Stop and Search

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

14:58

Asked by

[Lord Dubs]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of stop and search in tackling knife crime.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

Stop and search is a fundamental tool for tackling knife crime, but it must be used fairly and effectively. Getting that balance right as part of a basket of measures is critical to this Government’s objective of halving knife crime in 10 years and restoring public trust in the police.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, today the Metropolitan Police has published its stop and search charter, which refers in particular to tensions between the black community and the police. Would the Minister consider urging that the police be equipped with hand-held metal detectors as an efficient and more sensitive method of conducting stop and search?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My noble friend raises an important point. The Home Office is working with industry partners, as it has been for a while, to develop the technology to detect from a distance knives concealed on the person. There are trials in place, and phase 1 is expected to be delivered by the end of May this year, resulting in a prototype system that could be used to do exactly what my noble friend says. Chief constables will have to decide on the use of that downstream, but I hope that will be of help to my noble friend. As part of the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Police Race Action Plan, it is looking again at the very point he mentioned—the disproportionate stopping of people from black and minority ethnic communities.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, given that the most serious application of disproportionality is the number of young black men, in particular, who are murdered, what work are the Government doing to ensure that police officers have the confidence to carry out appropriate stop and search?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Stop and search remains a valuable tool. Last year, 14% of stop and searches resulted in an arrest and some 16,000 knives and firearms were found as a result of stop and search, so it is important. However, it is also important that it be done proportionally and that it has the confidence of the whole community. The Police Race Action Plan is looking at committing chief constables to identifying and addressing the disproportionality issues and why they are happening, and at giving proper training and support to police forces to ensure that they deal with stop and search in an effective and proportionate way.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, what the three universities are doing on new technology to help the police so that they do not have to stop and search sounds very interesting and worthwhile, and the results are excellent—at the moment. It is very welcome because it will, we hope, eventually eliminate the need for stop and search, as weapons hidden under clothing will be visible and the police will not have to do anything. However, will police forces be given the additional funding they will need to update and maintain the system and, crucially, to purchase new mobile phones with very good cameras? The Minister will know that this is one of the three key elements of the scheme. They can then get rid of the antiquated mobile phones that most of them are still using.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will know that this year’s police settlement, which was announced in February, finally, has given an extra £1 billion to police forces.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

It is not enough.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness says that it is not enough. I recall being Police Minister and the noble Baroness’s party cutting police resources after I left office. It may not be enough, but it is an extra £1 billion going into policing this year. We are trying to give flexibility. She is right about efficiencies and modernising which is why, again, we are ensuring that, as central government, we organise better purchasing and efficiencies and make better use of resources accordingly.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

Can the Minister outline whether more activity is possible on prevention and a public health approach to knife crime, as has been attempted in Glasgow? Examples include schools programmes and after-school youth provision—programmes that tackle the multivalent factors that can lead to violence.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate makes an important point. The Government committed in their manifesto to the creation of a young futures programme to provide safe space and support to people who are vulnerable to knife crime, and that includes a range of measures. When people are at accident and emergency, at youth clubs or in school and are seen to be vulnerable, they can be referred to the youth futures programme and youth futures hubs, which will support those individuals to turn away from knife crime and have the life skills to improve their condition.

[Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill (Lab)]

Online retailers and re-sellers are getting around the law to supply these weapons to young people. Can the Minister outline what the Government are doing to prevent the supply of weapons, which has to happen if we are to stop knife crime at source?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. In the Crime and Policing Bill, which is before the House of Commons but will be reaching this House very shortly, there are strong measures to restrict the sale of knives online and to provide particularly strong penalties for the illegal sale of knives, including a new online police co-ordination hub to take action against illegal knife and weapon content. My noble friend will know that on 27 March, the Government announced a ban on ninja swords. I will be bringing before this House, in short order, a Commons statutory instrument to ensure that we have a surrender scheme, and then, if approved by this House, a complete ban on ninja swords from 1 August 2025.

[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register—my current interests, anyway. Has the Minister asked the Metropolitan Police why its new stop and search charter does nothing to address the disproportionate number of black people being stopped and searched, and if not, will he?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point. In preparing for this Question, I asked about the disproportionality rates. I fully expected the Metropolitan Police and others to have the highest disproportionality rates, but, interestingly, some of the UK’s rural forces have the highest rates. It is really important that we look at the figures, which show that a particular force, which I will not name, has a disproportionality rate of 9.4, compared with the Met’s 3.1 figure. It is a really interesting table of statistics. Having asked for that information, I want to drill down with my colleague, the Police Minister, into which forces are underperforming in having a higher disproportionality rate, and look at how we can provide support and take action to understand why that is happening and what we can do to rectify it.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we will hear the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, next, and then my noble friend Lord McConnell.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, are the Government in discussion with the police about the use of Section 60 powers—which, I should say, were extended under a previous Government? The HMIC’s last report on stop and search, in 2021, found that of all the Section 60 searches done in the previous year, only 3.7% found a weapon. Do such low find rates justify the damage that Section 60 searches cause to community relations?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for making that very interesting point. There were 5,145 stop and searches under suspicionless Section 60 powers last year, which fell between the jurisdiction of both Governments. That was a 20% increase on the previous year but represents just 3% of the 150,000 stop and searches that have been conducted. It is a very valid point and one that I will take away and look at in detail.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that Glasgow’s Violence Reduction Unit, established by our Justice Minister in Scotland, Cathy Jamieson, in 2005, had a combination of tougher action by the police and the courts, alongside the action referred to earlier on education and health and other areas? It has had remarkable success, so can lessons from that be learned elsewhere in the United Kingdom? Is my noble friend willing to come to Glasgow to meet those who still work in that unit to learn from some of those lessons?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am very happy to take up my noble friend’s suggestion, when time allows. As he knows, that mixture of education, youth hubs, wider support for parents and an understanding of the reasons why people are involved in knife culture is really important. Equally, this Government are focused on online sales and how we can take action to give the police better support, including the use of the new technology I mentioned earlier. A whole raft of measures is contributing to the Government’s commitment to halve knife crime over a distinct period. That is a really important point, and I will certainly look at lessons elsewhere to help inform the Government.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

Stop and search is a vital tool for stopping those intent on causing death, injury and fear in our communities, and I can personally vouch for that. Policing response, and the successful detection of crime, is of course based on responding to local intelligence and victim statements. However, as we know, evidence suggests that the use of stop and search can negatively affect the relationship between police and ethnic minority communities, which is of course damaging. Can the Minister outline how the Government are working with the police—I am particularly thinking of training issues—and communities to strengthen trust and make sure that stop and search does not come at the cost of community confidence?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to His Majesty’s Opposition’s spokesperson. It is important that stop and search, as with policing generally, has the confidence of the communities being policed. The Government have made a commitment to increase the number of neighbourhood police officers and to make them front line, and to have that front-facing community engagement through neighbourhood policing over the next few years. There will be an additional 11,000 to 12,000—possibly even 13,000—neighbourhood police officers by the end of this Parliament, which is a key commitment to ensure that we have community engagement at a local level.

Universities: Free Speech

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

15:09

Asked by

[Baroness Ludford]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what advice they are giving to universities following the fine imposed by the Office for Students on Sussex University for breach of free speech obligations.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, the regulatory case report to which the noble Baroness referred underlines the importance of good governance and academic freedom in higher education. The Office for Students will shortly be writing to relevant providers on this important issue and offering support and advice. It will be publishing updated guidance for the higher education sector to support it to understand how to comply with its duties in relation to freedom of speech and academic freedom.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. I welcome the robust backing that the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has given to the Office for Students’ insistence, via a hefty fine, on respect for free speech at Sussex University—including for academics such as Kathleen Stock, whose expression of a revolutionary belief about the reality of biological sex got them hounded and abused. I note, though, that Sussex University is indicating defiance of the OfS ruling. Will Education Ministers, not just the OfS, ensure that universities are persuaded not only of their intellectual duty to respect free debate but of their obligation not to waste taxpayers’ money, especially when they are complaining about a shortage of funds?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that we have robustly defended academic freedom. We believe that universities are places where academics need to be able to express and research contested ideas, where individuals need to be able to express lawful speech, and where that freedom of speech needs to be respected. We will continue to ensure that that is the case. Universities are autonomous organisations, but I am sure that they will have heard the point made by the noble Baroness about spending their money.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

We will hear from my noble friend Lady Levitt next and then from the noble Lord, Lord Young, after that.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a parent of a trans child. Does the Minister agree that, in the exercise of everybody’s inalienable right to lawful free speech, it is in the interests of all concerned that publicly stated views about these matters are given in a measured way that enables mature and informed discussion about a challenging issue?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is exactly right: it is wholly possible to carry out the sort of important research that the noble Baroness referenced, including in the area of gender-critical research, and to treat trans people with the respect that they deserve and ensure that they are able to play their full role in our society.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, in the light of the Office for Students’ finding that Sussex University’s trans and non-binary equality policy is incompatible with the registration conditions imposed by the Office for Students on all English universities, which require them to uphold free speech and academic freedom, would the Minister advise all universities to review their EDI policies to ensure that they do not chill lawful speech and are not incompatible with their regulatory compliance requirements?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that part of the ruling was about the specifics of the University of Sussex’s trans and non-binary policy and its failure to recognise the requirements on the university to ensure freedom of speech and academic freedom. I hope that all universities will look carefully at this ruling and will note its second element, which was around the governance to consider issues such as this. All universities need to be clear that these important decisions, and sometimes these challenging conflicts, need to be considered at the highest possible level and with the strongest possible governance.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

We will take the noble Lord, Lord Alton.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister ask the Secretary of State, Bridget Phillipson, to share with her a letter that was sent on 20 March by 10 of us, including Professor Steve Tsang, Charles Parton and Professor Michelle Shipworth—who was banned from teaching a course at University College London, after complaints from students from the People’s Republic of China that she had shown slides detailing slave labour in Xinjiang? Has the university sector become too reliant on funds from the PRC? Will the Minister read the warnings in the 2023 Intelligence and Security Committee report and agree to meet with the signatories of that letter?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I have met with some of the signatories of that letter. The measures we are implementing as part of the wider freedom of speech Act will further strengthen protections from overseas interference in academic freedom, with the new complaints scheme offering focused routes for concerns to be raised. The Government expect universities to be alert to a range of risks when collaborating with international partners, for example, and to conduct appropriate due diligence to comply with legislation and regulatory requirements, including potential threats to freedom of speech and academic freedom. We will keep all our protections under review, including confirming final decisions on the provisions relating to the overseas funding measures in the freedom of speech Act. It is enormously important that that type of academic freedom and research is facilitated and promoted in our world-class universities.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we will have my noble friend Lady Royall next, and then the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords of my entry in the register. Will my noble friend the Minister join me in celebrating the fact that the vast majority of academic scholars and students recognise that freedom of speech is the lifeblood of our universities? I do not expect my noble friend to comment, but I reflect on conversations I had last week with academics in Texas, Washington and New York. They do not have freedom of speech; they live in fear.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The reason we have a world-leading higher education sector in this country is the excellence of the academic research and teaching that is carried out in the sector. It is important that we do everything that we can to safeguard that, for the good of our academics, individual students and our country as a whole.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Office for Students has acted in a quasi- judicial capacity in this case and yet is also expected to work with universities to find evolving solutions to increasingly complex cases? Could the Minister advise how the Office for Students might balance its enforcement responsibilities with its advisory role to support the sector to navigate these and other issues?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The relationship between the functions that the noble Baroness outlines is not necessarily unusual for regulatory bodies. I am sure that the Office for Students in particular thinks carefully about it. Obviously, there has been a lot of thought on the role of the Office for Students with respect to freedom of speech, and I am sure that it is continuing to consider that.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, His Majesty’s Government have rightly acknowledged the importance of increased defence spending. Given media reports of intimidation towards defence industries and the Armed Forces at higher education recruitment events, we must ask the Minister this: what steps are the Government taking to ensure that such events take place without issue?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

It is wholly wrong if those events are not able to take place on our campuses or if there is interference in the very important research that our universities are taking part in. That is primarily the responsibility of the higher education institutions themselves, but I am absolutely clear that that is an important part of what should be happening in our universities.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords—

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we will hear from the Cross Benches.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I am sorry to say that there are two sides to this freedom of speech debate. In many universities, if not most, Jewish students have been howled down, barricaded and assaulted, whereas on the other side, hate speech has been directed at them. Does the Minister agree with me that a clear line needs to be drawn between freedom of speech and hate speech, and that, while we concentrate on transgender and other issues, Jewish students are being overlooked and not protected?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I was able to discuss that directly with Jewish students at a Friday evening dinner event hosted by the University of Birmingham’s Jewish Society, which I attended here at the House of Lords. It is not wholly right for the noble Baroness to suggest that the Government are taking no action. We are making £7 million available to the education system as a whole to tackle antisemitism. We have been clear, in the careful approach that we have taken to implementing freedom of speech provisions, that we need to protect students from some of the issues she outlined. We will continue to be clear that universities need to be places where all students can carry out their studies, confident of both the protection of their freedom of speech and of their ability to be there in the first place and to succeed.

Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Commons Reasons

15:22

Motion A

Moved by

[Lord Khan of Burnley]

That this House do not insist on its Amendment 1B, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 1C.

1C: Because the Lords Amendment interferes with the public revenue and affects the levy and application of local revenues, and the Commons do not offer any further Reason, trusting that this Reason may be deemed sufficient.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Motion A, I will also speak to Motions B to F. Motions A to D and Motion F ask noble Lords not to insist on their Amendments 1B, 2B, 7B, 8B and 15B to 15E. The other place disagreed to these amendments on the basis that they interfere with the public revenue and affect the levy and application of local revenues. The other place did not offer any further reason, trusting that this reason is sufficient.

Amendments 1B, 2B, 7B and 8B seek to allow the Treasury to exclude healthcare and anchor stores from the higher multiplier through regulations. As set out in this House previously, these amendments are unnecessary as the powers they seek to create already exist in the Bill.

The measures set out in Clauses 1 to 4 deliver on the Government’s commitment as set out at the Autumn Budget. Furthermore, they represent the first step of this Government’s work to transform the business rates system. It is essential that the Government are able to progress this work by taking this first step.

Further reforms will come, as the Government have made clear, and further information on this will be set out in the coming months. We want to start our journey with the Bill. Therefore, I respectfully ask noble Lords not to insist on their amendments.

Amendments 15B to 15E would move the decision to remove charitable rate relief from private schools from one being made by Parliament in the Bill to one that would be made by the Secretary of State through regulations, subject to the affirmative procedure. I have already stated the Government’s view that this is a matter for Parliament to decide, which is why we have invited Parliament to do so through the Bill. For these reasons I ask that noble Lords do not insist on these amendments.

Motion E asks the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, not to insist on his Amendment 13B. The other place disagreed to this amendment on the basis that the Government have already agreed to publish information about the new multipliers and further provision is not necessary. The first part of Amendment 13B is concerned with a review that would consider the impacts of Clauses 1 to 4 on properties with a rateable value close to £500,000. I understand that this is seeking to further understand the way that the multipliers in business rates operate and whether the thresholds within the system serve as a disincentive to invest. As previously set out in this House, the Government have already committed to looking at this question through the broader transforming business rates work, and therefore to stipulate this in legislation is not necessary.

The second part of Amendment 13B seeks a review of the merits of a new use class within business rates and an associated multiplier for online fulfilment warehouses. As I have set out previously, this question has arisen over recent years and is something in which the Government have an interest. First, I should be clear to the House that the Government’s intention at this time is to have only one higher multiplier and for that to be applied to all properties with a rateable value at or above £500,000. However, I understand that the noble Lord’s amendment is more concerned with the ability to target online-focused warehouses. I assure the noble Lord and the House that the Bill already provides the Government with the ability to introduce additional higher multipliers in future if required.

The noble Lord’s amendment explored how these online warehouses can be identified in business rates. We have looked at this again, and I remain sure that the best place to tackle this is through the digitalising business rates project. This project links together HMRC and VOA data from which we expect to be able to identify online businesses operating distribution warehouses separately from businesses that operate on the high street. I hope I can give the noble Lord some further reassurance on what we have found. The project will create opportunities to better target business rates policy in future by having access to more comprehensive data. Using this data, the Government could target particular types of businesses within the warehousing sector. I believe this is what the noble Lord is seeking to achieve. Such an approach will do that systematically, using the latest data and technology, and give us the best prospect of a solution that can be fully integrated into the business rates system.

We are confident that this approach is preferable to one that looks to categorise how individual warehouses are being used on the ground, especially given that one warehouse used by one type of business may in practice be used in much the same way as another used by another type of business. Attempting to categorise warehouses by how they are used as opposed to who they are used by, without more accurate data on the businesses using them, risks capturing warehouses used by businesses that we are seeking to protect, creating a far higher burden on high street retailers. I am aware that the noble Lord feels that this is valuable, and I recognise that. I hope he can understand why the Government cannot accept the amendment. However, we are prepared to keep engaging with him on this matter, be that directly with him or with the three professional bodies he mentions in his amendment. On this basis, I respectfully ask the noble Lord not to insist on his amendment. I beg to move.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The Bill not only fails to deliver on the Government’s manifesto but is far from the reform of the business rates system that was promised and will be a damaging blow to our high streets. We have debated the numerous issues present in the Bill a number of times, and I remain exceptionally concerned about the higher multiplier that will undoubtedly hit anchor stores in town centres; the impact of the blunt £500,000 threshold on businesses with values close to that margin, which will affect their decisions about investment; and the Government’s decision to place a tax on education. We have urged them time and again to rethink, but they remain unmoved by our arguments and, more importantly, by the views of people and businesses across the country. I hope that anchor stores will not leave the high street and that this will not result in the destruction of our town centres, but the Government are making it more difficult for those businesses with this blunt tool, which will hit larger stores with higher business taxes.

The Government have rejected even our amendments that would have allowed the Secretary of State to exempt certain businesses if this proved to be damaging, but they are so confident in this increase to business rates that they do not need that power to reverse these decisions. Only time will tell whether that confidence was misguided.

15:30

A similar amendment was tabled to allow the Secretary of State to reverse the tax on education but, again, it was rejected. I understand that the Government will point to the figures that suggest that there has been no change to the number of pupils in independent schools, but these figures do not consider the lengths to which a parent will go to ensure that their child’s education is not disrupted.

The data will be more telling in a year’s time. We offered the Secretary of State a discretionary power to reverse this policy; they refused it. Despite the combined effect of this tax with the appalling imposition of VAT and the devasting rise in employers’ national insurance contributions, I hope that parental choice remains, and I hope that children do not have their educational years disrupted by this Government—but I am concerned about the likely impacts of this tax on some children’s education.

We remain concerned that this tax creates a two-tier charity system, whereby the Government are able to tax charities when they disagree with their purposes. This is a dangerous precedent to set, and the Government’s decision to continue down this route despite the number of concerns that have been raised is, at least, disappointing.

However, this is a House of scrutiny and, given the financial deadlines associated with this Bill, I will not be pressing any further amendments. But I sincerely hope that, in 12 months’ time, our high streets will not have been hollowed out any further, although I am extremely concerned that this Bill will only worsen their decline and, as importantly, that children will be forced to leave independent schools, disrupting their education and putting more pressure on our state system.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, last week there was a considerable majority of support in this House for an amendment tabled in my name, which enabled the Government, by regulation, to prevent the higher multiplier from being applied to NHS properties, mainly consisting of 290 of the major hospitals in England. I was surprised to hear the Minister say just now that there is sufficient leverage within the Bill to enable those changes to be made. I ask him now to write to me to explain how that will work.

It is most disappointing that the Government felt unable to accept the amendment. However, it is clear that the Government have very challenging decisions to make. Nevertheless, given that reducing waiting times is a key priority, we on these Benches were hoping for—and indeed hopeful of—government support on this issue. We recognise at this stage that we can take the Bill no further and we will not press any further amendments.

Finally, I want to give thanks to all those who have taken part in this interesting Bill, which attracts those of us who like to understand how business rates work, who benefits and who does not. We look forward to the digitalisation of the whole process, whereby changes could then be made. From these Benches, we thank all who have taken part, including the Whips’ Office, which has given me enormous support, as well as the Minister and his team for all the helpful conversations that we have had. They did not get anywhere but, nevertheless, I thank the Minister for always being willing to meet.

[Lord Thurlow (CB)]

My Lords, it has been an interesting and lively debate through all its stages, covering the many aspects of the broad landscape of this Bill. I thank all who took part and supported my amendments from across the House right through to this final stage. I add my thanks to the Minister and his team, who have spent a good deal of time on a number of occasions, willing to engage with me to try to find compromise and a way through the complicated and difficult elements of the Bill, which have become quite technical and needed a deep dive.

I feel a sense of real regret. The Government have missed a real opportunity to deal once and for all with the injustices heaped on the small high-street retailers, which continue to subsidise the rates paid by these mammoth non-high-street retail fulfilment centres: the internet operators exclusively—not the ones on the high street that have fulfilment centres but the ones that are not on the high street. It is tragic that this opportunity has been missed. It is a wrong that the Bill could have put right. The Minister’s proposals address aspects of this, but possibly not for many years to come. The digitisation process of non-domestic rates, which we have discussed, is in hand and planned for 2028, but I wonder whether, like many other government initiatives, it will take many years longer than expected. What a waste. It was not too difficult—an opportunity missed.

It is not my desire to prolong the debate, notwithstanding the reasons cited for refusal in the other place, which left the door open. I think we have done enough, and HMG should not be frustrated in their manifesto items. I thank the Minister for his opportunity to continue a dialogue going forward, which I would like to engage in if I have not been put in front of the firing squad as a hereditary before that time comes. I will not press my amendment.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I will say a few words about independent schools. Throughout, the Government’s position has been in essence that we have to take away—they say—some of the resources of 7% of our country’s schools to enable 93% to make improvements. State schools will gain little or nothing from Labour’s tax raid, which will simply harm independent schools. Throughout our debates, I have tried to provide a voice for small independent schools, as president of the Independent Schools Association, whose 720 members are, for the most part, cherished small local schools. As I have said several times, 40% of independent schools have under 100 pupils. Their future is now in jeopardy, thanks to this Government. Ministers will be held to account here in Parliament and in the country at large for the damage their policies will do to these schools, which contribute so richly to our communities in spheres such as special needs, music, the arts and sport, as I and a number of noble friends have shown in these debates. Labour’s discriminatory tax burdens threaten their very survival.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who took part in this short debate, as well as all those who have dedicated their time and efforts to scrutinising this Bill. I am especially thankful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Barran, Lady Pinnock and Lady Scott of Bybrook, the noble Lords, Lord Fox, Lord Jamieson, Lord Thurlow, Lord Moynihan, Lord Lexden, Lord Black of Brentwood, Lord Storey and Lord Shipley, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. The time and consideration noble Lords have given to this Bill are greatly appreciated and, while I acknowledge that it is not always possible to see eye to eye, I hope they understand the appreciation I have for their efforts and expertise. I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Barran, Lady Pinnock and Lady Scott, and the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, for their agreement not to insist on these amendments.

Through the Bill, we are beginning to deliver on our ambition to transform the business rates system. In taking our first vital step on that path, we are ensuring a sustainable, funded, permanent tax cut for retail, hospitality and leisure properties that will be provided from April 2026. Furthermore, the Government are delivering on their commitment to break down barriers to opportunity by removing the business rates charitable relief from private schools, to help raise vital revenue to support the delivery of the Government’s commitments to education and young people. I am aware that the noble Baroness does not agree with the Government on this matter, but I hope she understands our position, and that it is vital that we take the tough but necessary decisions to ensure that the same opportunities are afforded to all children, regardless of where they come from or their financial background.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, invited me to write a letter on a question. I am going to reject that invitation because I have the answer for her now. She asked specifically about the powers to exclude classes of properties from the higher multiplier if we wanted to in future. We have the powers in Clause 3. Specifically, the powers referred to in that clause allow us to exclude classes of hereditaments from the higher multiplier.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, for his remarks. I am aware that he is concerned about the timetable for the digitalising business rates project. The solution to that problem lies in the linking of business and property data, and in the project itself. I look forward to engaging with the noble Lord, along with officials. Once again, I thank him and all noble Lords for not insisting on their amendments.

Motion A agreed.

Motion B

Moved by

[Lord Khan of Burnley]

That this House do not insist on its Amendment 2B, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 2C.

2C: Because the Lords Amendment interferes with the public revenue and affects the levy and application of local revenues, and the Commons do not offer any further Reason, trusting that this Reason may be deemed sufficient.

Motion C

Moved by

[Lord Khan of Burnley]

That this House do not insist on its Amendment 7B, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 7C.

7C: Because the Lords Amendment interferes with the public revenue and affects the levy and application of local revenues, and the Commons do not offer any further Reason, trusting that this Reason may be deemed sufficient.

Motion D

Moved by

[Lord Khan of Burnley]

That this House do not insist on its Amendment 8B, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 8C.

8C: Because the Lords Amendment interferes with the public revenue and affects the levy and application of local revenues, and the Commons do not offer any further Reason, trusting that this Reason may be deemed sufficient.

Motion E

Moved by

[Lord Khan of Burnley]

That this House do not insist on its Amendment 13B, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 13C.

13C: Because the government has already agreed to publish information about the new multipliers and further provision is not necessary.

Motion F

Moved by

[Lord Khan of Burnley]

That this House do not insist on its Amendments 15B, 15C, 15D and 15E, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 15F.

15F: Because the Lords Amendment interferes with the public revenue and affects the levy and application of local revenues, and the Commons do not offer any further Reason, trusting that this Reason may be deemed sufficient.

Motions B to F agreed.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Committee (5th Day)

Relevant document: 5th Report from the Constitution Committee

15:43

Amendments 90B to 90D not moved.

Amendment 90E

Moved by

[Baroness Mobarik]

90E: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Life peerages to be nominated by party groupsOn the day on which this Act is passed, the Prime Minister must recommend to His Majesty the King that—(a) 46 individuals nominated by the Leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Lords,(b) 33 individuals nominated by the House of Lords Appointment Commission to sit on the crossbenches,(c) 4 individuals nominated by the Leader of the Labour Party in the House of Lords, and(d) 4 individuals nominated by the Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party in the House of Lordsbe granted a life peerage under section 1 of the Life Peerages Act 1958.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Prime Minister to give groups in Parliament the ability to nominate individuals to be appointed as life peers to replace the number of hereditary peers in their group. This could include reappointing some hereditary peers as life peers.

[Baroness Mobarik (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Foster of Aghadrumsee and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, for their support.

My amendment proposes the nomination of life peerages equivalent to the number of hereditary Peers, split proportionally between the parties and groups affected. I shall speak to the detail of it shortly. I came to this conclusion after a number of conversations and considerable thought on how to resolve this matter in a way that reflects the disposition of our House: of respect, courtesy and consideration towards our colleagues —something that one should expect in any place of work.

When I spoke at Second Reading, I expressed the view that current hereditary Peers should be awarded life peerages if this Bill removes their ability to sit in this House as hereditary Peers. It was a wish to protect valued and respected colleagues from eviction from this House, prompted, as I said then, by a feeling that there may be an element of discrimination or prejudice at play. I hope, having been sensitive to such things from a young age and from experience, that I will always stand up to prejudice no matter from where it comes or to whom it is directed. It is simply a principle that I wish to uphold.

Having listened carefully to the debates on this Bill over these last weeks, I am still trying to understand why it is being brought forward by the Government when there are so many other more pressing issues for them to address. Nevertheless, if noble Lords will indulge me with their attention for a little longer, I will share some more background to this amendment.

I came to this House just over a decade ago and was introduced by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, a pre-eminent hereditary Peer and former Leader of this House. I knew my noble friend from serving on the Strathclyde commission, which he so ably chaired, and was hugely honoured that he agreed to be one of my supporters.

During my first few weeks here, my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie, another hereditary Peer, became my mentor. I do not think there could have been anyone kinder and more conscientious. He did everything he could to ensure that I understood the workings of your Lordships’ House. Several months on, my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach, then Chief Whip, asked whether I would consider being a party Whip. I said yes. My group, or flock as we called them, had something in common—they were all Scots, and a fair number of them were hereditary Peers.

If anyone is concerned about representation of the regions, Scotland is very well represented by our hereditaries. I will mention just a few of those in my old flock. My noble friend Lord Lindsay currently serves on our Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, is president of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, and has been president of the National Trust of Scotland and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. My noble friend Lord Caithness, the chief of Clan Sinclair, currently serves on our procedure committee and the Food, Diet and Obesity Committee. He has also been a Minister of State in no less than five government departments: the Department for Transport, the Home Office, the Department of the Environment, His Majesty’s Treasury and the Foreign Office. My noble friend Lord Dundee is the royal standard-bearer for Scotland. He is a farmer who runs two charitable trusts that he founded, and he has served for many years on the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. He has also been a Government Whip and government spokesman for education, Scottish affairs, home affairs and energy. All of them made me feel so welcome and showed me the utmost respect and kindness. I could not have asked for better colleagues looking out for me when I joined this House.

What I am trying to say is that the people affected by this Bill are our friends. Not only that: they are distinguished parliamentarians who contribute so much to this House to which we all belong.

A more recent colleague and friend of mine in this House is my noble friend Lord Minto. He has served as a Minister of State in the Department for Business and Trade and as Minister of State for Defence—both unpaid positions, might I add—and we have regular catch-ups over tea. On our very first meeting, my noble friend and I discovered some common threads: the family of a very close friend of my late father, an eminent gentlemen by the name of Shaharyar Khan, a former ambassador of Pakistan to the United Kingdom, had a strong connection to my noble friend’s grandfather. Historical photographs and information were shared, but that is where the cozy backstory ends.

My noble friend’s grandfather was the viceroy of pre-partition India. I have rather a dim view of empire, as noble Lords would expect, but I do not choose to see my noble friend through the lens of history. When we enter this place, those strange concepts of class and privilege are left outside. We are here as equals—as Peers. The clue is in the name but, to be clear, I do not argue for the hereditary principle. It belongs in the century before last. The point is that if we do not believe that someone should become a Member of this House because of who their parents were, surely it is not right to remove people from this House because of who their parents were. With that in mind, I come to my amendment.

I hope that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House—the Leader of our whole House—knows that I hold her and her Front-Bench team in the highest esteem. She has told us that this Bill is not a cunning attempt at gerrymandering, and we should believe her. My amendment follows on from that understanding. If this Bill is not about gerrymandering then on the day that it passes into law, which it will, as it was a manifesto commitment, the Prime Minister should at that point recommend to His Majesty that life peerages be granted to replace the number of hereditary Peers who are to be lost.

It would be up to the leaders of the parties in the House of Lords or, in the case of the Cross-Bench Peers HOLAC, to replace the hereditary Peers they have lost with life Peers. There would be no back-room deals, a term used more than once during these debates; let us just be transparent. Here are the numbers lost and they should be replaced. If we feel that some, even most, of our hereditary Peers are worthy of being appointed as life Peers, then there really should be no objection; and where there are hereditaries who do not attend the House or who intend to retire, this will be a good opportunity to replace them with fresh talent. Some more women on these Benches would be a good idea.

In all cases, qualification for this House can and should be based on life experience, knowledge, commitment and a quality not often mentioned: wisdom. I really hope that we can overcome the prejudices that I fear I am detecting. We should judge each other on what we do and say, rather than on who we are and where we come from. We should respect the huge contributions that so many hereditary Peers have made over the years. We should allow for a smooth and fair transition to the next stage of our illustrious history, in readiness for the challenges and opportunities of a new and exciting age, by bringing with us the best of our talent and recruiting what more we need. I believe that my amendment addresses all these points, and I beg to move.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, with regret, I oppose this amendment, despite the fact that I often agree with some of the views of some of its proposers. It seems to me to have at least three quite serious objections.

First, it does absolutely nothing to reduce the numbers in this Chamber—quite the reverse. Together with the numbers already appointed and those likely to be appointed, we will greatly increase the size of this House well beyond the 600 which has often been recommended as desirable.

Secondly and differently, it greatly enhances the influence of party leaders and I really do not want to do that. What if Mr Johnson was the leader of the Conservative Party now? I certainly would not want to give him these unlimited powers.

Lastly, and much the same, it does not address the concerns frequently expressed in this Committee as to the lack of any proper criteria to ensure that the individuals concerned are fit and proper persons or, for that matter, will participate fully in the business of this House. While I can understand the reasons that it is put forward, I think it is a thoroughly bad amendment.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I profoundly disagree, almost for the first time, with the noble Viscount. I put my name to this amendment, and I want to say to the Committee that I am concerned, as he clearly is, about the size of the House. We are the second largest second Chamber, apart from China, and 237 Members of this House have attended less than 20% of the time they should, of which 127 have attended less than 10% of that time. We have leave of absence, and one Peer has had 8.5 years of leave of absence, while others have had several years but remain on the list of Peers who could attend at any time. We now have a system for Peers who do not do anything and do not attend: they could be asked to leave. So far, only 16 have been asked to leave, despite the numbers who really do not attend and do not contribute.

For comparison, we can look at the hereditary Peers in your Lordships’ House. Out of the 88 hereditary Peers that we had until yesterday, two only have failed to do more than 20% of attending this House, which if I may say so compares rather well with the other Peers in this House who do not attend. I attend fairly regularly, as your Lordships will know, and I have noticed over the years that I have been here the enormous hard work of the majority of the hereditary Peers. Not only do they play their part by coming and contributing, but they contribute substantially; they play a valuable part in the work of this House. Among many hereditary Peers, two are more hard-working than many others among us.

If the successive efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to get rid of elections of hereditary Peers had been successful, there would be no question about the current hereditary Peers remaining. Unfortunately, it was not accepted, and it is disappointing that it was not accepted. I think that the last Government and the Conservative Benches were at fault in not recognising the writing on the wall, because we would not be here if the Grocott proposals had been allowed.

But in recognising the enormous contribution that those Peers make to this House, it would be very sad if this Government did not do what this amendment asks for. What saddens me even more is that this Government, by taking this particular Bill forward, without offering the opportunity to consider those Peers who do not attend and do not contribute, are allowing them to remain technically as Members of the House, and doing nothing about it. Getting rid of those who do the work and leaving in those who do not seems to me something that the Government should really reflect on, and I ask them to look seriously at this amendment.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure, privilege and honour to follow the noble and learned Baroness, and I agree with everything that she has had to say in her remarks this afternoon. I also commend the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, for gathering together an eclectic bunch to support her in this amendment, which is very worth while considering by the whole House. I have been a non-affiliated Member of this House for just two years and four months, and I am very pleased to be associated with this amendment and be one of the names attached to it.

Since I have come into this House, I have noticed, like the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that often the expertise, life experience—to use the phrase of the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik—and wisdom come from members of the hereditary peerage. If noble Lords want to ignore that fact, they should be up front as to why. There is a range of Peers from right across the political spectrum in this House; sometimes I still have a “pinch me” moment that I am sitting here listening to Peers giving of their wisdom and life experience. While that is true across the political spectrum of life Peers, it is also very true of hereditary Peers. I respect the work and commitment of the hereditary Peers in this place, who raise their voices on such a wide range of issues. I want to acknowledge that this afternoon.

16:00

I think it is fair to say that even some of the most ardent supporters of reform of this place—in other words, those committed to abolishing the hereditary principle once and for all—would still acknowledge that individual hereditary Peers have made and continue to make a valuable contribution to this House. I made my maiden speech in the same debate as the noble Earl, Lord Minto, who has had an honourable mention today. The noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, has mentioned a range of Scottish Lords, as one would expect, and as a Northern Ireland Peer I want to mention and celebrate the contribution of Northern Ireland hereditary Peers in this place—men such as Lord Glentoran and of course the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, who still sits in this House today. This amendment is a route to allow, in an elegant and sensible way, the different party-political groupings to acknowledge the contribution that they have made over many years and continue to make.

In many ways, the amendment is not rocket science. Indeed, it has been talked about as far back as 1999 as a possible way forward. It allows active hereditary Peers to become life Peers by the nomination of their party, thereby not changing the composition of the House, as we have been told that that is not what this Bill is about—it is just about dealing with the principle of hereditary peerage. If that is so, individuals who are here by dint of being hereditary Peers could become life Peers under this amendment.

This amendment allows the different groupings to appoint some working hereditary Peers—those making a real contribution to this place—and perhaps to replace those who are not able to contribute as much as they would like or as much as they have done in the past with working Peers from the same affiliation. That awarding of life peerages to those hereditary Peers who contribute to this place in a positive way would give a continuity that should not be underestimated.

If the House were to agree to this amendment, I like to think it would also allow the party leaders and HOLAC, in respect of the Cross-Bench Peers, to reflect the United Kingdom as a whole and not just London. This House needs diversity in all sorts of ways, including geographical diversity. I have been struck by impactful interventions from hereditary Peers from right across the UK—from Scotland, Wales, regions of England such as the south-west and, of course, Northern Ireland. This House benefits from different voices which are here because of the hereditary principle. If that is to go, I would like to think that geographical spread would be acknowledged by the party leaders and HOLAC.

Amendment 90F, which comes after this group, looks at increased representation from Northern Ireland. I am broadly supportive of that: however, I would like Peers from the whole of the UK to be properly heard in this place. I recognise that we are not representatives of where we come from—although in some debates you could be forgiven for thinking that we are on occasions—but having Peers from across the different parts of our country gives this place a different perspective. This amendment would allow party leaders and HOLAC to reflect that. I hope the House can support it.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, on the face of it, it is utterly illogical and ridiculous for me to have signed this amendment. I want to get rid of the hereditaries and the Bishops—no offence. I want to make this House at least half the size. I agree, a little, on all sorts of things with the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, but let us deal with size in a different place.

Leaders already have quite a lot of power. We have tested these people. That is the whole point. We know the records of the Lords we are getting rid of—we have seen them and heard them. To suggest that they might not be a fit is also illogical. Of course, they do not need the title. I am sure that a lot of us just love being Lords and Ladies, but they do not, because they have been Lords all their lives, so for them it is not a promotion.

This Bill has an element of prejudice—I do not like it. As a working-class person, I loathe privilege and this sort of nonsense, but, at the same time, I also resent separating people into groups where you pick on them —we had an Oral Question on this today. So I very much support this.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, on putting together an eclectic mix of people to support her—all women. That is interesting, I am not sure she intended that. This has been a painful debate and this amendment would close it. It would be an elegant solution to what has been a terrible amount of drudgery for all of us.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, I have spoken sparingly on this Bill, wishing to speak only if I had something useful to say—a self-discipline which I note has not been practised universally during the course of the Bill. To summarise my position, the principle of hereditary Peers is unsustainable in 2025; the Bill should not be opposed; but the Bill has consequences for the functionality of this House.

I provided evidence at Second Reading that a hard-working, regularly attending cohort of hereditary Peers was making a valued contribution to this House. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, confirmed the point eloquently in her contribution. My solution was to convert some of them into life Peers.

If I understand the position of the Government correctly, the valued contribution being made to the House by this hard-working core of hereditaries is not disputed. Nor do the Government seem to refute, in principle, the idea of a conversion to life Peers—according to Labour Back-Benchers, you achieve that by putting the names on a party list and submitting that for approval, as is current practice.

So, if we have agreement on the two main consequences of the Bill, what is the best way of finding a solution when it is this Bill that is creating the consequences? The “prepare a party list for conversion to life Peers” approach has, to me, two obvious failings. It takes no account of the Cross-Benchers, who are very valuable Members of this House precisely because they have no party-political affiliation and have to sign a statement to that effect. They cannot organise a party list. Secondly, surely we owe it to the hard-working hereditaries who have been turning up and doing their share of the heavy lifting to recognise that contribution as a House and offer a House solution to what is a one-off event? This abolition will not recur.

The sensible amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Mobarik provides just that. That her amendment has drawn support from the noble Baronesses, Lady Foster of Aghadrumsee and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, speaks volumes for the common-sense desire across the House to find that elegant solution.

I had hoped that by this point conversations would have been taking place through usual channels to progress this solution, but it seems that this process has become constipated. If my noble friend’s amendment, with the authoritative support it has garnered, administers the necessary dose of laxative, it has my unqualified support.

Even the dogs on the street know that we have to come up with a solution. I hope the Government will sense the momentum behind this amendment, will become positive in their reading of the mood of the Committee, and will be prepared to come forward with something constructive.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I will not detain the Committee for long. I find myself very much in sympathy with the intention of this amendment and particularly with what the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, said a few moments ago.

Our tradition in this House is evolution, not revolution. We know the outstanding contribution that many of the hereditaries have made to our work. My concern is that in the ongoing work that we do, the sheer thousands of amendments that have been passed because of the detailed work that this House has done—I do not have the figures at hand—sorting out some complex but sometimes misguided Bills that have come to us, have often relied on some of the most expert, established and experienced Members of this House.

This amendment would not undermine the fundamental principle of the Bill. I think everybody in the Committee accepts that it has come because it was part of the election manifesto, and we want to work with that. But this would enable us to draw on the huge expertise and ensure that we can focus our abilities to keep doing our fundamental work. It would be only a temporary phase, and eventually the Bill would achieve what it wants to do. Meanwhile, I hope that His Majesty’s Government will look closely at this to see whether we can find a way through that draws on the best experience we can of the Members of your Lordships’ House as we take our work forward.

[Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I very much endorse what the right reverend Prelate said in his—to use a religious word—irenic speech, which I hope will help. I think we all want to address this subject without prejudice and, if we do, I think we will see how strong this amendment is.

By the way, one of the objections to the hereditary Peers remaining in this House is that they are all men, but I notice that four noble Baronesses have put their name to this amendment. If it is good enough for them, it should be good enough for the rest of us.

In my career as an employer, I have sometimes had the misfortune to sack people, and to feel that I had to sack them. I am afraid that one sometimes gets into a situation when one is sacking people when, in order not to hurt their feelings, one keeps telling them how marvellous they are. Sometimes, reasonably enough, they ask, “Well, why are you sacking me, then?”, and it can be difficult to say. Usually, the reason is that actually you do not think they are very marvellous. This amendment teases out the real motive of the Government here. That is what we want to know. We are all agreed, and the Government themselves seem to be agreed, that the hereditary Peers are marvellous as individuals, which is all that is being proposed here—not the hereditary principle but the actual hereditary Peers. So what is it—why do they all have to go? If you press and press, the underlying thought that the Government cannot express is what people used to say in other prejudiced situations. They are saying, “We don’t like your sort”, and that is a bad way to make a law in this House.

[Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)]

My Lords, I have not spoken on the Bill before, but I hope the Committee will forgive me if I do so very briefly now. I do not support the actual wording of this amendment, but I so strongly support the underlying principle behind it, and most particularly what the right reverend Prelate said. Why are we still sitting here? Why are people not sitting down in a room, privately sorting this out?

This amendment would give the Whips the power to decide who they are to choose. It raises the question of the future administration of this House and the numbers after the hereditary Peers have gone, which they undoubtedly will under the Bill. Something far bigger has arisen from the way in which this Bill has been debated—when I have not been in the Chamber, I have been watching it on the screen—and a great many ideas, some of them new to me, have come up about what needs to be done. It is clear that it needs to be major. There needs to be major restructuring, because otherwise we are going to have the power to send people to this House concentrated in one pair of hands, and that cannot be right.

Those Peers currently in the House who wish to remain, who contribute regularly and who are able and willing to continue to do so should, in my view, be offered life peerages. I am told that the number would be nearer to 30 than 90, so we would reduce the size of the House to a degree by just that move. We all come to this House by myriad different routes; sometimes they are strange or unorthodox. We are proposing to remove just those who have come by heredity, and of course the Bill will go through. Very few people, other than Sir Michael Ellis in the other place, would argue that it is wrong to insist on a right to sit in this Parliament because of heredity.

16:15

The rest of us came here by a number of different routes. Some have particular expertise that is needed here; some have done outstanding charitable work or have given long-standing political service. Some come as a reward for political donations, as compensation for losing a seat in the Commons, for reasons of celebrity or for no good reason that is apparent to others. I think we could all nominate one or two in that category. This Bill removes just one group: a number of people who have already given good service, some very long service, and valuable contributions to both this House and the Government.

Our present Government currently stand accused of unkindness in relation to a number of their policies, including the one that preceded this debate today, and of fighting the old class war, which belongs in the last century. I hope that in this Bill decency, generosity and acknowledgement of merit, even in those whose political views we may not share, will prevail. We shall see.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I too support this amendment, so eloquently presented by the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik.

I find it a little disingenuous for the Government to claim that the Bill must go through as it honours a manifesto pledge. A manifesto pledge is not in itself a justification for policy, especially when it overturns the cross-party, solemn and binding 1999 agreement. Let us not forget that only 33% of the electorate voted for Labour. That is hardly a clear mandate for such a major change in our constitution. Expelling 88 hereditary Peers en bloc is neither fair nor necessary. It is crude and vindictive and, to me, reeks of aristophobia. Hereditary Peers are acknowledged by everybody, even Ministers, to be hard working, bringing expertise and commitment to public service. Many have served on the Front Bench without pay. They bring geographic, social and rural representation, qualities increasingly rare in our public institutions. They have proven their worth through quiet, consistent commitment to this House.

Is this really how we would like to treat those who have given so much to this institution? What about the younger Peers who entered this House in good faith, expecting to serve with honour and dedication, but who are now being told to leave immediately, with no plan, no time to prepare and no opportunity to build a new career? Where is the justice in that?

If the Government’s real aim is to reduce the size of the House, why have they abandoned the other part of that same manifesto pledge: to introduce a retirement age of 80? That alone would reduce the number of hereditary Peers by 13 through natural attrition, without a mass expulsion, and bring the number of Peers down to 457.

By contrast, removing hereditary Peers would leave us with 748 Members. Let us be honest: this Bill is not about reducing numbers or making the House more effective. This is not reform; it is politics dressed up as reform. True reform is committed, consistent and considered. It does not single out one group for discrimination. The Government argue that hereditary Peers should have accepted a previous deal, but fairness does not expire. If the Grocott solution was fair then, it should still be fair now. Let hereditary Peers retire with dignity. Some are willing to do so, but those who wish to continue serving should be allowed to remain, through a phased transition and by granting them life peerages. That would show fairness, principle and compassion.

This amendment does not stand in the way of reform or seek to preserve the hereditary route into this House. It simply asks that reform be carried out with decency and not, as the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, pointed out, with discrimination. After all, wherever we come from, we are all accidents of birth. This amendment offers a solution and a path forward that ensures that we are all treated equally as Peers. I hope that this Government will consider it, as it would be a good solution.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, a great and very wise public servant once said that the House of Lords is a disgrace and the enemy of good government. He explained why: it is filled, he said, with people who know what they are talking about. That great servant of the state was, of course, Sir Humphrey.

Our hereditaries have not scratched and scrabbled their way into this House simply for a title. They have already got one—in some cases, several. I doubt that most of them have come here for the occasional 300 quid. By and large, like the rest of us, they have come here to do what they see as their public duty, because they have something to offer—something unique and special. In the words of Sir Humphrey, they do know what they are talking about. I hope that Sir Keir will listen to Sir Humphrey. Sir Keir wants to get his legislation through, and he must, but there is no need to rip this place apart to do so.

My noble friend Lady Mobarik’s amendment is one of many that have been put forward that could bring about a happy solution—the indisputable rights of the Labour Government in harmony with the indubitable duties of this House of Lords. Our hereditary system is coming to an end. That is not in doubt. But our individual hereditary colleagues—our noble friends the Howes, the Kinnoulls, the Strathclydes, the Stansgates and the Addingtons—are not the enemy. They have been, and they are, exceptional public servants.

A very clear mood has emerged around this House this afternoon in almost every speech. I hope that we and the Government will take that into account. There will come a day when we all will have to leave this place. May we go with grace and may we go with the gratitude of our colleagues ringing in our ears. Hereditary Peers deserve no less.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 90E in the names of my noble friend Lady Mobarik and her eclectic range of cross-party sponsors. I congratulate her on the eloquent and powerful conviction with which she moved her amendment. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, for her principled and courageous cross-party stance.

As a disabled person, I am quite used to people feeling sorry for me. Today, the people I feel sorry for are the Government, because of the unenviable quandary they find themselves in. There they are with an overwhelming majority in the other place—yet the effect of this Bill will be to undermine your Lordships’ House as the only remaining check within Parliament on their untrammelled power.

That is why I welcome this amendment: because it would help the Government out of their quandary by giving them, and indeed us all, the opportunity to consider the question of our hereditary colleagues from a different, non-discriminatory perspective, one that draws on what unites us and makes us strong as a House of disparate lived experiences, social backgrounds and beliefs, as the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, reminded us. I hope today’s debate will help us all view the question under consideration through the prism of the one theme that I feel has emerged so far and that binds us together: our common commitment to service.

I asked our excellent Library for a few statistics, and I thank it for enabling me to give the numbers a human face—something that is so absent from this clinical Bill. I would like to put the numbers in the context of our hereditary colleagues’ loyal service to your Lordships’ House and to the country. Some 48 of our 87 hereditary colleagues serve as committee members, two as committee chairs. Six of our hereditary colleagues serve as Lord Deputy Speakers: one non-affiliated, one Conservative, three Cross-Bench and one Labour. Eleven of our hereditary colleagues serve on the Opposition or Liberal Democrat Front Benches, or, in the case of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, as Convenor of the Cross Benches.

If we look at attendance, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, reminded us, we can all agree that it is a really useful and important indicator of commitment to your Lordships’ House. In the 2019-24 Parliament, life Peers attended 47% of the time; our hereditary colleagues attended 49%.

Finally, I will mention length of service and dedication to duty. The average length of service of our hereditary colleagues is 23 years, and the longest length of service is 62 years. That alone is impressive.

There is one figure the significance of which puts the whole concept of loyal dedication and service to your Lordships’ House in perspective: 2,080. That is the total years of service given to your Lordships’ House by our 88—now 87—hereditary colleagues, if we include those who were re-elected following the 1999 reforms. The tragedy of this Bill is that it implies that that counts for nothing. Instead, our cherished, dedicated hereditary colleagues are to be cast out. Look at them, my Lords: they sit among us today, continuing to serve loyally while we debate their fate and they languish—politically at least—on death row, awaiting a summary execution. Is this really how they deserve to be treated?

16:30

As someone with a background in the charity sector before I came to this House, I saw the best of all parties and none, so I cannot look at this through a party-political lens. I would say that how we treat our hereditary colleagues surely transcends party politics. In fact, I wonder if this is more about us than it is about them. Ultimately, is it not about whether we can look our hereditary colleagues in the eye and then look in the mirror at ourselves?

This amendment enables us to do that. It also enables us to say that service is never an anachronism; rather, it is a bond that unites us as a House, whether we were appointed by King Charles III or by King Charles II. I appreciate that that means that some of our colleagues look remarkably well preserved—I jest, but at stake is surely the integrity of our House.

Yesterday, we were debating mental health. I wonder what consideration we have given to the impact on the mental health of our hereditary colleagues from feeling that they are to be disowned by their colleagues. For what? It is because, as we have already heard, of an accident of birth. We should ask them how it feels, because I fear that we forget that they bleed too. Surely we need a crime that merits such a sentence as the summary expulsion proposed in this Bill, but there is not one, and I suspect that we all know that.

In conclusion, I believe this amendment deserves our support for two reasons. First, as we have already heard, it charts a reasonable and pragmatic way forward that avoids revisiting the battle fought and lost over the hereditary principle. Secondly, it would enable the Government to put you Lordships’ House back together again, so that it can function as one House, and all of us can serve it to the best of our ability for the remainder of our lifetimes. Let us not be divided on this. I hope that we will do right by our hereditary colleagues and by our own conscience, if this amendment comes before the House on Report.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, I have not spoken previously in the debate on the Bill. I apologise to the Committee, but I have been sitting, watching and listening carefully, from a distance. From a distance, trying to be a member of the public looking in, I can see why, occasionally, allegations have been made that the House conducts itself in a disgraceful way.

If this amendment is carried, we know perfectly well that it will go to the Commons and be overturned there and not come back, or, if it does come back, that it will be subject to ping-pong. On and on we will keep debating, wasting time and using public money, when we know that, at the end of the day, if we get a deal, it will be a very small deal indeed.

If we do get a small deal, I ask the mover of the amendment this. I am over 80 years old and believe that, after they have dealt with the hereditaries, the Government should move on to deal with the other part of their manifesto: the 80 year-olds. I believe that they should do that because I am a democrat and I believe I am accountable to the people, not just to myself or my party. If it comes to the 80 year-olds, do we then decide who among us work hardest and who are the brightest? Who among us should we retain and who should we kick out? Will the mover of the amendment please say whether she would wish that principle to be applied to that part of the Government’s policy, which has been endorsed in a manifesto by the people of this country?

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, it is always difficult in this debate, which has been difficult for many, to justify some of the arguments on logic alone. The Leader of the House has presented some logical arguments, some of which are not really arguable against. She is right on logic: it is slightly absurd that 740 families provide Members of the legislature—but then, perhaps, is it logical that one family provides the monarchy?

The very small numbers that we have in this House seem fair and reasonable, and appropriate for a country that prides itself on its history and traditions. We have lots of idiosyncrasies in this country. Why do we not plan to knock down this crumbling building and replace it with a vast, super-efficient, open-plan glass and steel structure, with views across the Thames?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

I am coming to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, in a minute.

Of course, we would not do that. Likewise, I believe we can respect where we come from and recognise our rich fabric of community by allowing people who are proven to be good at their job and represent how democracy came to this country over centuries, as power was wrestled from the monarchy, to be allowed to continue to have a presence here.

As a meritocrat, I accept the argument that the best people should be appointed to this House, and it is not as if we would start from here by appointing new hereditaries—although my mum keeps telling me that she reckons I am up for an earldom, but I think that is unlikely. I hasten to add that, in my view, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, anyone in this House who does not contribute sufficiently and appropriately should be asked to leave forthwith. This amendment would allow people who are clearly capable, and who have the hugely valuable assets of institutional memory and years of experience, to remain.

I had in my script to say that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, is right—it is not an expression I am used to, but she none the less makes the point that the hereditaries in this House fought to come in, through an election, because they wanted to serve.

If we are totally honest with ourselves, there is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, said, a certain randomness as to why any of us are here. The little that I know about the appointment process has shown me that it is perhaps more random than is generally recognised. I suggest to the Committee that to adopt the amendment is to do the right thing for people who have served us well and continue so to do.

We are told that poll after poll supports the abolition of hereditaries, and that might be true—I am not so sure. Even if it is, I think most people would accept that there is room for a very small percentage of Members of this House to come from a hereditary background and be allowed to serve their time. This amendment is in another fine British tradition: for a suitable compromise to be acceptable.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, this is an important Bill, and I am sorry not to have spoken on it before, owing to my commitments on the Front Bench at a busy time for the economy. My noble friend Lady Mobarik is right to press the Government on the transitional arrangements. I will focus on two points in that context. The first is the loss of talent and experience that we face, and the damage that that could do to our scrutiny function at a time of great challenge and change in our country. The second is the pressure that will grow for an elected House if all our hereditary Peers disappear overnight, as currently planned.

I have been reading a book called Judgement at Work by Andrew Likierman, a former dean of the London Business School. He defines judgment as

“the combination of personal qualities with relevant knowledge and experience … to make decisions or to form opinions”.

Length of time in a role, or a succession of roles, improves judgment because prior experiences remain accessible sources of knowledge and provide an understanding of success and failure.

We are lucky to have many long servers among our hereditary Peers—280 years of service, in the words of my noble friend Lord Shinkwin. Many also have experience of responsibility outside government and have learned, over time, to cope with complexity and risk, to listen, to work with others and to know who to trust. Those are all ingredients of judgment—soundness of judgment—as well. In view of what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, I should add “hard work” as a very important quality that has been demonstrated by the hereditary Peers.

They also come from across the country. We heard from my noble friend Lady Mobarik about Scotland and from my noble friend Lady Foster of Aghadrumsee about the importance of Northern Ireland representation. They provide a good mix, as we have seen today, with other Members of the House who are often from political backgrounds and very focused on the south-east.

To develop the argument, I will cite three examples. The first is our deputy Conservative leader, my noble friend Lord Howe. He has sat in this House for 40 years and is a master of the art of scrutiny in the most courteous and compelling way. When I arrived, he was a Health Minister and the person whom I and most others chose to model ourselves on—effective at the Dispatch Box, in the tea rooms and in Whitehall. More recently, he steered the difficult legislation on infected blood through the House, working across party to excellent effect. All that experience as a Minister of Agriculture, Health, Defence and at the FCO, and in opposition, is helpful to the Government of the day and to the House as a whole.

My second example is the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, with whom I have had the pleasure of working on amendments to the national insurance contributions Bill. He worked as a foreign correspondent at the start of his career, but he is a serial entrepreneur and was able to produce spreadsheets on the impact of the NICs changes on small businesses he was involved with—which the Treasury unfortunately had refused to provide. It would be a great pity to lose that practical business voice. Some life Peers, including myself, speak in the House with the benefit of business spectacles, but, of course, we get out of date as we cease to be involved with business day to day. Keeping voices such as that of my noble friend Lord Londesborough would help us to reach sound, common-sense judgments from experience.

Thirdly, the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, has an impressive background in finance and he brings that to our debates and committees. The noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, noted the hereditaries’ important role in committees. I highlight the valuable role the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, played in particular as chair of the House’s Finance Committee. He may not thank me for saying so, as the concept probably will not see the light of day, but he suggested to me the brilliant idea of dealing with the restoration of the Palace of Westminster by building a small US-style service tower in one of the courtyards, no doubt in Pugin style, and then concreting in the basement services. This novel idea would reduce the risk of fire and of asbestos contamination during the renovation and, I suspect, would cost much less. The point is that it shows the value of critical thinking—we must not lose that.

That brings me on to my second theme. I think the current mixture of Peers appointed by successive Prime Ministers, especially if there are not too many of them, Bishops and the historic element, just about works, partly because of the mix of views, experience, age and skills that are represented. Without those who are currently hereditaries, it becomes much more difficult to justify a wholly appointed House. Moreover, giving a lot of power to the great and the good on HOLAC would not help at all. I believe that, if we indulge the brutal decapitation of the hereditary Peers later this year, we will rightly face growing demands for an elected House. Noble Lords should reflect on this and on the discussions today around my noble friend’s amendment before they vote on this Bill. In the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, we need evolution, not revolution.

16:45

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, can I just correct her on regional balance? So far as I am aware, at present we have only one hereditary Peer in the House from Yorkshire. I think the north of England is very underrepresented and there has been, I regret to say, with the hereditary peerage, a tendency for young generations to move to the Home Counties over the years and, of course, to go to school in the Home Counties as well. So the regional representation of the hereditaries is not particularly good.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I understand why noble Lords opposite would like to terminate debate, but I think there is a case for going a little bit further. Since noble Lords have allowed themselves some personal reflections, perhaps I can first add one of my own, which is that, when I was introduced to this House, one of my supporters was a Cross-Bench hereditary Peer. I will not mention his name, because I have not told him in advance that I am going to make these remarks. It all went back to the fact that, more than 40 years ago, I used to play bridge with his mother, and when he made his maiden speech shortly after his 21st birthday, I sat with his mother in the Peeresses’ Gallery and listened to him. We remained in touch and so, when I was being introduced, I thought that it was time for some payback. He willingly agreed, adding that he had never in the whole of his time in the House been asked to sponsor anybody at their introduction, so he was very happy to do so.

He has served throughout that time because he survived the Blair cull. He has been committed to the House and he has worked hard. What so many people find unfair—as I said, I have not discussed these remarks with him at all—is that he is to be expelled not because of lack of merit, not because of lack of commitment, not because of lack of expertise, but simply because of the way in which he entered the House. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, there seems to be an inherent unfairness in that.

I turn to the amendment, which I support. I emphasise that this amendment is not about the hereditary principle. It is about the principle of expulsion. We seem to be taking it for granted that an act of expulsion is sort of okay, whereas, in fact, it is almost entirely without precedent. There is the baleful precedent of Pride’s Purge, and since then the only example of the expulsion of people as a class from Parliament was what happened in 1999. To take that as a precedent so that it becomes, if you like, a normal thing for groups to be expelled from one House of Parliament or another, but more likely from this House, according to—I will not say the whims, but perhaps the vagaries of what might appear in manifestos is a very bad principle indeed. It does not affect only the hereditary Peers; it affects all of us because one can divide and one can create those criteria for expulsion according to, really, anything that fits, and can achieve political and other objectives in doing so.

When we say, “A whole group of us is to be expelled”, we appear to have a precedent for it in 1999, I grant you that, but it is not a good precedent. It is not a precedent that should be repeated. The proposal made by my noble friend Lady Mobarik avoids that and puts that danger at some distance from us. So I think that there are broader reasons for accepting it than simply our admiration of and friendship with the individuals involved in this case. There are broader reasons of principle for accepting it and I urge the Front Bench to consider them on constitutional grounds.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Mobarik’s amendment. It is consistent with the Government’s manifesto pledge, in that it accepts the principle of removing the hereditary Peers. I am not sympathetic to that change and I do not go along with the assumptions on which it is proposed. None the less, I accept that the Government have given their manifesto pledge and they have the right to make this change.

That, however, does not preclude the arrangement proposed by my noble friend. If anything, it should open the way for it. Such a major change in the legislature of this country is a matter of constitutional importance, as is the separation of powers and how we are governed. In these matters, an evolutionary approach is best. This amendment opens the way for retaining the expertise of some of the most experienced, knowledgeable and dedicated Peers.

British political history may have been dramatic during its other periods of constitutional change. None the less, the arrangements—whether extending the franchise in the 19th century, Catholic emancipation, or Irish home rule and then the treaty with Ireland—were evolutionary. They incorporated something of what went before by allowing for a gradual evolution, not a violent upheaval.

Similarly, reform of this House has been gradual and saved something of what went before. This brought Britain political stability, and brought stability to our democracy, unlike in the cases of other friends and neighbours, such as France, which is a unitary power like Britain but did not necessarily follow the evolutionary approach. We see reports that this continues, even to the present day.

This Bill is a Labour Party measure. I have nothing but admiration for the party opposite, which emerged as a main party of government in the early 20th century. It accepted the constitutional conventions and it helped democracy in this country to evolve. It was also helped by the restraint of the Conservative leadership, which refused, as one interwar Prime Minister put it, to “fire the first shot”. This was not because of a desire to appease politically but as the means of enabling Britain’s democracy to evolve gradually—and evolve it did.

Labour won power, first in 1924, again in 1929 and then, dramatically, in 1945. It was given a fair crack of the whip to get on with the manifesto pledge and be judged at the end of the Parliament on the whole package of how well it did in power. Similarly, with this House, there has been an evolutionary, not political, change. There is a settled constitutional way of proceeding, consistent with the manifesto pledge. I hope that the Government will accept this amendment—that they will accept the established and successful way of incorporating something that has gone before. I hope that they will, in this way, signify their respect for the consensual approach to constitutional change, and that they will not fire the first shot.

[Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Front Bench!

[Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)]

I shall be brief. I apologise; I have not spoken on this Bill so far. Noble Lords who know me will know that one of the reasons is because my fantastic mother-in-law, Dorothy Ann Bray, started end-of-life care and has now passed away. This is the first time I have spoken since then.

I like this amendment, but I do not agree that it is perfect. I urge the usual channels to find a way to work together to make sure this House can come together behind whatever the final solution is. For me, that is all that matters. I appreciate that the Government have a mandate for change, but my children and my grand- children live in this country and I do not want them to think that we have a petty and vindictive Government. If this is about the principle and not the numbers, they must succeed with the principle but find a way of protecting the actual people who we all live and work with and care about.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Mobarik for initiating this debate and all those who spoke, notably those formidable Baronesses, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Foster and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I believe that a number of our colleagues who face summary exclusion under this Bill will have been greatly touched by what my noble friend Lady Mobarik said, the perspective from which she said it and the way that she said it. I think that they will also have been touched by much that others said too.

There has been a great deal of talk about respect throughout Committee, which I believe has been thoughtful. Indeed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, said, it has raised important issues touching the House. Our debates have generally reflected great credit on all sides. I am sure that the expressions of respect for our hereditary colleagues are meant by all. I understand that it does not always feel like that when you see a Bill that tells you, as my noble friend Lord Shinkwin pointed out, in a powerful speech—the second he has made in your Lordships’ Committee—that whatever you have done in this accumulation of 2,080 years of public service cannot change one dot or comma of the sentence of expulsion. We all need to contemplate that, and that has been the ask from the Committee in this debate. My noble friend Lord Shinkwin made a Shakespearean allusion, and I have to say:

“The quality of mercy is not strained”.


A sense of magnanimity is in the air.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, reminded us of the dedication of so many hereditary Peers and compared them against the service, or lack of service, of many Peers who are not being excluded under the legislation before us. That thought and sentiment was echoed by others in the debate.

How do we go forward? The noble Earl, Lord Devon, who is not in his place, said in an earlier debate that he did not think there should be horse-trading between party leaders inside or outside this House about who should stay. My noble friend Lady Mobarik also said that she did not care for back-room deals. I understand those feelings, but it surely need not be everyone who goes or no one. There is a middle ground and, as my noble friend Lady Mobarik challenged us all, does this Committee as a collective really wish to lose all the good people who she and so many others have referenced in the course of this debate?

As I have said before in your Lordships’ Committee, and as we have heard from all sides in today’s debate, there is another party to this matter, beyond the party-political interests of the two Front Benches—mine or of the party opposite—and beyond even those deep family instincts that surely we all understand across the House drive us in the views that we take, particularly on this type of question, and that in fact make the great political parties what they are—the sense of their tradition and the sense of their aspirations. That other party to this matter beyond our two parties is this great House itself.

17:00

The questions put before us by my noble friend and others are: what does your Lordships’ House think about who and what it may be losing and, as my noble friend Lord Moylan put to us, what in the future may be the knock-on effects of singling out and excluding a category of Peers with no transition? I think all noble Lords know where I stand in the ideal world: I believe there should be full transitional arrangements or grandfather rights. That has often been the case in the past, as it was with the Law Lords. I make no secret of the fact that I believe there should be transitional arrangements—evolution, not revolution, as the right reverend Prelate so wisely put it.

I tabled an amendment earlier in Committee that would have had broadly the same effect as that before us set down by my noble friend. I did not move that amendment, not because I do not share the sentiments of my noble friend Lady Mobarik or of many others who have spoken—I do share them—but, as I told the Committee at the outset, I recognise, as do most Peers who have spoken, the mandate of this Government to end the entry of hereditary Peers. The time, as many have said, in which birth gave you a seat in this House has gone, and that is universally recognised. I have also recognised that the Government would wish any transitional arrangement—which again I submit we should have, in equity and justice—to be dampened by retirements and/or other procedural mechanisms to address their concerns about numbers. I made that clear in my opening speech in Committee.

I remain convinced that there is a way forward, and I hope very much, having listened to this impressive debate, that—informed by the spirit of kindness, compromise, understanding and, yes, respect that has informed this very debate—we may find a way in the period between Easter and Whitsun to reach a generous settlement that respects the interests of all, not least the interests of the whole House, which I think have been eloquently expressed by many in this debate. To such an enterprise, in search of such a settlement and in response to such a call, as we heard so eloquently from my noble friend Lady Mobarik and others today, my door is open and my commitment will be full.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)]

I say from the start that I know the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, and respect her. Certainly, I welcome her contributions to this House, and many times in debates we have been on the same side, which reflects how this House operates. I had to decide whether in responding I should respond to the amendment or to the debate. I have decided that I will follow the Companion and stick to the amendment.

The noble Baroness’s amendment seeks to compel the Prime Minister to recommend 87 new Peers. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, is absolutely right: is that really what we want to do in terms of where we are? I also point out that while the noble Baroness’s amendment says that she wants to mirror the political balance of the outgoing hereditary Peers, there is nothing in it that would guarantee any hereditary Peer remaining in this House, so I am not sure what the last hour has been all about.

Nevertheless, I want to focus. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, summed it up—and I agree with her—when she said that we are a country that takes constitutional change gradually. I recall from the Labour manifesto in 1901—I do not recall it; I remember reading about it—that we were seeking then to abolish the House of Lords. We have changed our mind over time. We have reached a sort of view about it. The hereditary principle was addressed over 25 years ago, and the noble Lord opposite has said that it has gone. We do not support the hereditary principle when it comes to this legislative House.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that the transitional arrangements that were made over 25 years ago are now going to come to an end. We have had 25 years to look at a sensible way of dealing with this issue. My noble friend Lord Grocott has offered many opportunities to do it on a gradual basis which have all been rejected, primarily by noble Lords opposite.

We have now reached the point where we have a manifesto commitment to deal with this issue. I understand why the noble Baroness has made her amendment and understand the nature of the debate, but, as my noble friend the Leader of the House has set out many times before, it is for the Prime Minister to make recommendations to the sovereign on new Peers. In doing so, the Prime Minister invites nominations from party leaders across the House, so, again, I say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that there is nothing stopping him making recommendations to his leader to include hereditary Peers in any new list. Why not do that? Why not offer that transitional arrangement? It is not for us to decide who stays in this House. It is not for us to decide whom the leader of the Conservative Party decides to recommend to the Prime Minister—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Will the noble Lord just explain how that works for the Cross Benches?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I was going to come to that point, but as the noble Lord gives me the opportunity, let me say that my noble friend the Leader has addressed that. She is working in consultation and wants to have further discussions about how we address that issue. Certainly, I am confident that we will be able to do so, because I think the Cross-Benchers play a very important role in this House, and the Convenor of the Cross Benches is a hereditary Peer.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

If the noble Lord is prepared to have those discussions with the Cross Benches, what is wrong with the Official Opposition? Why can he not have the same discussions with them?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I repeat: the Prime Minister of this country has made an offer. In terms of the new Peers that we have recently had introduced into this House, the Conservative Party was offered more than Labour was ever offered in previous nominations. It is a very important point: the simple fact is that, if the leader of the Conservative Party wanted to nominate hereditary Peers to life peerages, they can do so. This amendment—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I do not mind being interrupted, but what is the point?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The Deputy Leader of the House knows that that is not the case. The leader of the Opposition can make nominations when the Prime Minister graciously allows her to do so. It is entirely up to the Prime Minister when and how many.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

Correct, and you have just had six; you could have nominated hereditary Peers as life Peers. There was nothing stopping you—nothing. The important point is that we have had opportunities to deal with this issue over the last 25 years and have not done so. As a consequence, Labour put in its manifesto a clear commitment to deal with the hereditary principle once and for all, which is what we have before us in this very short, simple Bill.

Let me just address this point. The Prime Minister also invites the House of Lords Appointments Commission to make nominations to the Cross Benches. In deciding the number of these nominations, the Prime Minister considers a range of factors, of course, including the political balance of the House. Certainly, retirements and other departures mean that new Peers will always be needed to ensure the House has appropriate expertise and, as has been said before, there is no reason why hereditary Peers cannot be nominated in future lists. Political parties have the opportunity to do that. My noble friend the Leader has recognised the special position of Cross-Benchers and committed to discuss it with the relevant parties. That is the commitment she has made.

If the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, is concerned with the party balance of the House, I remind your Lordships that even if this Bill is passed the Government Benches will make up 28% of this Chamber, compared to 31% for the party opposite. As my noble friend the Leader has said before to your Lordships, this House functions best when there are roughly equal numbers between the two main parties; I stand by that. As I have said to the noble Baroness, there are many occasions when we operate on a cross-party basis. I do not see that this Bill will change that one bit—far from it. It will bring about a more sensible balance in this House.

With respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, this amendment is unnecessary. It is not appropriate for this Bill and I respectfully request that she withdraws it.

[Lord True (Con)]

The noble Lord has returned to the question of numbers, completely ignoring the points I made about other ways of addressing that. I set that to one side but, as I understood it, his concept was, “Well, you”—I do not think that he can have meant me—“can send some people here if you want to”. The Government are about to expel 44 of our people. Is the noble Lord saying that the leader of the Opposition can name 44 who will come straight back? That appeared to be the logic of his position. Will he answer the specific point on numbers? The Prime Minister decides the numbers; that is the fact.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

Certainly I know that is the case, and we found that out the hard way in the past 14 years. But can I just say—and the noble Lord knows this—we are dealing with an imbalance at the moment? He keeps talking about how many Conservative Peers are hereditary, but that is not the question in this Bill. The question in this Bill is about the principle of hereditary Peers, not about whether they are Conservative. In fact, so much of the debate has been about how they are not political and not partisan, but then the noble Lord keeps repeating how many of them are Conservative.

17:15

What we have now is a transitional arrangement from over 25 years ago. We have had many opportunities, through the Grocott Bill and others, to see them wither away, which were not taken up. We are now in the position of saying that, after 25 years, the hereditary principle will end. If the noble Lord’s party, when the Prime Minister approaches his leader and says, “We are going to have a new list—here is the number of Peers you can have”—you could have done it with the last six that you got. You could have appointed and nominated a hereditary Peer who has done good service to this House to make sure that they can continue to do good service to this House, not as a hereditary but on the basis of their duty and service as life Peers. That is the answer.

[Baroness Mobarik (Con)]

My Lords, first, I thank all those who have participated in this debate and shown their support for the intention behind my amendment. I am disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, decided not to respond to the debate as such. I thought that that was the purpose of Committee stage.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I am hesitant to interrupt the noble Baroness, but there is one hereditary Peer whom I do miss greatly, and that is the Countess of Mar. She would have jumped up many times and said, “Please, your Lordships, speak to the amendment” —and that is what I was trying to do.

[Baroness Mobarik (Con)]

Thank you—I shall remember that on the next occasion.

There have been so many notable speeches today, but time does not permit me to mention all of them. I think that this debate has shown that we on these Benches, joined by others across this House, are not trying to hold on to the hereditary principle but want to hold on to our hereditary colleagues. I strongly believe that my amendment would provide a civilised, mannerly and appropriate way in which to manage ourselves, in keeping with the customs and courtesies of our great House.

There is clearly widespread support for some kind of transitional arrangement, and I sincerely hope from the bottom of my heart that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House will reflect on this very carefully and take my noble friend Lord True up on his very fair and reasonable offer before Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 90E withdrawn.

Amendment 90F

Moved by

[Baroness Hoey]

90F: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Review: Northern IrelandWithin 24 months of the day on which this Act comes into force, the Secretary of State must produce a report assessing the desirability of increased representation of Members from Northern Ireland in the House of Lords.”

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, there has been quite a lot of talk about the reason for His Majesty’s Government’s moves on this Bill, and I want to go back to the beginning of it. I shall go back to when the Minister for the Constitution, the right honourable Member of Parliament for Torfaen, Mr Nick Thomas-Symonds, speaking in a very blasé kind of Cabinet Office video, expressed the Government’s motivation for this legislation in these terms. He said that the legislation was needed because:

“I want young people growing up … in my constituency, and indeed in every part of the country, to feel that they have the same chance as anyone else … in making the laws of the land”.


In other words, his point was that the existence of the category of hereditary Peers contains within it a bar to public service because, as the young people in Mr Thomas-Symonds’ constituency, and indeed every other constituency, look at the option of public service by means of serving as a hereditary Peer, that option is of course by definition closed to them unless they are from a tiny minority of people who happen to have a parent or grandparent who carries a hereditary title.

I understood that the Government’s aim in this was to create a United Kingdom in which there is no reason in principle why membership of the Lords, for the purpose of making laws, should not be open to any UK citizen, subject to the other parameters in paragraph 1.2 of the Companion to the Standing Orders, and to give everyone the right in principle to be considered for appointment to the upper House. However, the Cabinet Office video and the Government’s stated intention regarding the hereditary Peers Bill cause some considerable concern to not just me but the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, who has signed the amendment, and others in Northern Ireland.

We have received, as other Peers may have, a letter from 15 young people on the subject that has moved me to table this amendment, after a great deal of discussion with the Public Bill Office. The signatories all live in Northern Ireland and for the most part are students or have not long left university. They are all young. They begin by referencing the Cabinet Office video and the Minister’s reason for the Bill, which I have just read out but will repeat:

“I want young people growing up … in my constituency, and indeed in every part of the country, to feel that they have the same chance as anyone else to play a part in making the laws of the land”.


In response to this, the young people state:

“It is quite extraordinary that the Minister should have uttered these words at the same time the Irish Sea Border was affecting the most dramatic reversal of UK citizenship in our history, removing from us all means of making the laws to which we are subject not just in relation to one law or 300 but 300 areas of law. The truth is that the presence of 92 hereditary peers in the House of Lords in no way threatens our right, along with the rest of the population, to be considered for Life peerages. Similarly, they do not impact in any way our right to stand for election to the House of Commons or Northern Ireland Assembly. The Irish Sea border, by contrast, not only threatens that right; it nullifies it completely in 300 areas of law, denying us the rights enjoyed by our peers in Torfaen and everywhere else in the country to make the laws of the land. The Government cannot, on the one hand, lecture young people about the importance of active citizenship and yet, on the other hand, say, it’s so unimportant that all the people of one part of the UK should be happy to lose it in relation to 300 areas of law. There may be some people in Government who don’t think Northern Ireland matters but they should think about the wider messaging implications of their actions for young people across the whole UK. How can something that is vital in one part of the country be vital in that part of the country if in another part of the country it can be dispensed with? Consistency is important. ‘Do as I say not as I do’ never really works”.


Their point is simple. The Windsor Framework effectively denies them access to any legislature making the laws to which they are subject in a staggering 300 areas, and removing the hereditary Peers will not change that.

It feels as if we in Northern Ireland are subject to a classic conjuror’s illusion, where our eyes are being led away from confronting the greatest ever assault on the integrity of UK citizenship and towards a comparatively minor adjustment in the opposite direction that it hopes will capture our attention. These young people have not been taken in by that illusion and have asked me to table an amendment for two reasons: first, to expose the injustice and hypocrisy of the Government’s position and to challenge it; and, secondly, to warn that the erosion of UK citizenship as a whole is inherent in its erosion in Northern Ireland, and we kid ourselves if we pretend that is not the case.

The UK’s position as a strong polity depends on people being active citizens—voting, standing for election and making themselves available to serve as Peers. That in turn depends on people believing that our citizenship matters. That is quite impossible to do if your Government tell people that their citizenship is so unimportant in one part of the United Kingdom that it can be dispensed with in a staggering 300 areas of law. You cannot do that in one part of the country without it undermining the value and importance of UK citizenship generally. The Government have shown that, far from being essential, citizenship can at least in part be dispensed with.

I acknowledge that increasing the number of Northern Ireland Peers provides no answer to the injustice created by the Windsor Framework. There is nothing to be gained by having more people in place here to exercise the more limited citizenship that has been imposed on Northern Ireland people. We need the restoration of our full citizenship so that the young, and indeed all people in Northern Ireland, have the right in common with the rest of the UK—the common right that validates that we are one country, a body politic—to stand for election, to make themselves available for nomination to your Lordships’ House and to make all the laws of the land.

After that letter was sent to some Peers, a cross-party letter appeared this morning in the Daily Telegraph, signed by a number of these young people—some members of political parties, some not. We have had quite a lot of support come in already from young people in Great Britain. I name some of them who have spoken out this morning: Jacob Watts from Cambridge, Tom Gartside from Newcastle, Kane Blackwell and Scott Lewis from Cardiff. In the same way that young people in Northern Ireland are feeling about this, it is not going to take a lot to get young people across the country to realise that their citizenship and all the talk about getting young people involved are a nonsense when it comes to something like this.

The important thing is that sometimes—and this happens with individuals—you live in denial and keep pretending that if you just ignore it, it does not matter. It is the same with Governments. The Government should—and, if they wanted to, they could now—go back to the European Union and tell it that the Windsor Framework is not working, because it disrespects the territorial integrity of the UK in violation of international law, partly disfranchises 1.9 million UK citizens and is, as such, unsustainable.

My amendment says, “Think behind this”. This is not just about getting rid of hereditary Peers. What we have done in Northern Ireland is a disgrace to the citizenship of our citizens, particularly to the young people of the future. I am moving my amendment to get that debate, but I hope that both the Government and the Opposition will not try just to deal with the actual amendment. Of course we would like more Peers from Northern Ireland, but that is a very different matter from the crucial issue I am trying to raise today. I beg to move.

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to say a few words on the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey.

When Ireland and Scotland had representative Peers, there were 28 Irish and 16 Scottish representative Peers. Now, I believe there are 22 Irish Peers born in Ireland and 61 Scottish Peers born in Scotland. Recent population figures for Scotland showed a population of about 5.5 million, and for Ireland about 2 million. But as the Irish representative Peers represented the whole of Ireland, overall the Northern Irish are fairly represented in the House of Lords, with 22 Peers against 28 representatives for the whole of Ireland before the Republic came into existence. Perhaps Scotland has too many Peers now, compared with its former representative Peers.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey. This is no surprise, as I have my name attached to it. I can think of no more eloquent a way of doing so than commending to noble Lords, and the right honourable Member for Torfaen in the other place, the social media video made by young people in Northern Ireland in response to the Cabinet Office video introducing the Bill. It is regrettable that the Cabinet Office put out that particular video.

17:30

The young person speaking to camera says:

“The government says it wants to give young people across the UK the same chance as anyone else to make the laws to which they are subject and that they are rising to this challenge by taking a bill through Parliament to remove hereditary peers from the House of Lords … The truth is that the presence of 92 hereditary peers in the House of Lords in no way threatens my right to make the laws to which I am subject either by being made a life peer, an MP or an MLA. What does threaten my right to make the laws to which I am subject, though is this Government. Through their Windsor Framework they deny me, unlike the people of England, Wales and Scotland, the right to make the laws to which I am subject in 300 areas”—

that was mentioned by the noble Baroness. They continue:

“Even if I was an MP, a Peer and an MLA all rolled into one, I still would not be able to make these laws. To fundamentally undermine my citizenship in this way, and that of all the people of Northern Ireland, while pretending to be moving forward is deeply disingenuous and a very serious breach of trust”.

The video then makes a very prescient observation that we would all do well to reflect upon:

“When challenged the only justification they can come up with is that they are required to disenfranchise me by international law. This doesn’t help them at all. It makes them complicit in effectively sabotaging international law, making it an unenlightened tool to justify reactionary causes for which it was never designed”.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, mentioned, it is important to read the letter in today’s Daily Telegraph. One of the critical points made by the young people who signed that letter is that the negative impact of this arrangement damages the UK as a whole, not just Northern Ireland. The Telegraph letter states:

“The Government should not lecture young people about the importance of active citizenship, only to argue that those in one part of the UK should be happy to lose it in relation to 300 areas of law. There may be some in Government who don’t think Northern Ireland matters”—

I suspect that is true—

“but they should consider the wider messaging implications of their actions for young voters. How can something that is vital in one part of the country be dispensed with in another? Consistency is important”.

As the noble Baroness pointed out, there has been no shortage of young people responding. One, a student at Cambridge from the north of England, said:

“I stand in complete support of our peers in Northern Ireland. Voting and citizenship are essential features of any country that calls itself a democracy. Disenfranchising young people in this way goes completely against that. The Government is blatantly treating Northern Ireland as a second-class part of the United Kingdom”.

Another, a student at Newcastle University, said:

“Sir Keir Starmer once said that rights are only fair if they are universal. Isn’t telling one part of the country that citizenship and voting is vital, while simultaneously disenfranchising young people in another part of the country an example of two-tier”

citizenship? Yet another, not from Northern Ireland but from GB, said:

“The Government must think young people are exceptionally stupid”—

I never thought that about young people—

“if they can get away with telling young people in Stratford, Sittingbourne, Swansea or Strathclyde that citizenship and voting is vital while at the same time disenfranchising young people in Northern Ireland who are having laws thrust upon them from a foreign power without the ability to change that legislation”.

Surely there is something wrong here. I do not just throw this at the Government because, to be fair, they inherited it. This was the brainchild of the Conservative Party, so they do not stand here in a good light in relation to this.

Another young person, from Cardiff, said:

“What’s happening to our peers in Northern Ireland is a disgrace: stripped of rights, silenced by a state that dares to preach citizenship while practising discrimination. You don’t get to bang the drum for voting and civic duty in England, Wales and Scotland while turning Northern Ireland into a democratic wasteland”.

Can that be right? This is not policy; in my book, it is pure cowardice.

The Government cannot have it both ways. Either the strength of UK citizenship is really important across the whole country—such that it would be wrong, as Mr Thomas-Symonds MP suggests, for young people in any part of the country to feel that anyone in any other part of the country has a better chance than them of making the laws to which they are subject—or it really does not matter, such that it is absolutely fine not to have the right to stand for election to make the laws to which we are subject in 300 areas or to elect legislators for us in those areas.

The message of the young people who have written to me is clear. They used to enjoy the same chance of making the laws to which they were subject as anyone else in the country, notwithstanding the existence of hereditary Peers. Now that right has been taken from them such that they do not have the same chances as young people or indeed any adult living in the rest of the country to make the laws to which they are subject, and, as it was the Government who set in motion the securing of their disenfranchisement, they do not appreciate Ministers pretending to be concerned about the integrity of their citizenship. They do not feel that hereditary Peers should be made to feel like a threat to the integrity of their citizenship when the greatest threat to its integrity comes from the actions of the Government themselves.

In seeking to prevent a rerun of this calamity, we would do well to ensure that the smaller parts of the United Kingdom have significantly stronger representation in the upper House, which is why I happily support this amendment, although what we really need is to replace the Irish Sea border with mutual enforcement, re-enfranchising the people of Northern Ireland.

[Baroness O’Loan (CB)]

My Lords, I did not intend to support the debate on this particular amendment. However, having listened to the debate thus far, I think it is probably quite important that I say just one thing.

I did not get the letter to which the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, have referred—I am not quite sure why I did not get it as a Northern Ireland Peer, but I did not. I want to speak because it is important to reassure young people in Northern Ireland that they are not being disenfranchised, that they do have the right to stand for election in the United Kingdom and that, equally, they have the right to apply for admission here through the House of Lords Appointments Commission, as I did.

I work with Learn with the Lords, and most recently I attended Banbridge Academy in Northern Ireland. Some weeks ago, the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, once a pupil at Banbridge Academy, was introduced into your Lordships’ House. When I presented to those young people in Banbridge Academy, I showed them the video of the introduction of the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, and said to them, as I always say to the students to whom I speak, “You too can do this. The House of Lords is a place to which you can apply, but before you get there you are going to have to work very, very hard and build yourself a reputation”. So that is my first point. I want to reassure the young people of Northern Ireland that nothing in the Bill or indeed in the Windsor Framework disenfranchises them.

I want to say a brief word about the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee, of which I am a member. There are issues, and the scrutiny committee is working on those issues and will take evidence tomorrow from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy. But, apart from that, there is a recognition in Northern Ireland of advantage in the Windsor Framework. Businesses have given evidence to the predecessor Windsor Framework committee, to the effect that they had gained significant advantages from the existence of the Windsor Framework.

I just wanted to introduce a note of balance, to reassure young people and to say that all is not gloom and doom in Northern Ireland.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, I speak in support of the amendment in the names of my noble friends Lady Hoey and Lord Morrow, having similarly been in receipt of representations from young people in Northern Ireland.

What the Minister for the Constitution, Nick Thomas-Symonds, said is worthy of repeating:

“I want young people growing up in … my constituency, and … every part of the country, to feel that they have the same chance as anyone else to play a part in making the laws of the land”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/10/24; col. 719.]


That is very thoughtful of him, yet at the very same time that Minister would have fully known that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was less than three weeks away from sending a Motion to Stormont, on 31 October, asking MLAs to agree to the disfranchisement of their constituents, in relation to not just one law but a staggering 300 areas of law, as has been outlined by my noble friends.

For the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, to suggest to this Committee that young people are not being denied rights that others throughout the United Kingdom are receiving is not factual. The rights of young people—in fact, of the people of Northern Ireland—are not the same as those throughout the United Kingdom, and I will give the reason why.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

I have to point out to the noble Lord that a young person who applies from Scotland, Wales, England or Northern Ireland has equal rights to make law here in Westminster and in the devolved Assemblies. There is no difference. There is a different situation in Northern Ireland with regard to the framework, but the noble Lord is not correct in what he says.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

There are 300 areas of law that apply to people in Northern Ireland over which no elected representative, either here or in the Northern Ireland Assembly, has any control. That has not happened for England, Scotland, or Wales. I cannot understand how the noble Baroness, who has a bright past and certainly tremendous knowledge, would not understand the difference. There are 300 areas of law over which they have no control whatever. No matter how many elected representatives they send to either Westminster or the Assembly, they have no power over those areas of law.

It is bad enough to pressure MLAs to vote to disfranchise their constituents in 300 areas of law, but to do so while the Minister was trying to pretend that the Government are so committed to opening up lawmaking to all that they feel bound to do away with hereditary Peers generates an overall progressive impression that they are so divorced from the impact of their actions and delivers a message that serves only to greatly compound the underlying sense of injustice.

Moreover, I believe that it is an insult to hereditary Peers to suggest that it is a government priority to remove them while at the same time pressing changes on British citizens in Northern Ireland that impact on their lives in 300 areas of law over which they have no say, nor any democratic input.

On 1 March 2023, my colleague and noble friend Lord Morrow read out a submission from an 18 year- old student, Jack Steele. I wish to remind the Committee of something of what he said:

“As I have mentioned, I would like to see the importance of my rights restored to an equal footing with that of other members of the United Kingdom. I would like to see the rights which my parents enjoyed for 25 years, delegated to me. I would like to see the continuity of peace and civility rather than violence and disorder. I would like to see the restoration of democracy in Northern Ireland. I am young and I have a life to live. It’s my desire to see Northern Ireland work and to make a difference. However, I cannot make a difference as the right to elect people to legislate … has been stripped from my generation”


in 300 areas of law.

Two years later, we are no further along, and a generation of young people are disfranchised. That is why they are asking us today to raise our voices in this Committee and demand that they are made subject only to the laws which their elected representatives have decided and can therefore be held accountable for at the ballot box, and to stop the continual imposition of EU legislation on the people of Northern Ireland. They simply ask that they be treated on equal footing with the young people of England, Scotland and Wales.

Is it too much to ask that we not direct our focus and energies on removing hereditary Peers, which would make little difference to the lives of our young people in Northern Ireland, and instead divert our resources to stop the denial of democracy in Northern Ireland and rightfully restore the democratic rights of these young people?

17:45

I appreciate that simply increasing representation from Northern Ireland in this House would not guarantee a majority prepared to state that a credible way forward can involve the disfranchisement of any UK citizen, as is happening in Northern Ireland, but it would increase the chance of someone in government finally listening. The real answer, of course, is replacing the iniquitous Irish Sea border with mutual enforcement, which would facilitate the restoration of our citizenship. Let us hope that this debate today will at least help stimulate interest in our just cause.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, talked about how we need to think about our messaging. The noble Lord, Lord McCrea, has spoken about the denial of democracy and problems with democracy. I think that, as a House, we need to think about how we look to the outside world and where we are now in context. We look across to the United States and we see the subversion of constitutional democracy. We see here an increasingly disillusioned public, particularly the disillusioned young, throughout the country, not just in Northern Ireland.

I have just finished reading the latest book of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, the title of which is, Could it Happen Here? If we look ahead and think about the implications for British politics of the next four or five years—in which we may well have an economy that does not grow, foreign threats appearing much more serious, and foreign interference not only from Russia and China but from anti-democratic groups and billionaires within the United States—we could find ourselves, by the next general election, in a very difficult situation that challenges the assumptions of our democracy.

I say to the Conservatives here that, if they are still happily thinking about our established two-party system, they have not looked at the opinion polls for the last several months, in which our two established parties have been receiving well under 50% of public support, in which four parties have been receiving more than 10%—Reform has been up there, way ahead of the Conservative Party, most of the time—and in which the likelihood of turnout in the next general election dropping further ought seriously to concern us.

In his book, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, sets out a scenario for a future election taking place under conditions of economic difficulties, foreign interference and foreign threats, and disorder on the streets. That is serious. That is a threat to our constitutional democracy. That is what we ought to be considering, rather than, if I may respectfully suggest so, being overindulgent by talking about ourselves and a very modest—too modest—proposal for further minor reforms to the way this House operates. I appeal from these Benches that we recognise the context we are in and pay attention to that, rather than to ourselves.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, I commend the amendment brought forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and my noble friend Lord Morrow, and commend the young people who have helped to provoke this debate. I agree with the previous speaker that we need to focus on the future. Looking to our young people and to what we can do for them is very much at the heart of that.

I support this amendment, but not because I believe that Northern Ireland is the best part of the United Kingdom, nor because I believe that the Peers that come from Northern Ireland bring the greatest level of sagacity to this House. Those two things are self-evidently true, but I support this amendment because it identifies two deficiencies within the Bill. It does not do violence to the Bill but points out two things that we need to consider for the future.

Many unkind critics of the Bill will see the removal of the hereditary Peers by the current Government as a party-political gesture: throwing red meat to the activists within the Labour Party. Perhaps even unkinder people may say that it is used to distract from some of the actions of the Government in the last number of months—over pensioners, the WASPI women, the farmers or, most recently, those on disability benefits. I am sure that the Government would very clearly deny that. However, that denial has a level of credibility only if the actions taken in this Bill move beyond that one simple action of the removal of the hereditary Peers towards a much wider reform of our democracy and of this House.

The amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, does that by starting to look towards the future. What should the composition of this House be in the future? Undoubtedly, in terms of composition, we have a much more diverse House than we had a number of years ago. I recently viewed one of the old episodes of “Yes, Minister”, in which Sir Humphrey was sitting around the table with eight or nine of his Permanent Secretary colleagues, every one of them male, every one of them middle-aged and every one of them middle-class. He concluded a discussion by saying, “Well, I don’t think we could get a more diverse group of individuals than us here”.

Thankfully, we have begun to move away from those days. We have a much more diverse group of people within the House of Lords, from a wide range of backgrounds. But that is not to suggest that we can rest on our laurels. One area where we are still lacking is in a level of regional diversity throughout the United Kingdom. This House should be the voice of all parts of the United Kingdom. When I talk about regional balance, I do not mean between competing boroughs in north London; I mean throughout the entire country. In future, we need to reflect that. The amendment makes specific reference to Northern Ireland, but it could be true of other elements. In debate on one of the earlier amendments, it was mentioned that only one of the hereditary Peers came from Yorkshire, for example. We need to have that wider reflection. Therefore, keeping an observance of the composition of this House as we move forward and recognising that there is widespread representation of the diversity of this country, particularly on a regional basis, is important.

My second reason for commending this amendment, and the second gap that has been identified, is that the supposed driving force behind this amendment was a step towards equality, a step towards greater democracy and a step towards accountability. A case may be made that this is a step in that direction, but it rings hollow when people from my part of the United Kingdom are denied that level of equality, that level of democracy and that level of accountability, because of the current arrangements in place in the post-Brexit situation.

Two things need to happen to rectify that. First, the frictions that are there in terms of the Irish Sea need to be removed completely. We need to see, as the first step, the Government honouring what has been pledged in the past. When the previous Government proposed changes, the current Government, then in opposition, were fully in support of those. Yet we are now a number of months into the new Government and have not seen the speed of action that needs to take place. That is not simply a political point coming from these Benches. Evidence is being given of the daily impact on the ground by retailers, some of the large supermarkets, the haulage companies and the freight companies. That evidence will tell you of the friction that is there. Actions that need to be taken.

Secondly, as has been highlighted, for Northern Ireland a deep democratic deficit has been left, which means that, uniquely, we are left in a situation in which, on a wide range of our laws, we are placed in a different position from the rest of the United Kingdom. Solutions can be pursued. My preferred solution would be mutual enforcement. However, we are told by the Government that they are going to do a reset with Europe. Nobody is quite clear what that means. I suspect that the parameters of any form of reset are probably changing on a relatively daily basis as the world changes. If the Prime Minister is to be genuine in what he means by a broader reset, we need to see a reset which treats all the United Kingdom on an exactly equal basis, with exactly the same rights, responsibilities and restrictions as any other part of the United Kingdom. We need to see a reset not simply with our wider external relations or indeed the internal unity of the United Kingdom. If this Bill and this amendment are to have value, we need to see a reset of our democracy, our sense of equality and our sense of accountability. This amendment has been very useful in provoking that debate.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, I can say without fear of contradiction that our former colleague the Countess of Mar would have been incredibly voluble over the past 35 minutes or so.

I rise to make my first contribution to proceedings on this Bill from the Opposition Front Bench. Speaking as somebody whose origins are in the city of Leeds, some 200 miles away from north London, I hasten to add that my origins are about as far removed from the world of hereditary Peers, stately homes and landed estates as it is possible to be. I put on record my strong opposition to the measures contained in this legislation, and indeed the motivations behind it. The Bill, should it go through unamended, will sweep away centuries of unique British heritage and tradition from Parliament and our national life. The House that remains will be a fundamentally different institution, and not for the better.

I intend to pay some lip service to the Standing Orders and actually speak to the terms of the amendment on the Order Paper before the House this evening. However, while preparing to speak to the amendment, I could not help but reflect on the role and representation of Northern Ireland Peers in your Lordships’ House and the contribution that Peers of Ireland over many centuries have made, which continues in a small way to this day. Some of these titles in the Peerage of Ireland predate the Act of Union. My noble friend Lord Courtown and the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, who was in his place a short while ago, are two examples. Their forebears would have been entitled to sit in the pre-union Irish House of Lords in Dublin. Incidentally, the Chamber of the Irish House of Lords is preserved intact inside the Bank of Ireland, the old Parliament House, opposite Trinity College on College Green, should noble Lords wish to visit it. I would very much recommend that they do; it is well worth it.

After 1801 and the union, the Peers of Ireland, around 100-strong, did not gain the automatic right to sit in the House of Lords. Some, such as Lord Palmerston, spent their entire careers in the House of Commons. It might be argued by some that, under the union, when it came to the hereditary peerage, there was an Irish Sea border. Instead of the automatic right, as my noble friend Lord Northbrook reminded us, under Article 4 of the union, a fixed number of 28 Irish representative Peers were elected from among the peerage of Ireland to serve here for life. Some Peers of Ireland were also given peerages of Great Britain or the United Kingdom. This practice continued into the 20th century. For those who think that by-elections to your Lordships’ House are a recent innovation, they actually have a much longer pedigree.

As has been pointed out on a number of occasions during earlier debates on this Bill, the secession of the Irish Free State from the United Kingdom in 1922 did not lead to the ejection of the 28 Irish representative Peers from this House. They were, wisely, allowed to stay, though their numbers were no longer replenished until the last one, the 4th Earl of Kilmorey, died in 1961, thus allowing the Irish representative Peers to disappear from this House gradually with good grace and dignity.

18:00

I support those who believe that this is the precedent that should have been followed in this Bill in respect of remaining hereditary Peers, and I hope the Government Front Bench will take a more constructive attitude to the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Mobarik, to which she spoke so movingly. As it stands, the Bill will sweep away the last remnants of the Peers of Ireland from this House, and part of the rich tapestry of the peerage and our history will be gone for ever, much to our detriment.

In turning directly to the amendment before the House, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising the important issue of Northern Ireland representation. As a number of colleagues heard me say when I was the other side of the Dispatch Box, I am a unionist first and a Conservative second, and I believe strongly that Northern Ireland should be as fairly and equitably represented as other constituent parts of the United Kingdom. Alas, that has not always been the prevailing opinion. I can well remember, when I was working as an adviser at the Northern Ireland Office in the early 1990s, just how hard the then Ulster Unionist leader, Jim Molyneaux, had to fight to be allowed to nominate just one life Peer.

The prevailing view within officialdom at the time was that such a move would be seen as integrationist in nature, bringing Northern Ireland closer to Great Britain, and would therefore be unwelcome to nationalism and, of course, to Dublin. Thankfully, and particularly in the post-1998 agreement era, we have moved on from that, and a steady succession of distinguished figures from Northern Ireland have been appointed to your Lordships’ House as life Peers. Those of us who have had the privilege of debating with them frequently can testify to just how doggedly, determinedly and persuasively, across the Chamber, they fight Northern Ireland’s corner; we have had an example of that this afternoon. They are much valued colleagues and friends, not least my noble friend Lord Empey, who was one of my supporters when I was introduced to your Lordships’ House in 2016. If I may add a personal note, I put on record just how much I, and I suspect the House more generally, miss the wise counsel of one of the greatest of Northern Ireland politicians, Lord Trimble.

Under this legislation, Northern Ireland stands to lose its one hereditary Peer, the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, who has been here since 1987, having survived the cull in 1999. The noble Viscount comes, of course, from a distinguished County Fermanagh family, his grandfather being the third Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, who was himself also the nephew of the great Field Marshal, Lord Alanbrooke.

The noble Viscount is a farmer, a soldier, a former member of the Policing Board, a lord-lieutenant and Knight of the Garter whose knowledge of and devotion to County Fermanagh and to Northern Ireland is profound. His entire life has been one of duty and service to his country and his sovereign. If anything highlights one of the great iniquities in this Bill, it is the prospect of losing him while at the same time keeping some who make absolutely no contribution here.

However, political representation from Northern Ireland in your Lordships’ House remains overwhelmingly unionist in composition. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, is almost the sole voice of constitutional Irish nationalism in this Chamber, and she is very highly respected across this House. It is a shame the noble Baroness is not in her place this afternoon.

If there is to be a commission or a review of the type set out in the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, while it might be too much to expect Sinn Fein to take up places here, give that they refuse to take their seats in the other place on the grounds that it is, to them, a foreign Parliament, I hope that, in future, the SDLP, of which the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, is a distinguished former leader, could be persuaded to nominate and to ensure that the nationalist tradition, too, is properly represented in this House, so that we get the widest range of political opinion from across Northern Ireland. I say that as someone whose strong preference is, as your Lordships know, for the union, but it is important that we have a greater representation of nationalism in your Lordships’ House.

I conclude by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, once again for her amendment, the sentiments behind which I support, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, before I turn to the substance of the amendment, I place on record my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey—whose ingenuity, as ever, I admire—on finding a new way for us to debate the Windsor Framework in your Lordships’ House.

I want to reassure all noble Lords who participated in this debate, but especially the noble Baroness and the noble Lords, Lord Morrow, Lord McCrea and Lord Weir, that I am always more than happy to debate the Windsor Framework and its implementation at any time. In fact, since the general election, we have discussed it in your Lordships’ House, through the method of regret amendments, for many hours, and I have been here, as I am sure the noble Baroness will testify, for every moment of said debates. I therefore hope that noble Lords know of my personal commitment to Northern Ireland, along with that of my noble friend the Leader of the House of Lords.

I know that noble Lords were quoting from the Telegraph today, but I hope that they do not question the commitment of Government Front-Benchers to Northern Ireland and the events happening there. I would welcome a conversation outside this Chamber with the noble Baroness about how we can move forward and perhaps engage with some of the signatories to the letter.

I also want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, for her reassuring voice and the contribution she has made in respect of young people from across the United Kingdom, but especially from Northern Ireland; this House is as accessible to them as it is to any other British citizen. I say that as a working-class woman born in Edinburgh, educated in Bristol, with a London accent, who is proud to have “Stoke-on-Trent” in my title and to be a Member of your Lordships’ House.

On that note, I also want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, for his considered comments on the future of democracy. We have a Question on Thursday which I will be replying to, and which he may like to participate in. I also want to recognise the contribution of the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, and to place on record my thanks to him for hosting me when I visited in February. Brookeborough House now hosts a facility to support veterans who served during the Troubles; it was a privilege to meet him and the veterans at his house.

I want to thank the noble Baroness for her amendment and all noble Lords for their contributions. The Government are clear that this House works best when diverse perspectives are represented, including from all nations and regions of the United Kingdom. Alongside the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, we have a number of Peers from Northern Ireland who have brought so much to the House. We currently have 12 former Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, two of whom are former Speakers there, and two former First Ministers. Such diversity deepens and enriches the House’s ability to scrutinise legislation and to hold the Government of the day to account; I think I can speak for the noble Lord, Lord Caine, too, on that issue. I, for one, very much enjoy working with noble Lords on these issues, which are so relevant to Members of your Lordships’ House: from legacy-related issues to public service transformation and the post-Brexit trading environment, which has been today’s theme.

As has been mentioned before, it is the responsibility of party leaders, including the Prime Minister, to consider who is best placed to represent their party in the House of Lords when nominating individuals to your Lordships’ House. I would hope that, as part of that consideration, Prime Ministers reflect on the national and regional representation of this place. The Government have also committed to more fundamental reform by establishing an alternative second Chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations of the United Kingdom. I hope that gives some reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Weir. We will consult on proposals to provide an opportunity for the public to contribute their views on how to ensure that the alternative Chamber best serves them. I therefore respectfully request that the noble Baroness withdraw this amendment.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for responding in her usual way and showing that she actually cares about Northern Ireland. We all know she does very much, and we are very lucky to have her on the Front Bench. I also thank her for mentioning the young people and the Daily Telegraph letter. I was very disappointed that the opposition spokesperson did not even mention that and that he was more interested in the history of Irish Peers. I thank the noble Baroness for that; perhaps it might be helpful if we arrange a meeting for those young people next time she is in Northern Ireland. That would be very helpful.

I will pick up just one point to make this clear. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and others mentioned the idea that somehow any young person in Northern Ireland could be elected, just like any other normal person. That is not the point; the point is that they cannot be elected to anywhere that makes the laws for their own country. I really do not understand why noble Peers do not understand this: no one in this House can make laws for part of Northern Ireland in those 300 areas of the law.

I will give your Lordships two quick examples: the two “p”s—pets and parcels. Not a single person in Northern Ireland had a say here about what was going to happen with parcels being sent from people in this country to Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. No one had a say on pet passports. They had nothing to do with democracy in this place, in the House of Commons or in Stormont. It is a nonsense to say that people are being treated in the same way.

I thank the noble Baroness the Minister for talking about my ingenuity. Lots of other people are involved in this. I will give way.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

I thank the noble Baroness for giving way, but she did accuse me of speaking nonsense. My point is that people from Northern Ireland who are elected to the House of Commons and people from Northern Ireland who serve in your Lordships’ House have the same rights to make law as Peers and Members of Parliament from other parts of the United Kingdom. The fact that we have a situation in Northern Ireland that is slightly different from that in the rest of the United Kingdom, in terms of the single market, is the product of the Brexit vote and nothing else. The repercussions of it apply across the United Kingdom, so it is incorrect to say that the people of Northern Ireland have lesser rights on things like that. Quite simply, we all have the same rights, but we have different constitutional positions.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

I thank the noble Baroness; I think she has made my point for me. The reality is that the European Union decides the issues in Northern Ireland. No young person—none of the 15 young people who wrote that letter—will have any say on their future, unless the Windsor Framework and the protocol change. Every time we raise these debates, all I want is to get the Government to recognise—although they were not directly involved in doing this so we also want to get the Opposition to recognise—that the Windsor Framework and the protocol are unsustainable if we care about the United Kingdom and about democracy.

I thank your Lordships again for taking an interest. I am sure that I and other Peers will find other ways of raising this issue. It will not go away, because it is about democracy and the union of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 90F withdrawn.

Clause 2: Claims to hereditary peerages

Amendment 91 not moved.

Amendment 92 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.

Amendment 93

Moved by

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar]

93: Clause 2, page 1, line 8, at end insert—
“(3) Any peerage claim is to be made to His Majesty in Council.(4) A claim under this section must be made in accordance with such rules as His Majesty may by Order in Council prescribe. (5) Section 3 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833 (reference to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of appeals to His Majesty in Council) applies to a claim under this section as it applies to an appeal to His Majesty in Council from a court.(6) The Judicial Committee may require an applicant to give such security for the costs of the proceedings as the Judicial Committee may direct.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to clarify the future of claims to a hereditary peerage as originally drafted by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel for the House of Lords Reform Bill 2012.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 93 would put the process for dealing with peerage claims into the hands of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. When the Bill was published, many people noted that Clause 2 abolishes the role of the House of Lords in peerage claims, expressly including claims to peerages that are in abeyance. However, it does not replace that system; in other words, the clause abolishes but does not also replace.

I appreciate that, three weeks ago in this Committee, the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General, whom I am delighted to see here, appeared somewhat surprised to find that there are many Peers who do not sit in your Lordships’ House but are Peers none the less. That is a fact. We must have an effective system in place to determine peerage claims.

The Explanatory Notes to the Bill set out how this process is to work in future. I will quote them, because this is short and clear:

“As well as removing the final link between hereditary peerage and membership of the House of Lords, the Bill also abolishes the jurisdiction of the House of Lords in hereditary peerage claims. The intention is that: a. any complex or disputed peerage claims that would have otherwise been considered by the House of Lords will instead be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council by way of section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833; and b. claimants to a peerage of Ireland will no longer petition the House of Lords to confirm their succession”.

18:15

This raises two short questions with which my amendment is designed to deal. First, why should this process not be in the Bill? Secondly, what process will exist for the Irish peerage? We heard something about the interesting history of the Irish peerage in the last group.

I am sure that noble Lords have this at their fingertips, but I will just set out the current process by which a person can claim a hereditary peerage to which they are entitled. Under the current system, when somebody inherits a peerage that is neither complex nor disputed, they apply to the Lord Chancellor, through the Crown Office, to be included in the Roll of the Peerage. If the title to which they are succeeding or claiming is an Irish title, the claimant must take the additional step of petitioning this House directly.

Where a claim is complex or disputed, or where the Lord Chancellor, having received the application, is not satisfied that the claimant has established a right to succession, the matter is referred here to the House of Lords. It is then passed to a committee for determination; that committee is made up of three current holders of high judicial office—three senior judges—who are not Members of the House and four Members of the House. The committee then reports back to the House. The House usually resolves a claim in line with the committee’s decision—I am not sure what happens if it does not—with this resolution reported to the Crown.

This process was established following the royal warrant of 2004, which was itself made necessary by the last Labour Government’s constitutional changes. So this is a problem of the Labour Party’s making. Again, it is another example where it has had a long time to complete some second-stage reform, but has failed to do so. The current system, as I have set out, is not straightforward; it might be good for lawyers, but not for anybody else. Would it not be simpler to have this system set out in the Bill, rather than it hiding away under the royal warrant and guidance from the Ministry of Justice? The Government have set out their intentions in the Explanatory Notes, and I do not disagree with them and the principle behind which the Explanatory Notes and my amendment sit; I really seek to have those intentions reflected in the statute.

As I have said, the Bill abolishes the role of the House of Lords in determining the claims, but without putting a replacement system into law. We need clarity for Ministers about how this will work in future. I hope that, when the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General replies, he sets out what provisions will be made for Irish Peers to claim their titles, after the role of the House of Lords in these claims has been abolished, because that would expressly fall away. Can the noble and learned Lord confirm that it is the Government’s intention that claimants to Irish peerages will need to apply only to the Lord Chancellor to be entered on the Roll of the Peerage in the first instance; and that complex or disputed Irish peerage claims would also be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in the same way that complex or disputed claims to other peerages will be?

The amendment is important because if, at a future date, there are no hereditary Peers in your Lordships’ House, it would make sense for this House not to be involved in determining peerage claims. Equally, however, we need a clear and comprehensive system and method to determine those claims. I suggest that that is best done in the Bill. For those reasons, I beg to move.

Amendment 93A (to Amendment 93)

Moved by

[Lord Northbrook]

93A: At end insert—
“(7) The Judicial Committee must seek the advice of and evidence from Garter King of Arms (for England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and the Lord Lyon (for Scotland) when determining peerage claims under this section.”

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, my probing Amendment 93A would safeguard the current process of proving succession to a peerage. According to the College of Arms:

“The Royal Warrant of 2004 requires that a person wishing to be recognised as a Peer prove succession to the relevant dignity, to the satisfaction of the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. Garter King of Arms provides a ruling to the Crown on whether each claim has been satisfactorily made out”.


For more complex claims, the current process is that

“advice should be sought from an officer of the College of Arms in London, the Court of the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh (for Peerages of Scotland), or a solicitor”.

As my noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar said, claims are currently made

“by submission of a formal Petition to the House of Lords and Statutory Declaration to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice via the Crown Office, made on behalf of the claimant by a suitable person”.

According to the Ministry of Justice guidance notes, the current situation is that the Lord Chancellor is charged with keeping a Roll of the Peerage to ensure that, as far as possible, records of successions of peerages are kept in good order. The point of my amendment is to ensure that, when the House of Lords is removed from any role in determining new peerages, the existing roles of the College of Arms and the Lord Lyon are fully taken into account, as well as the procedures for proving succession to a peerage. As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, said, this Bill is about hereditary Peers. My worry is that if the Ministry of Justice is to be in sole charge of approving hereditary peerage claims, further legislation could be brought in to abolish hereditary peerages in their entirety.

Finally, as a non-lawyer, may I ask the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General how contested peerage claims are going to be dealt with in detail? Do they go to the lower courts first and up through that process? Why is the final Court of Appeal going to be the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council? From my layman’s understanding, the committee mainly handles cases from our overseas territories and certain Commonwealth countries. Why is it not to be the Supreme Court? I have read that judgments of the Judicial Committee are not binding on UK courts, having only persuasive authority. Does this not add an unnecessary extra layer of complexity to this issue, and could this not be resolved by just replacing the Judicial Committee with the Supreme Court?

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I really think we are giving these matters a significance they do not deserve. I absolutely do not think that the Privy Council should be made responsible for the adjudication. That might have been the case in 1833 and while we had hereditary Peers dominant in this House, but the truth is that the possession of a hereditary peerage will confer no right to sit in this House of Lords. That being so, what is the purpose of this amendment? There is often dispute between prospective Peers: one says that they are entitled and the other says that they are. Well, that is a matter for them. It is a sort of boundary dispute. It would perhaps be a proper matter for a county court—or if, for that matter, there was a financial settlement of some substance, maybe for the High Court—but the idea that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council or the Supreme Court should be involved in a quarrel between two people claiming to be a hereditary Peer is complete nonsense.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, seemed to indicate that hereditary Peers may not exist here in the House of Lords in the future, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, indicated something similar. At what point will there be no hereditary Peers in the House of Lords, and how might that situation—which I would strongly support—come about?

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Wolfson’s Amendment 93. I totally disagree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham on this. It is a matter of significant importance to families, whether it is about a peerage or about entitlement with regard to due process around issues such as inheritance and legitimate descent.

For my part, I exceeded the 100 days set out in the Tony Wedgwood Benn renouncement Act, which was passed in 1963. Post 1963, you could not renounce further than 100 days unless you had clarity within that 100 days about renouncing. I was a Minister in another place at the time. I therefore went through six years of process to satisfy my family, and indeed my grandfather and father, that the rightful inheritor of the title and a small estate was indeed one of three boys, I being the man at the time—there were two young boys. I say to my noble friend that I felt duty-bound to go through that process and, on behalf of the family, to come to the right conclusion. My experience lasted some six years of detailed work: it went through the Tunbridge Wells Magistrates’ Court and the Family Division and ultimately came here.

I think my noble friend is trying to seek clarity and find a Bill in which that clarity can be made available to disputes outside this Chamber as well as, as currently, to people within it. In many respects, the burden of proof is very significant. In my case it was the first use of DNA, to refute the paternity of my half-brother’s fourth wife’s child and then to finally render his son illegitimate from the fifth wife because of a bigamous marriage and forgery of the divorce papers. I simply put that in the context of the difficulties that some of these cases lead to.

The monarch’s role, while symbolic, still carries weight in recognising or confirming legitimacy of hereditary peerages and of a claim. Each case is unique. The process can be lengthy and complex, especially where controversy and legal disputes apply. I believe the Moynihan case underscores the intricate nature of peerage succession and the legal challenges that can arise concerning legitimacy and inheritance. As I say, that is not primarily because of a seat in the House of Lords: it is a matter of family. I think everybody here and their families want to make sure that they know who their parents are and that, especially if some great act has been done by a forebear, it is recognised in the family and there is due process. Given that peerages are granted ultimately through the symbolic role of the Crown, I think that the simple amendment that my noble friend has put forward, and the Lord Chancellor’s response, will be very helpful in this context.

The process outlined by my noble friend Lord Wolfson, drawing on the House of Lords Reform Bill in 2012, is right. My only concern is that the cost of the process should never deter to prove a legitimate case being heard. I represented myself in court at each stage of the process. That is not always possible for people who genuinely want to make sure that the right outcome is determined.

I am sure the Attorney-General will give us clarity as to the process to be followed. If there is the opportunity and necessity for an amendment to be made, it could well be made through this Bill in order to clarify the position moving forward, without any relevance whatever to a seat in the House of Lords.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I will say two things very quickly. The first is on Amendment 93A. The Lord Lyon is also a King of Arms, so that ought to be added after “the Lord Lyon”. He is in fact King of Arms for Scotland, whereas Garter is not. His jurisdiction is north of the border, over the Scottish titles.

The second thing is that I have a feeling that, sometime in the past, titles could be heritable property in Scotland and have come under some of those laws there, so if someone does something it probably has to be dealt with by law courts and not in the very casual way that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, is talking about. I am afraid I disagree with him. This amendment, which may need to be modified, goes some way to clarifying the situation that it ought to go here—otherwise, I think we will have a mess in the courts later. I thoroughly approve of Amendment 93 and, with a slight caveat, of Amendment 93A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook.

18:30

[The Attorney-General (Lord Hermer) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Wolfson and Lord Northbrook, for their amendments, and all noble Lords for their contributions. These amendments seek to provide how peerage claims in the future will be dealt with. As the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, pointed out, from his own personal experience, there is a need for clarity. In the Government’s view, with respect, that will not be achieved through these amendments, but I hope that this address to your Lordships can provide the clarity that is sought.

I start by providing a brief overview of the Government’s intention for peerage claims, starting with the process as it currently is, as was set out by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson. As many of your Lordships will know, a peerage claim is when a person seeks to be formally recognised as the holder of a title of a hereditary peerage. Usually, it is the case that the claimant of a peerage is the undisputed heir and is entered on to the Roll of the Peerage following an application to the Lord Chancellor. However, as the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, illustrates, if the Lord Chancellor refuses—for example, if the claim to title is not immediately made out or the claim is disputed or complex—a person can pursue it by way of petition to the Crown.

Currently, these petitions are referred to the House of Lords to advise the Crown on how to determine the claim. As a matter of high principle, since the Bill removes the final link between hereditary peerages and membership of your Lordships’ House, the Government consider that it is no longer appropriate for hereditary peerage claims to be considered by your Lordships’ House. Clause 2 therefore removes such jurisdiction from this House.

In future, the intention is that any complex or disputed peerage claims, which would have been referred by the Crown to this House, will instead be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The Judicial Committee’s constitutional role is to advise the sovereign, so it is ideally placed to consider these matters. In answer to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, the position will be precisely the same in respect of disputed Irish peerages.

With those principles in mind, I turn to the amendments. Amendment 93, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, seeks to set out a new process for making claims for hereditary peerages by replicating the provisions of the House of Lords Reform Bill of 2012, which, your Lordships will remember, did not proceed. There are two reasons why we do not consider it appropriate.

The first reason is that it seeks to provide an express power to refer claims to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. However, that power already exists in Section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833, which provides that His Majesty may refer matters to the Judicial Committee for consideration and advice. I am sure noble Lords would agree that, where it is unnecessary to duplicate legislative provisions, we should avoid doing so.

The second reason is that the amendment is based on disproportionality, as it would require all peerage claims to be made to His Majesty in Council, rather than through the filter of a first application to the Lord Chancellor, as the royal warrant provides for. It would place a duty on the Judicial Committee to deal with all peerage claims, including straightforward claims that are not currently considered by your Lordships House.

The amendment would therefore result in a significant increase in claims already considered beyond the stage of consideration by the Lord Chancellor to be entered on the Roll of the Peerage. It would lead to an increase in work of the already hard-working—indeed, overworked —Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Based on recent figures, the amendment would result in the Judicial Committee having to consider an average of 12 claims per year. By contrast, the House of Lords has considered only seven complex claims over the course of the last 50 years. It would be a very considerable increase in business for the Judicial Committee, and, with respect, it would be disproportionate to place that burden upon it.

Amendment 93A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, seeks to place a duty on the Judicial Committee to

“seek the advice of and evidence from Garter King of Arms … and the Lord Lyon … when determining peerage claims”.

The royal warrant of 2004 established the Roll of the Peerage, which is prepared in consultation with Garter and the Lord Lyon. The warrant also outlines the first stage in the peerage claims process, which is an application to the Lord Chancellor to be entered on the Roll of the Peerage, which the Lord Chancellor may refuse or accept. Following such an application, advice is sought from the Garter King of Arms or the Lord Lyon, who prepare a report on the claim and make a recommendation to the Lord Chancellor. The noble Lord’s amendment would place a statutory requirement on Garter or the Lord Lyon to advise the Judicial Committee. However, that is not necessary, because the Judicial Committee will already have access to the reports of the Kings of Arms during any consideration of the claim. For those reasons, the amendment would place what we consider to be an unnecessary and duplicate burden on the Kings of Arms.

I hope that I have answered already the noble Lord’s question as to why it would be appropriate for these matters, where they are disputed, to go to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council rather than to the Supreme Court. In essence, it is because the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is, constitutionally, the appropriate place for the monarch to refer disputed claims. Therefore, we consider it to be the appropriate body, not the Supreme Court.

In answer to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, as to when the last hereditary Peer will be able to sit in your Lordships’ House, as your Lordships will know, the aim of the Bill is that that will happen at the end of the Session after Royal Assent.

Grateful as we are for the amendments tabled by the noble Lords, we respectfully ask that they consider withdrawing them.

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General for his detailed and considered reply. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 93A (to Amendment 93) withdrawn.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I will of course withdraw the amendment. Before I do, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General for answering the question about the Irish peerages. I will look very carefully at what he said in response to the rest.

I had a wry smile when the noble and learned Lord said that it is unnecessary to duplicate legislation. I started off with that aim as well and I ended up with the Pet Abduction Act 2024. It is all very well when you are faced with a lawyer across the Dispatch Box here, but when you are faced with a group from the House of Commons with the wind in their sails, it may be more difficult to hold to that. I used to tell people that the statute book was not a form of semaphore to send signals, but that often fell on deaf ears.

I am grateful for the support I had en passant from my noble friend Lord Northbrook. Respectfully, I fundamentally disagree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham. There is an interesting—by which commercial lawyers normally mean expensive—legal question raised by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, as to whether a peerage is a matter of property or not. Quite beyond that, we do not want these cases starting in the county court and going all the way up. We need somewhere to resolve them, and the Privy Council is the obvious place. It resolves other sorts of disputes to do with universities and things like that. It would be a bit of fun for it, in between all the other difficult jurisdictional work that it does. My noble friend Lord Moynihan gave a good example of a disputed peerage.

My answer to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher—who was obviously satisfied with the Attorney-General’s answer, because she has now gone—was going to be slightly different. I was going to encourage the noble Baroness to stay for groups 5 and 7, when the questions of commencement and when we will have the last hereditary Peer will be before the Committee. I was not going to give an answer now, so that she would stay and listen to the debates on those groups. I hope that she comes back.

On a more serious note, if there are discussions, as we have heard, through the usual channels on the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, the answer given might be that it will be when one of the current hereditary Peers in the House reaches the ripe old age of 120. Subject to that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 93 withdrawn.

Clause 2 agreed.

Amendment 94 not moved.

Amendment 95

Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

95: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Review: impact of this Act on the effectiveness of the House of LordsWithin two years of the day on which this Act is passed, and annually thereafter, the Secretary of State must publish a report on the impact of this Act on the effectiveness of the House of Lords at discharging its core functions.”

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 95, I will speak to my other amendments in this group. I very much hope that we will be able to amend this Bill so that the House of Lords, as it carries on from it, is a great deal better at improving and reforming itself, and being a reflective, ever-improving place than the House of Lords has been in the 30 or so years that I have been here. This amendment is a small attempt to add some drive and mechanism for self-improvement to the Bill. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, within this group, I will refer to my Amendments 96 and 99. Amendment 96 focuses on four connected aspects, including the quality of legislative and government scrutiny that the House of Lords provides; the relationship between His Majesty’s Government and Parliament; the balance of power between His Majesty’s Government and Parliament; and the example that the Parliament of the United Kingdom sets to the Commonwealth, member states of the Council of Europe and the rest of the world.

Within 12 months of this Bill becoming an Act, a duty would be imposed on the Secretary of State to produce a detailed review of how these four aspects have been affected. Central to them is

“the quality of legislative and government scrutiny that the House of Lords provides”,

as expressed in proposed new subsection (b). Your Lordships will agree that it is that attribute of our present House which must continue within a reformed House, where its quality function takes precedent and to which membership composition is a secondary and subservient consideration.

Thereby, this consideration connects to the three other aspects, beginning with the relationship between His Majesty’s Government and Parliament. As indicated in proposed new subsection (a), within a reformed House, the sustained quality of function of the present House has to enable the same constructive working relationship as that at present between this House as a revising Chamber of Parliament and the Government in another place, the House of Commons.

This is not so much to challenge or contradict legislation proposed by the Government, but instead constantly and competently to revise and improve whatever that proposed legislation might be. Consequently, as a by-product and in the light of the huge number of amendments accepted every year, cross-party solidarity and resolve develop among parliamentarians, both here and in another place, to help the Government of the day to improve their initial versions of proposed legislation.

That in turn reflects an achievable balance of power between His Majesty’s Government and Parliament, which is referred to by proposed new subsection (c). Within the United Kingdom, such balance is dependent on the democratic forces of local authorities and regional Parliaments, and the opportunity for those energies to contribute towards a desirable balance of power between the Westminster national government and Parliament.

This opportunity comes as a result of a reformed Westminster second Chamber to which the majority of its temporal Members, serving for 15 years, might be indirectly or directly elected, coming to the House with the authority of parliamentarians representing all parts of the United Kingdom and therefore assisting the balance between His Majesty’s Government and Parliament—exactly in the necessary direction implied by Quintin Hogg when, in view of our voting system allowing large government majorities for one political party or another, he coined the term “elective dictatorship” as he warned of the risk within the United Kingdom of political imbalance and extremes. Here, I am very grateful to his son, my noble friend Lord Hailsham, for his support for Amendment 96 and, in particular, of its proposed new subsection (c), in favour of an improved balance between His Majesty’s Government and Parliament.

Proposed new subsection (d) highlights the example that the United Kingdom Parliament sets to the Commonwealth, the 46 member states of the Council of Europe and the rest of the world, in which regard your Lordships will agree that if a reformed second Chamber can strengthen democracy in the United Kingdom, by example it may be able to do so elsewhere as well.

Amendment 99 also refers to the duty of the Secretary of State to carry out a review within 12 months of the new Act, yet it also outlines various other proposed amendments already debated. All these have in common that they seek to sustain the present quality of function of this House, where numbers in a reformed House are capped at 620, with 20 Lords spiritual and 600 temporal Members, of whom the majority are of political Members, with the government and opposition parties having exactly the same numbers, and where, through HOLAC, the numbers of non-political Cross-Benchers are increased.

18:45

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 101, which calls for a constitutional conference. We have spent much time debating what the composition of your Lordships’ House should be in the future, but I am afraid that we have the cart before the horse: before you decide on how you would like to reconstitute the membership of your Lordships’ House, you have to decide what they are going to do.

This is the problem that we have at the moment: the Bill does not address the question of the powers of your Lordships’ House. However, until you have decided on the powers of your Lordships’ House, you cannot really decide how you are going to change the membership. At that point, you will get completely bogged down, because you will not then be able to tell people who are elected to your Lordships’ House that they cannot vote at Second Reading, that there is a limit on the amount of ping-pong you can play with the elected House, and so forth.

I sincerely hope that the Government will institute a constitutional conference on the relative powers, because that will be a vexed and difficult issue. I am sure that the other place rather revels in the fact that this House is so illegitimate. Since it can claim that it is legitimate and has a democratic mandate, it can basically overrule what happens in your Lordships’ House, which is reduced to the role of a revising Chamber. On the other hand, the Government have to decide what this House really does. I suggest that it would be very sensible to set up a constitutional conference to work on the relative powers, which could be introduced to your Lordships’ House as it stands today. The Government could then see the results of the decisions made by a constitutional conference on what should and should not happen in this House with the existing membership before they perhaps decide to change the membership overall.

The composition of your Lordships’ House is an extremely complicated issue as well, because there are many different facets to your Lordships’ House, not least the Cross Benches, which play a very valuable role in the deliberations of your Lordships’ House in revising legislation. On the other hand, it is very difficult to see how you can combine the Cross Benches with an elected House; I do not see how you elect independent Members. The political parties would have something to say about elections. It is complicated. Perhaps you could appoint Members of the Cross Benches and have other Members elected, but this is all quite difficult. What happens to the Lords spiritual? Are we to continue to have them in this House if it becomes elected?

Many different issues are raised on the whole question of the composition of your Lordships’ House, not least the issue of elections. Are you going to have elections on the same day as you have a general election for the other place, or at a different time? Do you want the composition of this House politically to be different from that of the House of Commons, or do you want it to be the same?

There are many different issues that come up on this, and it needs a lot of deliberation and cross-party discussions, and we have to give serious thought to how this will all work out in the future. Unless we do think through all this, we will get ourselves into a terrible muddle. It is no good people just getting up saying, “I believe in an elected House”, as the Prime Minister did the other day. You have to think through the ramifications of having an elected House. Would an elected House challenge the House of Commons? I suspect it would. Therefore, you come back to the relative powers of each House.

We are in grave danger of getting into a complete muddle over all this. If we want clear thinking into the future, we will have to work these things out with cross-party consensus, and through constitutional conferences, to arrive at some form of system for the future. This is nothing other than very complicated; we should be giving serious thought to it now.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on Amendments 95 and 96 to which I have put my name. In doing so, I have basically three concerns. First, I have a strong suspicion that the Government will bring no further proposal for the reform of the House of Lords during the lifetime of this Parliament. Secondly, related to that, a review would act as a spur, so there is just a chance that a review might encourage them to do so. Thirdly, I think the public should know that many of us in this House favour a much more radical solution to the composition and powers of this House. I am one of those: I believe in an elected Chamber.

That takes me to the point made by my noble friend Lord Hamilton. I entirely agree with him that fundamental to any debate should be the powers of this House, because from a decision on the powers stems the decision as to composition. If you are content with being but a revising Chamber, then a process very similar to what we now have is perfectly appropriate. But if, as I believe, you need to have a Chamber which has powers commensurate with the House of Commons and can face the House of Commons down in appropriate cases, then it has got to be elected. I have always believed that, to stand against the elective dictatorship of which my father wrote and spoke, we need an elected House with powers similar to those in the House of Commons.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I very largely agree with the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom. My Amendment 101A is slightly more ambitious—perhaps too ambitious for the taste of your Lordships this evening. We have debated this Bill for four full days now. I do not wish to test the patience of noble Lords much further, but I do think we are missing an opportunity here.

I rather share the view that, as far as the Government are concerned, this will be it in relation to this House. I do not see them moving to any further stage, certainly not in this Parliament. All the evidence, for instance, on an age restriction in this House suggests that it is slightly eclipsed by the average age of the most recent appointments made by the Government to this House.

However, it is worth pausing to consider that, since two fundamental issues have arisen with implications for the constitution—those being devolution and Brexit—we have had no deep thought as to how we now wish this country to be governed. In fact, the last royal commission, which is what my amendment calls for, was instigated in 1969: Lord Crowther started it, and it was finished by Lord Kilbrandon in 1973. It was a contentious commission. Two people resiled from signing it, and people did not agree on it, but at least there was a debate about how we wished this country to be governed.

We have seen a lot of things happen without there being any thorough or clear thought as to whether they are the sort of things that we want to happen. We have seen an expansion in the Welsh Parliament; just recently, they have extended the number of Members. We have seen debates within the Scottish Parliament as to whether you can be a Member of Parliament as well as a Member of the Scottish Parliament. We have had debates about there being no English Parliament when all the component parts of the United Kingdom now have their own Assemblies.

We have heard how in Northern Ireland there has been paralysis over recent years. Do we want to look again at the d’Hondt process? Do we want to look again at how we select the First Minister in Northern Ireland? Do we want to look again at how political parties can self-designate in Northern Ireland?

We have seen recently moves to reorganise local government in England without much debate—a move to unitaries, getting rid of a lot of our district authorities. I personally support that in most cases, but we have had no consideration as to what that means for the representation of the voters in being represented properly.

In the House of Lords itself, in the last Parliament—my noble friend Lord Forsyth was very quick on this the whole time—we had Ministers in this Parliament who were unpaid. I would suggest that, in a democracy, when we have a bicameral system of legislation, to have unpaid Ministers performing the roles of Ministers in the other House is absolutely unacceptable. I very much hope that the Treasury Bench will confirm that there are no Ministers currently doing this unpaid. Incidentally, as we have heard, the majority of Ministers who were doing it unpaid when we on this side of the House were in Government were actually, yes, hereditary Peers.

When I first came to this House, which was not very long ago, the Lord Speaker told me that he thought the difference between the other place and this place was that in the other place you get up and you tell people, and in this place you get up and you ask people. In that spirit, I would ask whether your Lordships agree that what we are doing with this Bill is just spraying a bit of body paint on to a rotting carcass. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace: I think the British public are in a febrile state and do not feel that they are being properly represented. We need to do something about that as a matter of urgency, and what better way than to have a root and branch royal commission to look at how this country is governed and should be governed, how the balance of power is distributed around the country, and whether we need a bicameral system of government going forward?

If we do not need that, so be it; we will have to have some other check on the Executive. If we do, and I suspect that most of your Lordships would think that we do, then we need to decide what the powers of that second body—us, your Lordships’ House, whatever we want to call it—need to be.

I personally believe—I have changed my mind on this—that what we are seeing with this Bill is a move towards a completely different second Chamber. I would not be at all surprised if, in the next decade-plus, we do have an elected senate. Maybe that is a good thing; I do not know if it is a good thing or not. What I do know is that we need to have the debate, on all the issues that I have mentioned. I do not believe that this Bill should become an Act until we have thoroughly thought through the implications of what we are doing.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom. This short debate has ranged very widely, and I would like to bring it back to something a little narrower. Before I do so, I will say—as I said at an earlier stage in Committee—that I agree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham: we are headed in the direction of a democratically elected upper Chamber. Quite frankly, a House that is wholly appointed in the 21st century, in a democracy, is a ridiculous thing; it has no legitimacy. This is where we will have to go. I do not say that because I am avid for change but because it is an inevitable and logical consequence of the process that we are engaged in today.

19:00

I wish to bring things back to a narrower focus which relates to the question of a constitutional conference. My noble friend did not draw a picture of what a constitutional conference looks like. We have a picture of what a royal commission looks like, which my noble friend Lord Swire has given support to. We had constitutional conferences both before the Parliament Act 1910 and before the Parliament Act 1948. They consisted of a series of meetings between senior representatives of the parties in the Commons and in the Lords to try to find an agreed way forward on the issues, which in 1910 related to the powers of the House of Lords and in 1948 related to the Labour Party’s concern that while it was in power in the House of Commons it was deeply underrepresented in your Lordships’ House.

Neither series of meetings reached an agreement, but that was not their value. Their value was that they allowed the party leaders and senior figures in both Houses to come together on the parameters of the direction forward. Although they could not agree necessarily on the details, and the Government went ahead and legislated in the way that they did in both Parliament Acts, they determined the shape of the final outcome. The result was that there was an element—quite a strong element in 1948—of consensus about the legislation that finally passed.

What is clear in the debate on the Bill before us today is that there is a deep lack of consensus about it and a sense of mistrust, rightly or wrongly, as to whether the Government are correctly representing their position that this is simply the first of a series of measures that will follow, or whether, as my noble friend Lord Hailsham said, this is simply one measure which will not be followed by any others, at least not in this Parliament, and the rest of the Labour Party manifesto is not going to be enacted.

It is of course possible for the Government, given their majority in the House of Commons, to force this through by sheer pressure of numbers. By brute force, they can achieve their way. But this proposal for a constitutional conference from my noble friend Lord Hamilton—which would be limited to six months, so would not be a delaying tactic—would give the Government a serious and even elegant means of at least finding a route to discussion with the parties and the party leaders. Even if agreement was not reached within those six months, it would help to take some of the sting out of the sort of debate we are having at the moment and allow the House to continue in operation without excessive acrimony.

So the offer made by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, is something the Government should look at very seriously, given the customs, traditions and broad amity which have tended to be the basis on which your Lordships’ House has operated in the past and which we would not wish to see lost. At the end of the six months, the Bill would come into operation, even if there was no agreement, but it would give a chance for a consensus to be found. The Front Bench is not placing as much value on the opportunity for consensus as many other noble Lords in the House believe it merits.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I disagree with all these amendments because I believe they are based on a misconception that the change we are discussing is a fundamental change. It is not; it is a tidying-up measure. It does not affect the powers of the Lords or our relationship with the Commons, far less our relationship with the regions and nations of the United Kingdom. The amendments which say we need to institute a new process to evaluate the impact on all these broader things is totally pointless, because it will have virtually zero influence on all those things.

There are two areas of further change which we have spent lots of time debating which have nothing to do directly with the Bill. One has to do with how the current House of Lords improves the way it operates, whether that is by having a retirement age, participation levels or all the other things that we have spent a lot of time discussing that the Government have in their manifesto. We can possibly discuss how to achieve it in the next group.

The second question, which is certainly beyond the purview of this Bill, has to do with whether you have long-term democratic reform. Clearly, from these Benches we think we should. Clearly, the House of Commons in the coalition Government thought by a massive majority that we should. That is not a revolutionary change which has not been discussed and where MPs have not thought about the issues which concern the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, so much. They were discussed and a conclusion was reached—but whether the Bill proceeded had everything to do with politics and nothing to do with the principle behind it.

So these amendments would get us nowhere. As for a constitutional conference, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has said, in the past they have reached no conclusion, because you do not reach a total consensus on this. If anybody thinks that, frankly, they have not been listening at all, and anybody who hears the words “constitutional royal commission” thinks “years of delay”—and whatever we need, we do not need that.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I must disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Newby. If there is a misconception here, it is about the continuing presence of our hereditary colleagues in your Lordships’ House. They were not kept here by some form of transition, as the Deputy Leader of the House put it in an earlier debate; they were kept here because, in the debates at the end of the last century, nobody could answer the fundamentally important question of what this House is for, how it ought to be constituted and whether there was a better route to come here than the route by which we have all come, in our different ways. We were kept here as surety to ensure that the reform process that the then Labour Government embarked on would continue. They had a further decade in power after 1999 and brought forward no further measures, which is why so many of us on this side are sceptical about the speed with which they will bring forward the further reforms that they proposed in their most recent manifesto. So this is a very important group of amendments because, as Amendment 95 puts it, it is about the impact of this Bill on the effectiveness of the House of Lords.

The Government, like the noble Lord, Lord Newby, have cast this Bill very narrowly and argued that this is a tightly focused Bill. In some ways it is too narrowly cast and too tightly focused. It ducks the questions of what this House is for and the questions that flow from it about how it should best be composed. But, although narrow, the Bill will have serious and sweeping impacts on this House of Parliament. As my noble friends Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Swire put it, this Bill puts the cart before the horse. It avoids those questions and seeks to enact a very important change based on a misunderstanding of the position from the late 1990s.

Throughout this Committee, we have heard concerns raised from all corners of your Lordships’ House that this Bill will leave us a less effective legislative Chamber. Ministers have disagreed with the concerns that have been raised. Well, here is their chance to prove it. If those of us who have expressed our concerns are wrong, these reviews will be the opportunity to prove us wrong.

I believe that the fears we have heard in this Committee are well-founded. Our hereditary colleagues attend your Lordships’ House more frequently than life Peers. They play a more active role, not just in the Division Lobbies and in the Chamber but in our committees, on the Woolsack and in convening the Cross Benches. As my noble friend Lord Shinkwin put it in our debate on the first group, armed with the data that the Library has provided him, our hereditary colleagues play a valuable and active role in the functioning of your Lordships’ House. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said in that debate, “Why are we thinking of removing those who work the hardest while leaving those who do not?”

I am sure the Deputy Leader will say that all these questions about participation and activity can be addressed later. Again, these amendments are an opportunity for him to do that. At no point in this Committee have we had any commitment from the Government about when they plan to turn to the next parts of the reforms that they proposed in their manifesto. Ministers have not even committed to do so by the end of this Parliament. So I share the concerns that my noble friend Lord Hailsham has raised: that we will be waiting another decade or longer to see the further reforms that noble Lords have called for throughout the course of these debates.

My noble friends’ amendments in these groups would give us the opportunity to review progress after 12 months, on the timetable proposed by my noble friend Lord Dundee, or two years, in the timeframe proposed by my noble friend Lord Lucas. It would also be an opportunity for us to review what we have lost. We have heard in the course of these debates how our hereditary colleagues bring valuable experience from their work in business and agriculture, two areas where on the Government’s record it is clear that they have something of a blind spot, and it is important to have those voices raised in this scrutinising House of Parliament.

I am sure the Deputy Leader will seek to persuade us that, once again, our fears are misplaced and that these amendments are unnecessary, but I urge him to look seriously at these amendments, which call for modest but important reviews. The Government listened to the concerns that were raised in your Lordships’ House in our debate on the Football Governance Bill and gave us a statutory review of that new regulator after five years. I know football is something that attracts a lot more attention than reform of the House of Lords, but I think the constitution of our second legislative Chamber is about as important as the beautiful game. I hope the Deputy Leader will look at this and consider giving us a review in this Bill as well.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I do not think the Arsenal kick-off is quite yet; I have another half an hour or so.

I am not going to repeat all the arguments from the first group. We had an extensive debate about that, so I am not going to go through it. But, in relation to the challenge that the noble Lord has just made, we have had a transition for over 25 years. As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, there were attempts to make fundamental changes, but they all hit the fundamental problem of “Don’t do anything until you do everything”. That is the problem here, and it is not going to be resolved by royal commissions and other bodies. I have seen those royal commissions, and they tend to mean long grass and do not build consensus.

The amendments in this group relate to types of formal review. In some cases, they would make commencement of the substantive provisions in the Bill conditional on such a review. I note that the Committee has discussed similar amendments in previous groups. Given that, I hope noble Lords will forgive me for repeating the words of my noble friend the Attorney-General: these amendments are unnecessary and disproportionate.

Amendments 95, 96, 98, 99 and 102 are concerned with the imposition of a duty to review the impact of the Bill following implementation. I stress again that the impact of the Bill is straightforward—no one can see it as complicated—and post-legislative scrutiny would likely not yield any more meaningful conclusions.

Amendment 95, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would require the Secretary of State, within two years of this Act being passed and annually thereafter, to publish

“a report on the impact of this Act on the effectiveness of the House of Lords”

at discharging its functions. As my noble friend the Attorney-General pointed out last week on a similar amendment to this, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, placing a duty on the Government to undertake reviews until the end of time feels disproportionate in these circumstances. There is also an implication that our hereditary colleagues are intrinsically better able than life Peers to help the House to carry out its functions. As I said on a previous Committee day, who are we judging here? Are we judging life Peers as being inferior, not able or not committed?

19:15

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

It is empirical. The data show that our hereditary colleagues currently come here more often and participate more. That is not a slight on those of us who are here as life Peers, but does the Deputy Leader not accept that the data show the valuable contribution that they make to the work of this House?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I do not think the data show what the noble Lord is suggesting. It is a marginal change—1% or 2%. The simple fact is that, when you start implying that some noble Lords are better than others, I am afraid you are implying that life Peers somehow make less of a contribution. They do not, and that does not help us in terms of what we are trying to achieve here. The idea that our hereditary colleagues are intrinsically better does not help the House to carry out its functions. It does a disservice to the contribution made by life Peers on all sides of the Chamber, particularly our Cross-Bench Peers.

It is important to point out that there was no legislative scrutiny following the passage of the 1999 Act, despite that legislation removing a significantly higher number of Members from your Lordships’ House. This was because it was not necessary. The House continued—

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The reason why a certain number of hereditary Peers were kept here in your Lordships’ House was to perform that post-legislative scrutiny. Again, the Deputy Leader has suggested that this is the ending of a transitional phase, removing those who were kept here to try to keep the last Labour Government on their toes about reform. If this is the end of a transition, can the Deputy Leader tell us what we are transitioning to?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

As I said, the Leader of the House and others have acknowledged that what we did in 1999 was remove the hereditary principle. As my noble friend Lord Grocott has said on a number of occasions, that was not simply a mechanism to ensure transition; it was about saying to the Labour Government, “You won’t get your business through if you don’t keep these hereditaries here”. That was the reality, as my noble friend made clear in previous debates.

We have had over 25 years since the removal of the hereditary principle while maintaining 92. The Opposition had the opportunity on many occasions to support my noble friend so that those hereditary Peers could have stayed, but no: we ended up electing further hereditary Peers who were much younger and had no record of experience—as the noble Lord suggested—prior to their election by a very small number of people. The reality is that we are trying to defend the indefensible. We have a clear commitment in our manifesto.

By the way, there was no legislative scrutiny—I will come on to other commitments in our manifesto—but it is disingenuous of noble Lords to say that somehow they do not believe what we are saying. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. I assure noble Lords that we will commit to that.

Amendment 96 from the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, would place a duty on the Government within 12 months of the Bill coming into force to produce a report dealing with its effects, including on devolved Governments, the Commonwealth, members of the Council of Europe and the rest of the world. As I have said, the impact of the Bill is very clear and I submit that, contrary to our propensity to talk about ourselves, the implications of the Bill are unlikely to be felt substantively throughout the international community.

I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham—I have said this many times before—that the Government are committed to reforming the House of Lords, as set out in our manifesto. As my noble friend the Leader of the House has said in previous debates, the Government are keen to engage on how best to implement the other manifesto commitments by building consensus and understanding the needs of this House. She will come forward with proposals for doing this in a structured way.

Noble Lords are also aware of our longer-term commitment to consult the public on an alternative second Chamber. In light of this comment, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Oh no!

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I am not going to be shouted down. I did not hear the Minister specifically address Amendment 101 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom. It effectively offers the Front Bench a choice either to force this through simply on weight of numbers or for a limited period of six months to delay the implementation of the Bill for the purpose of a constitutional convention, with a view to achieving as much consensus as possible. Does the Minister wish to comment before he concludes his speech?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I thought I had commented on it at the beginning. The simple fact is that the idea that you do not do anything until you do everything is not acceptable. It has not worked. We have introduced a staged process of reform. This is the first part of that reform—clearly stated in our manifesto—and we will move on to other aspects of our manifesto commitment in consultation with Members of this House. I ask that the Member withdraws the amendment.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken on their other amendments and to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for his response. I was here for the previous Bill, of course, and can tell the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that his Front Bench was a great deal more convincing then about the inevitability of rapid progress to further change than his Front Bench is being now. We have heard nothing of ideas or substance from the Front Bench. It feels to me, just like it has on every previous occasion, that this will not happen.

Under those circumstances, something like Amendment 11 from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, is crucial. The noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Blencathra, have explored mechanisms that may be combined quite well with Amendment 11 to make it more effective. Something along those lines is what this House should send back to the other place so that the momentum for change is reinforced and, as far as possible, this House retains a degree of initiative in pushing that forward.

We need change, as the speakers to this group of amendments have said. We need that progress towards change to be public and believable, and we are not getting it at the moment. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.

Amendment 95 withdrawn.

Amendments 96 and 97 not moved.

Clause 3 agreed.

Clause 4: Extent and commencement

Amendments 98 and 99 not moved.

Amendment 100 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.

Amendments 101 to 101H not moved.

Amendment 101I had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.

Amendment 102 not moved.

House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 8.25 pm.

Birmingham City Council

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Monday 31 March.

“With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to update the House on the statutory intervention at Birmingham City Council and on the issues affecting the waste service.

This Government were elected on a manifesto that pledged to fix the foundations of local government. The public rightly expect and deserve well-functioning local councils that provide the essential statutory services that residents rely on. Local councils must be fit, legal and decent. Commissioners have been working with Birmingham City Council for the past 18 months to support it in its recovery, and today I am publishing their latest report into the progress on that journey. The report lands at a point of acute difficulty for residents in Birmingham, as the ongoing dispute in the waste service is resulting in rubbish piling up in the streets. I will therefore take this opportunity to update the House on the status of that dispute.

To address the report first, the council has taken important initial steps forward on its improvement journey and is working constructively with commissioners. It has made significant progress on addressing historical equal pay issues and fixing the foundations of governance. The leader, Councillor Cotton, and his group are taking the difficult decisions to get the council back on track, and the commissioners have recognised his calm leadership through stormy waters. The new managing director, Joanne Roney CBE, has brought a steady hand and is beginning to make permanent senior appointments that will contribute to much-needed stabilisation. The council has also achieved a breakthrough by reaching an agreement to settle the outstanding claims and end the ongoing equal pay saga. It is also set to re-implement a strategy for the Oracle IT system.

Those improvements are encouraging, but challenges remain. In the short term, commissioner oversight and close supervision will still be required to maintain momentum. There is a difficult road ahead on key aspects of the best value regime—on governance and culture, financial management and service delivery—because substantial risks threaten the journey to reform and recovery. As Members will know, there is a live industrial action in waste services, involving one of the three recognised trade unions in that area. The Government will support the leader and his team in Birmingham, directly and through the commissioners, to move the council on from these historical issues. That support includes an increase in core spending power for 2025-26 of up to 9.8%, or £131 million. That figure includes £39.3 million through the new one-off recovery grant, which illustrates this Government’s commitment to correcting the unfairness in the funding system. We have also put in place an in-principle agreement for exceptional financial support totalling £1.24 billion.

Turning to the waste dispute, councils deliver over 800 vital services that make a huge difference to millions of people across the country. However, it is accepted that for many, the most visible and universal service is the collection and disposal of household waste. Members across the House will know that the current industrial action in the city is causing misery and disruption to local people, and I know that honourable Members whose constituents are affected will be acutely aware of that disruption.

From the outset, I want to be clear that the statutory intervention is led by commissioners, and Ministers cannot legally intervene in this industrial action. However, I have been in regular contact with the leadership of the council throughout this, as they have sought to find a resolution in which the reforms needed to build a sustainable council are still undertaken, and the waste collection service returns to functioning normally, in the way that Members would expect. This situation is causing public health risks to the city’s most vulnerable and deprived residents. As a result, Birmingham has today declared a major incident, so that it can use the mechanisms that it needs to better manage the impact on local residents. I support that decision, and I will back local leaders in bringing the situation under control in the weeks to come.

Well-established arrangements are in place to enable local areas to escalate issues when they need support, and the Government are monitoring the situation closely. This is a local issue, and it is right that the key public sector partners in Birmingham lead on it. If leaders in Birmingham feel that tackling these issues would require resources beyond those available to them, and request national support, we of course stand ready to respond to any such request. This Government will always back local leaders and give them the support that they need, not swoop in to criticise or take over from Whitehall. We will not hesitate to give support in any way that Birmingham leaders need. As Parliament would expect, a meeting will take place with the leadership of the council, the commissioners and other key local partners to ensure that we are doing everything we can to support and protect public health.

It is in the interests of all parties and, most importantly, for the benefit of Birmingham’s residents that this industrial action is brought to a close in a meaningful and sustainable way as soon as possible. We encourage all parties to redouble their efforts to get around the table and find a resolution. Any deal to end industrial action must maintain value for money and ensure fit-for-purpose waste collection services, without creating or storing up liabilities for the future. All parties recognise that Birmingham’s waste service has been in urgent need of modernisation and transformation for many years, so any deal reached must not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Practices in the waste service have been the source of one of the largest equal pay crises in modern UK history, resulting in costs of over £1 billion to the residents of Birmingham. This situation simply cannot continue. I support the council on its journey to creating the sustainable, fair and reliable waste service that residents in Birmingham deserve. We will support the council in resolving its historic issues and establishing the leadership, governance and culture that will drive good-quality public services for the people of that city, so that it can take its rightful place with confidence as one of our great UK cities.

As the council moves to the next stage of intervention, I will continue to work with the council, commissioners and the wider local government sector to understand how we can best ensure that residents get what they need from their local council. I will monitor progress, as I have done since the general election, to ensure that continuous improvement led by the council can be secured. As I am sure the whole House would expect, the commissioner arrangements will need to remain in place while the situation in Birmingham is so fragile. The commissioners have a vital role to play in supporting Birmingham’s transformation, working hand in glove with local leaders.

The Government remain committed to working in genuine partnership with the city and its council, and I continue to encourage the council to strengthen its partnerships with regional stakeholders, including Mayor Parker in the West Midlands Combined Authority, to support economic growth and financial sustainability. We are keen to promote growth and regeneration opportunities for Birmingham, and we are confident that as the council continues to work to fix the basics, while making progress against the milestones, local stakeholders will be encouraged to work in partnership with the council to deliver a clear vision for the future.

I look forward to continuing dialogue with commissioners, the council and regional partnerships, including Mayor Parker, on opportunities for growth in the region. A partnership approach with a clear vision will increase Birmingham’s capacity to achieve sustainable growth. The people of Birmingham deserve a well-run, accountable and financially stable council with good public services, not least waste collection services. I am encouraged by the council’s leadership and commitment to the same, and I look forward to the council beginning to demonstrate more ownership of its recovery, and to seeing evidence that it can deliver the lasting improvements that are required. I will deposit in the House Library copies of the commissioners’ report, which is being published today on GOV.UK”.

19:26

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, until my right honourable friend the shadow Secretary of State tabled his Urgent Question yesterday, we had heard nothing from this Government on Birmingham City Council’s bin fiasco. Birmingham, the UK’s second city, the pride of industrial Britain, is now reduced to piles of rotting waste and rats. We are seeing scenes akin to those I remember as a child in the strike-plagued 1970s.

Almost every area is suffering from overflowing bins, with 17,000 tonnes of waste said to be clogging up pavements across the city. Depots have been blocked by picket lines, delaying contingency collection vehicles from reaching the streets and, all the while, uncollected waste is increasing at nearly 900 tonnes a day. The threat of a public health emergency hangs over the city, a threat that demands urgent and decisive action. What are the Government doing to address this terrible situation? For 20 long days, nothing. When the residents of Birmingham needed a solution, the Government stayed silent.

This is a problem of the council’s own making; for too long, waste services have been a problem in the city. My son was at Birmingham University eight years ago and the recycling waste was not collected on his street for several months despite numerous calls to the council, and it has got worse. The flawed deal with Unite back in 2017, which then led to legal action over pay, built the foundation on which Birmingham’s mountain of rubbish sits today. Despite the Labour-run council knowing about this since then, it has failed to address the issue. That is why Birmingham residents find themselves with piles of waste in the streets.

What are this Government going to do to address these failings? On these Benches we are calling for a COBRA-led response—a co-ordinated effort across local and national government, harnessing the experience of emergency services and public health officials, where every resource is summoned to resolve this nightmare. Will the Minister confirm what discussions the Government have had within the department to resolve this emergency?

On these Benches, we are calling on the Government to engage with the private sector service providers to help clear up the mess and save residents from a disruptive bin strike with no end in sight. We need action today. I urge Ministers to pick up the phone to those complicit in holding Birmingham hostage to end this strike and restore cleanliness to their streets.

Unite has called on central government to make hundreds of millions of pounds available to the council. If that something the Minister is considering? What is more, is a council tax increase of 7.8% a clear breach of the Prime Minister’s pledge to freeze council tax? Does asking the residents of Birmingham to pay more while getting less show that Birmingham council has failed?

Now that Birmingham has declared a major incident, leading to the availability of new mechanisms, can the Minister confirm that she will meet with the council to ensure that those mechanisms are considered? We understand that the declaration should mean that the council will increase the availability of street cleansing and fly-tipping removal, but can the Minister confirm how many additional vehicles will be deployed in the coming days and what the department is doing to ensure that bin lorries can safely enter and exit the council’s waste depots? It is shameful, and a national embarrassment, that one of our nation’s great cities finds itself in such a bleak situation.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, 17,000 tonnes of uncollected household waste creating mountainous heaps of stinking rubbish on the streets of Birmingham is simply unacceptable—particularly in terms of the public health hazard that is created. As a result, and after three weeks of a strike by bin workers, the city has declared a major incident. It is expected that this will allow the council to implement a contingency plan to clear the waste mountain from the streets. So my first question to the Minister is: how confident are the Government that the waste will be cleared before the Easter holidays? Given that this emergency action has been taken because of the growing public health risk, how sure are the Government that diseases caused by a combination of rotting rubbish and rats can be prevented? My third question is: what are the public health risks faced by residents living in those parts of Birmingham where the rubbish mountains are worst?

The very challenging financial strictures facing the city council are of course one cause of this dire situation. The apparent failure to tackle the long-standing equal pay claims from women employed by the council is another contributory factor. Equal pay claims have been a challenge for councils across the country. Some resolve the problem by outsourcing: others, including my own council, resolved the absolutely unfair pay systems over 20 years ago by working with unions to agree a single pay spine and settling women’s claims for lost pay. |If that was 20 years ago, can the Minister explain how it is that, in Birmingham, equal pay claims were allowed to fester for so long?

I raise the significance of equal pay as the council cites it as a fundamental reason for not being able to settle the current dispute. Can the Minister comment on whether Birmingham City Council has finally resolved historic equal pay claims and whether existing pay for all employees is on a fair footing?

It is of course right to acknowledge that Birmingham has had a reduction in its core funding of 40% or more, which has left the spending level per person 19% lower than 14 years ago. In more deprived areas, the loss per person is nearer to 26%, according to a report from the IFS. Clearly, the huge loss of funding has put the council into very difficult circumstances. Eleventh-hour additional funding from the previous Government helped forestall the financial collapse of the city council. As a consequence, very difficult decisions have had to be made. Can the Minister confirm that major change to support council finances is needed and will come?

Finally, it has to be asked whether Birmingham City Council is too large. It serves 1.2 million people, which makes it the largest local government authority in Europe—double the size of the next largest in this country. With just 101 councillors, each one serves over 12,000 people. Can the Minister explain how community representation can occur under these circumstances? The reason for the question is that the different needs and aspirations in a council of that size are hard to meet when elected representation is on that scale. It seems likely to have contributed to the problems now being faced. Does the Minister agree?

Birmingham is a great city. It needs the support of the Government and Opposition in aiding a recovery. I look forward to the questions asked being answered, either now or in writing.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

I thank both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their questions. I will elaborate on the Statement a little but, before I do, the tone taken by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, showed no acceptance of the 14 years of funding withdrawal from local government. That is at the heart of this problem.

I would like to update the House on the statutory intervention at Birmingham City Council, which was part of the reason for this Statement in the other place, and on issues affecting the waste service, following the Statement made by my honourable friend the Minister for Local Government and English Devolution in the other place yesterday. This Government were elected on a manifesto that pledged to fix the foundations of local government and we have set about doing that with some energy. The public rightly expect and deserve well-functioning local councils that provide the essential statutory services that residents rely on.

Local councils must be fit, they must be legal and they must be decent. Commissioners have been working with Birmingham City Council for the last 18 months to support the council in its recovery. Their latest report on that progress was published by the Government yesterday and lands at a point of acute difficulty for residents in Birmingham. As we know, the ongoing waste dispute is resulting in rubbish piling up in the streets, so I will also take this opportunity to give the latest update on the status of that dispute.

The council has taken important initial steps forward on its improvement journey and is working constructively with commissioners. It has made significant progress in addressing historic equal pay issues and fixing the foundations of its governance. The leader, Councillor Cotton, and his group are taking difficult decisions to get the council back on track. The commissioners have recognised that, and that his calm leadership through stormy waters is definitely moving the council forward. The new managing director, Joanne Roney CBE, has brought a steady hand and is beginning to make permanent senior appointments that will contribute to that much-needed stabilisation. The council has also achieved a breakthrough by achieving an agreement to settle the outstanding claims to end the ongoing equal pay saga. It has also set a reimplementation strategy for the Oracle system, which was part of the issue there.

That improvement is encouraging, but deep challenges remain. In the short term, commissioner oversight and close supervision will still be required to maintain the momentum that has started to build. There is a difficult road ahead on the key aspects of the best value regime—governance and culture, financial management and service delivery—because substantial risks threaten the journey to reform and recovery.

As we all know, there is a live industrial action in waste services involving one of the three unions recognised at the council. The Government will support the leader and his team at Birmingham, directly and through the commissioners, to move the council on from these historic issues. That includes an increase in core spending power of up to 9.8%, or £131 million, for 2025-26, including £39.3 million of new one-off recovery grant, illustrating the Government’s commitment to correcting the unfairness in the funding system; and an “in principle” agreement to the exceptional financial support, totalling £1.24 billion.

The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, raised the issue of council tax, but actually it was his Government who signed off a 10% council tax increase in Birmingham last year. That was more than the council put up its council tax by this year.

Councils deliver more than 800 services and make a huge difference, but it is accepted that for many, the most visible and universal service is the collection and disposal of household waste. Many noble Lords know that the current industrial action in the city is causing misery and disruption to local residents. I am not going to make light of that; I know how difficult it is for them.

From the outset, we want to be clear that statutory intervention is led by commissioners and Ministers, who cannot legally intervene in the industrial action. The Minister for Local Government and English Devolution has been in regular contact with the leadership of the council throughout as it has sought to find a resolution which, importantly, maintains the reforms needed to build a sustainable council and which also returns waste collection to a normal functioning service. This is causing public health risks to the city’s most vulnerable and deprived and, as a result, yesterday Birmingham declared a major incident to give it the mechanisms to better manage the impact on residents. I support that decision, and this Government will back local leaders to bring the situation back under control in the weeks to come.

The Government will not hesitate to provide support in any way that Birmingham’s leaders need and, as Parliament would expect, a meeting with the leadership of the council, the commissioners and other key local partners is taking place to make sure that we are doing everything we can to protect public health. I spoke to Councillor Cotton myself this afternoon to ask him if there is anything further he wants us to do.

It is in the interests of all parties—and, most importantly, the people at the heart of this, the residents of Birmingham—that the industrial action is brought to a close in a meaningful and sustainable way as soon as possible, and we encourage all parties to redouble their efforts, get round the table and find that resolution. Councillor Cotton confirmed that live negotiations are ongoing; that work is still continuing. To do this, any deal to end industrial action must maintain value for money and ensure a fit-for-purpose waste service, without creating or storing up liabilities for the future. All parties recognise that Birmingham’s waste service has been in urgent need of modernisation for years. Any deal reached must not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Practices in the waste service have been the source of one of the largest equal pay crises in modern UK history, resulting in costs of over £1 billion. This situation simply cannot continue, and that is what needs resolving, and resolving urgently. Our Government will support the council in its journey to creating the sustainable, fair and reliable waste service that the residents of Birmingham deserve. We will support the council to resolve historic issues and to continue to establish the leadership, governance and culture that will transform the services and deliver good-quality public services for the people of Birmingham.

On the noble Lord’s specific questions and his comment about failing to address the issue, there have been consistent meetings and discussions with Birmingham throughout this situation to make sure that we give it any support it needs, but it is right that it should be Birmingham City Council’s decision to enable co-ordination between public sector partners on the ground in Birmingham. That is why it has declared this major incident—to ensure that public safety and health is restored. While the situation in Birmingham is clearly very serious and deteriorating, the declaration of a major incident is a well-established mechanism for ensuring that public sector partners can co-ordinate locally to deliver a resolution.

The noble Lord asked whether COBRA would be convened. COBRA is used for significant crises which require a collective government response, co-ordinated at the centre by the Cabinet Office. We are in regular contact with Birmingham City Council, and local leaders are confident at the moment that they can manage the situation. Should this change, we stand ready to respond to any ask for support.

The noble Lord asked how many bin lorries are active. He will be aware that one of the issues was the blocking, as part of the strike action, of bin lorries’ entrance to and exit from the depot. We are hoping that that can be resolved as the negotiations go forward. I cannot tell him off the top of my head exactly how many bin lorries are able to operate, but I shall come back to him in writing on that.

The noble Baroness asked how confident we are that waste will be cleared before Easter. We all want to see this situation resolved as quickly as possible. I hope that, with the good will of all parties, and given that they are still in negotiations with each other, we will be able to resolve this dispute sooner rather than later.

The noble Lord asked about sending in staff or giving extra money to help clear up the rubbish, and whether we would send in private contractors to do that job. As you all know, I am a firm believer in devolution and in letting local people sort the issues out locally. It is right that the response is led by the area’s key public sector partners. We are in regular contact with those local leaders, and negotiations are still open.

On the issues relating to public health, the director for public health at Birmingham City Council is part of the response, and the impact assessment of the strike is closely monitoring the situation on the ground and will continue to do so. The UK Health Security Agency met with the director for public health yesterday and will remain in close contact to ensure that all parties are well informed.

Issues were raised about equal pay, and of course, the noble Baroness is right to say that we needed to resolve those. They were entrenched and affected some of the female workers in Birmingham enormously. We have to give credit to Birmingham for working its way through what has been a very long and hard process. I have gone through one of these equal pay settlements myself. The trade unions have been involved in resolving most of the issues; this is that last part of that process, and the matter is still outstanding. As I say, we urge everyone concerned to get round the table and resolve this now.

I hope that that has answered all the questions. The noble Baroness asked about the size of the council. We are going through a process with all councils of discussing how we take things forward, but it is important that, at the moment, we leave the commissioners and local leadership in Birmingham to do the work they need to do to turn the council around. That work is progressing well; there is still a lot more to do but a lot has been done already, so I hope we will get to where we need to be.

The noble Baroness also referred, rightly, to funding cuts. Birmingham City Council received the sharpest cuts of any council in the country. Because it is the biggest council in the country, the ripple effect that we all felt in local government from the horrendous hollowing out under the last Government hit Birmingham like a tsunami, so I do not think the Benches opposite have much right to criticise what went on there.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise: I failed to declare my interest as a councillor in Central Bedfordshire.

19:49

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, will my noble friend acknowledge that the seeds of this dispute were sown during the period when the Conservative and Liberal party coalition ran the city of Birmingham? Many of the financial problems facing the city over the years were caused by the Conservative and Liberal Government in power in Westminster. On this dispute, will my noble friend acknowledge that the city council has made a perfectly reasonable offer to the union? Among the solutions put forward by the city were the following: NVQ training for alternative work for those affected by the dispute; voluntary redundancy on enhanced terms for those who decline to accept the new terms; six months’ pay protection for the 17 people directly affected by the council’s proposals; fully funded LGV driving training with a guaranteed role at the end for any staff who wish to take it up; and a one-off payment, as an alternative to redundancy, to buy out contracted entitlements. Does my noble friend agree that these are fair and reasonable terms that the union concerned should accept, and that it should reflect on the damage being done to its fellow citizens as well as to the image of Britain’s second city?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My noble friend is quite right; Birmingham is a proud city with proud people, and I know that they are embarrassed at what they are seeing. It is time that this is resolved. The vast majority of the workforce of the waste service have agreed a way forward by one route or another, whether that is taking voluntary redundancy, accepting new ways of working or many of the other routes that my noble friend mentioned. This now comes down to a small number of people who have not accepted them. That is where the dispute lies. A city such as Birmingham cannot grind to a halt in such a circumstance. We urge everybody to get back around the table and resolve the issues for this small number of remaining members of the workforce, and then we can restore Birmingham to the rightful place it holds as our second city and the pride of the Midlands.

[Lord Fowler (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as having been a Member of Parliament for a Birmingham constituency—Sutton Coldfield—for 27 years, so I know a little about the area.

I am not sure that I agree with the Minister or my noble friend Lord Snape—he used to be my pair, so I call him my noble friend just to keep in with old things. I am not sure they can simply ride away from this and say that the origins of this and the problem are all down to the last Conservative Government. That argument does not stand up. The real problem we need to tackle is not in going back. We have an instant problem now in Birmingham. As we all know, we have the problem of the streets and the rest. We need most urgently to find a solution to that, not to go into all the details over years and years.

Two points come out of this debate. First, surely the Government have a prime responsibility to preserve public health. That has not happened over the last month. They have failed dismally in that duty, not to this House or the House of Commons but to the citizens of Birmingham. They have let them down, and we are still to find out the final result of that negligence. The Government are now saying, as they should, whether they agree with the action of the pickets in stopping trucks removing the mounds of rubbish that have scarred the city and attracted rats and other vermin —we have not imagined this; it is an actuality—and that kind of action and that kind of defeat cannot be justified to the public. The people stopping the lorries are causing immense damage to individuals.

The people who matter most in this are the citizens of Birmingham, and they have been let down. That is the fact of the matter. The Minister should be turning her mind to how the Government will urgently help to get this straight. It is not a matter of having committees and long discussions. We now need urgency and urgent action. I hope the Minister can tell us of some of that.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I certainly agree that the people of Birmingham are at the heart of this issue. They are first in our thoughts. I agree that urgent action is necessary. That is why I spoke with the leader of Birmingham City Council today to see whether there was anything further we could do to support them. He believes that the way to resolve this is to get around the table as quickly as possible, and that is just what he aims to do.

On the noble Lord’s comments on how the situation arose in the first place, there had been serious financial and governance failings. Birmingham City Council issued a Section 114 notice, which effectively says that the council does not have control of its finances, in September 2023. It did so due to accepting a £760 million liability that arose from those equal pay claims, along with in-year budget deficits that arose from the Oracle IT system. It has been working through a very intense programme of activity to put those issues right. It has not been easy for the leadership of Birmingham City Council; nobody goes into local government to cut services or make things less easy for their residents. It has been doing that with the commissioners, who are working very well with the council and have produced a frank and honest report. There is a copy in the Library if any noble Lord wants to look at it. I agree that preserving public health is vital. That is why the director of public health in Birmingham and the UK Health Security Agency regularly review what is going on there, to make sure that everything is done that can be to ensure that the public health situation does not deteriorate any further.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has referred to serious financial failings in Birmingham, and the Statement admits that:

“Practices in the waste service have been the source of one of the largest equal pay crises in modern UK history, resulting in costs of over £1 billion to the residents of Birmingham. This situation simply cannot continue”.


Does the Minister agree that this situation might not have arisen had it not been for the abolition, just over a decade ago, of the Audit Commission, which had a role in delivering best value as well as formal audit responsibilities? Taking Birmingham as an example, might the Government consider whether that decision was wise and whether something needs to be done to improve long-term audit of local authorities in England?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I absolutely agree with the premise of the noble Lord’s question. The audit situation right across local government, not just in Birmingham, has deteriorated beyond what should be tenable. The audit function assures the public in an area that their council is what I described: legal, decent and fit for purpose. Unfortunately, due to the changes to the audit regime, that is not the case. I was horrified to find that whole of government accounts have been qualified because of a lack of assurance on the local government audit situation. We cannot allow that to continue. The Government are looking at what we need to do about audit. We will bring forward something in the English devolution Bill that covers the audit regime, and we will attempt to make it better than it is now. It is so important that the public can have confidence in the money spent not just by their Government but by local government as well. We will aim to make sure that that is the case. It has been a bee in my bonnet for a long time, and I hope to put it right.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in responding to Front-Bench questions, the Minister said that councils must “provide essential statutory services”. One of those statutory duties for councils, under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964, is to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service. Birmingham Council is planning to slash library opening hours, cutting them by a third and potentially closing seven libraries in a city where 46% of children are living in poverty and 43% of residents live in neighbourhoods that are part of the poorest 10% in the country. People need libraries for children to do their homework, old people to go somewhere warm and for everyone to access digital services. Does the Minister believe that, with these new cuts to libraries, Birmingham is going to meet its statutory responsibilities, given that it is actually under central government supervision?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will know of my fondness for libraries, because I am sure she has heard me talk about them before in the Chamber. As I said earlier, nobody stands for election as a councillor to cut any services, particularly libraries, which we know are so important to people.

It is important for residents of Birmingham that their council gets back on a safe and stable financial footing. I add that the potential of Birmingham to contribute to the growth mission and regeneration is enormous. Once the commissioners working with the leadership of the council have stabilised the finances, it will be able to support services. I am very pleased that it has not actually cut all its libraries, as we have seen in some other areas, as the noble Baroness will be very well aware, but the closure of any library is a sadness. Once our Birmingham colleagues have stabilised the finances—and with the growth agenda that they will be able to participate in—I am sure that they will want to restore that service as soon as they can.

We should not underestimate the importance of libraries. I practically grew up in my mobile library; it was a great comfort to me. They are important for all the reasons that the noble Baroness said. I hope that Birmingham will be able to restore them as quickly as possible.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister quite rightly talks about the second report of the commissioners, which was published yesterday. There is a very telling paragraph that the House needs to be aware of, and I would like to hear the Minister’s response to it. It says that

“the Council, currently, still lacks the ability and self-awareness to deliver timely, sustainable reform at the pace required without substantial support and direction”.

In the light of that, the Minister’s response of “leave the commissioners alone” does not stand up. The commissioners are saying that further substantial reform is required. What substantial reform and extra support are the Government now thinking of? What is the timescale for that, in the light of the commissioners saying that it is required?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I think the commissioners are referring to the fact that each time a report is due, the Government can consider whether it is time to take the commissioners’ support out. The commissioners were trying to indicate that they do not feel that the council is ready for their support to be withdrawn at this stage.

The report highlights the progress made by the council so far. It notes the leadership of Councillor Cotton and Joanne Roney, and the hard work of many diligent members of staff in the council. In the circumstance we find ourselves in with Birmingham, that can often be overlooked. Many of the staff there are working tirelessly to make sure that the council delivers for its residents.

The report also sets out that the journey to recovery and financial stability is far from over, as the noble Lord says, and has been heavily dependent on the input, guidance and advice of the commissioner team so far. The indication in the line that the noble Lord quoted is that the council continues to need that commissioner support. We agree with that as a Government, and we will continue to support the leader and his team in Birmingham directly and through the commissioners to move the council on from the historical issues with a fair resolution. The way to do this is to continue on the journey that the council is on and make sure that they all stabilise the council so that it will be able to deliver for its residents long into the future.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare that I am a member of Unite the Union. I urge my fellow brothers and sisters to keep on talking.

Under the previous Government, many councils of all colours went bankrupt, including Birmingham Council. The root cause of all this was the historical underfunding by the previous Government, as the noble Lord has pointed out, for the past 14 years. Is the historical underfunding of Birmingham Council still the problem there?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. Like many noble Lords in this House, he has direct experience of leading a council, so he has felt the pain of funding cuts, as have all of us who have been in that position. We have made some changes to the local government funding formula this year to make sure that funding goes where it is needed most, instead of following a historical pattern of allocations. We will make further changes to that. As noble Lords will be aware, we are going into the spending review process now, which is why we could issue only one-year settlements, but we will provide multiyear funding settlements, which will make a difference to the stability for local government funding and make sure that the greater quantum of funding goes to the areas where it is most needed, of which Birmingham is certainly one.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to hear what the Minister said about restoring audit, because the best value commissioners’ report is an astonishing catalogue of failures in governance and culture—deep rooted, long term and all pervasive. What systems does the Minister envisage to allow the new unitaries that the Government are creating to start out with strong cultures and governance, rather than fall into the despairing place that Birmingham finds itself?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I described my commitment to audit in an answer to an earlier question. Audit is part of that, and so is the collaboration that local government is now pulling together to drive the route towards these new unitary authorities, which will serve them well as they go through the process. We absolutely have to make sure that audit function is in place and sound, because that is the public’s reassurance that their council is not only financially stable but making good use of public money. That is why it should be considered as part of the English devolution Bill.

[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

My Lords, I take my noble friend back to the comments of my noble friend Lord Snape—who, like me, represented the Borough of Sandwell—and the root cause of this problem: the failure of the Conservative/Lib Dem alliance running Birmingham City Council to deal with the equal pay issue. Sandwell Council borrowed the money from central government, paid it back within seven years and resolved the problem. That is the fundamental root, and my noble friend may wish to remind the Opposition Benches of that. With regard to picketing at the depots, has she had the opportunity to remind the chief constable of the West Midlands of the code of practice under the trade union and labour relations Act for the conduct of picketing, and is she satisfied that West Midlands Police are enforcing the law?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that reminder that there is not a one-party state in Birmingham; other councils have been involved in failing to tackle the equal pay issue over many years. He is quite right to say that for most councils this was a very thorny issue. It came with a great deal of negotiation needed, and quite often with a huge price tag attached. So I do not underestimate the difficulty in dealing with it, but many other councils bit the bullet and got on with it. That was not tackled in Birmingham.

I have not had any conversations with the chief constable of West Midlands Police, but I am sure that the declaration of the major incident will make sure that all agencies in Birmingham are brought in to help support the council and the commissioners and to help to restore what we all want to see: the people of Birmingham being able to get their pride in their city back, and the commissioners and the leadership of the council being able to continue to move Birmingham forward to be the city we all know it can be for the future, right at the heart of the Midlands, delivering growth for the country and being the kind of wonderful place that it is for the people of Birmingham to continue to live in.

20:10

Sitting suspended.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Committee (5th Day) (Continued)

20:25

Amendment 103

Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

103: Clause 4, page 2, line 16, leave out from “force” to “which” and insert “on the day on”

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 103 has generated quite a lot of interest across the House. It is a very simple and easy to understand amendment. It effectively activates what would then be an Act of Parliament on Royal Assent.

Colleagues may not be surprised that I tabled it after the Opposition, most unusually, moved the adjournment of the House, all as part of their attempt to frustrate the legitimate work of a newly elected Government. They won that vote by a majority smaller than the number of hereditary Peers who voted with them. We saw men who sit in the House by virtue of appointment by an earlier Prime Minister—something which they now seem to decry about today’s Prime Minister—stop a newly elected Government continuing with its business that day.

That adjournment may not have been on this Bill, but it was behaviour which is not normally witnessed in your Lordships’ House and which we had hoped would not be seen again. However, I see from the Guardian that something similar has been suggested for trying to stop the Renters’ Rights Bill. I hope that the Guardian is wrong.

With regard to this Bill, we have had to sit through a tsunami of amendments that have no relevance to the purpose of the content of the Bill and which everyone knows will never be part of the Act. It may well be that the clerks said that such amendments were acceptable, but that does not mean that they had to be tabled. Just because you can do something, it does not mean that you should do something. I was particularly surprised to find that His Majesty’s Opposition had tabled amendments on future appointments to this House, which they know have got nothing to do with the Bill and will not find their way into the Act. The mover of that amendment is shaking his head. I think he knows jolly well that they are not to do with the hereditaries and that they will not find their way into this Act. That is not the action of a responsible Opposition.

There are also amendments, some perfectly within scope, tabled by hereditary Peers without the customary signal of a declaration of interest. The Code of Conduct says that we should all act solely in terms of the public interest and act and take decisions impartially. Peers

“should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves”,

and should

“conduct themselves in a manner which will tend to maintain and strengthen the public’s trust and confidence in the integrity of the House of Lords”.

Importantly, the Code of Conduct says that, when speaking, any financial interest must be declared where relevant to the matter under discussion. Given that the privilege of membership of this House affects every hereditary Peer and that they have an interest in whether they are to lose their ability to be here, I would have thought that, even if it was only a perceived interest, they would have declared it when speaking or tabling any amendments.

In relation to our excellent hereditary colleagues in this House, I remind them that, contrary to what has been said, this has not been rushed and they have had enough notice about their future. When I was on the Opposition Benches, I spoke to many Bills from my noble friend Lord Grocott, and he and I warned your Lordships’ House, particularly the then Government, that failure to accept his Bill, which would simply have stopped new entrants, would mean that more drastic action was likely to follow in due course.

That would have been heard by all the hereditaries at that time and would have been known by any who joined since. Indeed, had we stopped the by-elections a decade ago, I am confident that this Bill would not be before us today, and those of our colleagues present at that time would have been able to see out their lives as full Members of this House, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said in an earlier amendment today. So those who will be leaving as a result of this Bill, and who were here a decade ago, really have only the Conservatives to blame for what is happening now.

20:30

Our colleagues in this House cannot say that Labour kept its intentions secret. Nearly a year ago, our manifesto said:

“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”.

That was a clear manifesto commitment, which included the word “immediate”. Despite that, we have witnessed repeated arguments and unnecessary degrouping, not for the convenience of the Committee but seemingly to spin things out. In fact, I was tempted to degroup my two amendments in this group just to get even—but I resisted that temptation.

It is always good to look at history when discussing legislation. I am, as ever, guided by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden—I think not in his place at the moment—who, in the House magazine, reminded us that in 1910-11:

“The Tories’ fury knew no bounds”.

They “foolishly”—his word, not mine—used their

“position in the upper House to wreck much of the legislation of the great reforming Liberal government, which won a massive majority in 1906”.

We know where that led, but it seems the Tories never learn. By using the numbers they have here, so recently augmented by Boris Johnson, to frustrate a newly elected Government’s programme, they are damaging, in my view, not just themselves but the reputation of this House.

We have witnessed five days of debates on a four-clause Bill, covering two pages, with one simple proposition: that hereditary Peers would no longer be legislators in this House—although, of course, they could always stand for election to the House of Commons. We have had long debates, with some speaking on many occasions. I am sorry not to see the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, here—he and I did battle on the radio earlier today. He obviously has a clear interest and I think has already spoken about a dozen times, not today but during the debate. Many of these speeches, in fact most of them, have repeated the same mantra: that they do not like the Bill or they are demanding some guarantee of a life peerage, possibly in exchange for better progress on the Bill.

For myself, and possibly for the noble Lord, Lord Norton, with whom I jointly chair the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, the real loss is that this time-wasting and irrelevant content has taken both the good will and, possibly, time from other changes which so many of us want to see, whether that is action on the size of the House, on the role of HOLAC, on participation activity rates, on term limits or age limits, or indeed anything else. Had we been able to deal swiftly with this Bill and got on with debating these far more substantial and far-reaching changes, that would have been to the benefit of the whole House, even had we not gone as far as an elected House, as some Members want.

I guess my warning today is that, if the antics that we have witnessed continue on Report, even with the threat of more ping-pong, the amendment which I am moving now might not be necessary, as Royal Assent and the end of the Session may happen at the same time because of the delay in getting the Bill through.

We should be moving rapidly to get the Bill through, to give our highly respected hereditary friends and colleagues time to know when they are leaving, so that they can realise and fulfil their contribution until then. It would give certainty to the whole House about when that will happen and give us time to plan. Many are Deputy Speakers, chairs of committees or leading Members in other roles; we will need time to do some back-filling and to get on and develop that, so we really should finish the Bill as soon as possible.

My amendment is simply asking that we please get on with this—that we stop having these unnecessary amendments and speeches. Let us deal with the single issue: namely, that the hereditaries, as in our manifesto, will cease to be legislators in this House—although they could always stand in the other one—and then we can get on with other business. I beg to move.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, first, as the strictures tell us and for anyone who does not know, I declare that I am a hereditary Peer.

I support this pair of amendments—Amendments 103 and 112—which may come as a surprise to some noble Lords. I do so for two reasons. The first is that, although I would like to stay on, as some amendments have kindly hinted, the Bill is going through. The hereditaries have now been waiting on the parliamentary equivalent of death row for months, so perhaps it is time just to get on with it. Secondly, I have been thinking about how we hereditaries can render one last service to this House on our way out and, perhaps, give our ejection some greater meaning, or even honour. Then it hit me: the noble Baroness’s amendment might be improved by adding, perhaps on Report, a consequential amendment that states that each so-called hereditary being ejected takes with them one Peer who does not attend, or who does attend but does not participate.

Some noble Lords, on this April Fools’ Day, might think that this is merely a light-hearted suggestion to lighten the mood after some rather sharp words earlier, but I invite the Committee to consider the benefits of such an amendment. Not only would it accelerate the end of the hereditary element—something which, with apologies to Hamlet, some Peers feel is

“a consummation

Devoutly to be wished”—

but it would, and not before time, cull the free-riders, improve the external perception of the House and even reduce costs.

There are plenty of such non-participating Peers from which to choose. Indeed, it has been suggested to me that every hereditary should take two such companions with them to the scaffold. More gallows humour perhaps, but I cannot help noticing that, if adopted, this would go a long way to reducing the size of the House closer to that of the Commons, which many in this House support. It would also enhance the reputation for Member participation and significantly increase productivity per capita—an issue which I know the Government are very committed to those outside Parliament achieving.

Although I have no realistic expectation that this suggestion will be accepted today, I have spoken previously on the need to address participation. My Amendment 63 —which proposed that, after this Bill becomes an Act, an effective group be convened, with a short timescale, to receive evidence, define a benchmark and get it implemented—received fulsome cross-party support. Perhaps the findings of this group should be called “second-degree burns”, in honour of the previous Burns report—I’m here all week; settle down, please—which the House warmly supported but then signally failed to act on.

Where I am very serious is that, if my suggested consequential amendment to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, is not supported, after the Bill is passed and the hereditaries are sent into oblivion, I hope that the House itself will at last insist on achieving such reform. We shall see. That would, at least in part, give some validity to the much-quoted promise that the end of the so-called hereditaries would coincide with a fuller reform of this House.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I think I have a sense of humour, but I did not find the noble Lord’s speech at all amusing. What is being proposed here is a nasty proposition. It is being proposed in the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, but she did not actually speak to it but rather complained about the process by which this Bill has been scrutinised by the House. Let us spell it out here: this is a very nasty proposition that every single hereditary should be forced out of this House the moment the Bill receives Royal Assent.

The mask has slipped, because it is all about numbers. It is about reducing the number of Conservatives in this House; Conservatives who have a duty to provide opposition to the Government and to seek to warn them where we believe they are making errors or mistakes —and, my goodness me, that becomes an increasingly onerous task. The noble Baroness talked about degrouping. I am very sad that the amendment has not been grouped with that of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, who has a rather more satisfactory and sensitive approach.

The noble Baroness mentioned in her speech that she convened the group that has done so much to bring forward iterative improvements to this House, led by the late Lord Cormack and my noble friend Lord Norton. The whole point of that group and its success is based on the fact that it achieves consensus, works in harmony and works across the House. To have an amendment that suggests that the hereditary Peers, who have given years of public service to this House, should be trashed the moment the Bill gets Royal Assent is an outrageous proposition.

It shows scant regard to how this House operates. There are no fewer than five Deputy Speakers who are hereditary Peers. When the Bill is passed, what is going to happen? Where are these Deputy Speakers going to be found from, just like that, on a timescale that remains unknown? It means that the Convenor of the Cross Benches would disappear just like that, and the Cross Benches obviously have a great job to do in this House.

Then there are the committees. I said I would speak only once on this Bill, to the first amendment, but this amendment is so nasty and unpleasant that I feel I should point out some of the practical consequences. I mentioned in my speech at the beginning of this process the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, who serves on my committee and is a really able Member. Are committees to be denuded of their participation just like that? Think of the practical considerations.

All that may not exude much sympathy, but I think all of us in this House are pretty fed up with reading in the newspapers how we get £371 a day just for turning up. The fact is that Members on the Front Bench are unpaid, and people are meant to meet their other costs out of this, which include research facilities and perhaps overnight accommodation for people coming from elsewhere. What of those hereditary Peers who have staffing or other obligations? Are they suddenly to be cut off, without any concern? I find it astonishing that the noble Baroness, chairing this group as she does, should come forward with such a divisive amendment.

When I spoke at the beginning, I suggested that there was a way forward—to reach a consensus in the House that looked at the requirements of the House, the role played by the hereditaries and their necessity in enabling the Opposition, Cross-Benchers and others to hold the Government to account. Wise Governments like to be held to account because that is what prevents them making serious mistakes.

As the House of Commons fails to do its job, this House becomes ever more important. We need an arrangement here. I understand that the Government have a clear mandate. The hereditary principle is over and a number of the hereditaries will leave the House, but let us do this in a way that does not poison the atmosphere in this House and does not prevent us carrying out our proper duties.

We can do without amendments like this. My noble friend Lord Young’s amendment, when we get to it, is the sort of approach I would much prefer to see coming from the noble Baroness than the amendment she has just moved.

20:45

[Baroness Seccombe (Con)]

My Lords, I feel almost ashamed to speak to this amendment, as doing so gives it credibility. I speak in sadness, as I cannot believe that any Member of this House would wish ill on our hereditary colleagues, as is suggested by the wording of this amendment. Its timing certainly favours booting out our colleagues and friends as soon as possible—it is nasty and brutal.

Our colleagues and their forebears have served this House for generations. I shall never forget the former Lord Montagu of Beaulieu telling me on his last day here that it was his duty. He could hardly speak but he thought it was his duty to attend whenever he was able. Duty was his motivation and it remains the motivation of our hereditary friends. Yet the noble Baroness wants to drive them out in this manner. I hope that all noble Lords will take this amendment and the ill intent behind it very seriously and, if there is a Division at another stage, vote against it to show respect and gratitude for what our colleagues and their ancestors have given to this House, and indeed our country, over centuries.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been an effort not to speak for the previous several hours, but flesh and blood can take only so much. I have listened to virtually all the debates that have taken place, including numerous Second Reading debates that took place on the first group of amendments today, with Members, kindly enough, pointing out to us that they had not had the opportunity to speak so far. We are on the fifth day in Committee and they did not speak on Second Reading, but they thought it was their duty to, in effect, give us a Second Reading speech today. They have since departed. I am sorry that they seem to have all gone somewhere else now and their interest in the Bill seems to have finished.

On my noble friend’s amendment, it is difficult for me not to repeat things. We are talking about 88 people who have known for a quarter of a century—if they know anything about these things or follow them—that this House has decided that the hereditary principle should not apply to legislators. Now, they are apparently faced with some gross injustice that will cause them great pain. As I have pointed out before, I have been summarily thrown out of Parliament, as has the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. I got over it pretty quickly, to be honest.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Yes, we were both thrown out by the electorate, but we were given some resource to enable us to deal with staffing and other issues. We were supported in that process.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

The decision to remove the hereditaries means they are being removed by the electorate —the electorate that elected a Labour Government with this manifesto commitment. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, will not know, because I departed rather before he did, that there was none of the kind of soft landings in quite that degree when I lost, but I do not complain about that. Man up. Man up is about the right phrase for a men-only section of the House of Lords. Plenty of notice is being given. My noble friend says it should be on Royal Assent. I think someone suggested it should be at the end of the Parliament in four and a half or five years, or at the end of this Session. When is the end of this Session? We do not know. It could be in a few weeks.

The fact is that there will be a date, there will be plenty of time to address it, and no great injustice is being done by following the result of a general election. Great kindness and support are being shown. We have all said, or many of us have said, that there are some very able hereditaries, but the most amusing of the comments I have heard is, “How will we cope with all this talent being lost to the House? Maybe we should set up a review after a year to see what damage has been done to our democracy by these people departing”.

I simply say to that, “Don’t bother”. We have done it; we had a review. Twenty-five years ago, 668—I think that was the figure—hereditary Peers were removed. We are talking about 87 now. We have had a template to see the damage that results from the departure of hereditary Peers. As far as I can make out, in the period since the 668 departed, the earth has still revolved around the sun in much the same way as it did before. The British people have taken it all very calmly and in their stride. I do not recall any demonstrations against it. I have not heard a tangible argument from anyone specifically spelling out what damage was done to the work of this House by the departure of that group of people. I have nothing against them. There may have been an Einstein among them as far as I am concerned, but this House is bigger than it will be when a certain number of people depart for whatever reason. It is suggested that if you throw a group of people out like this, all sorts of other groups will feel threatened. Well, if they do feel threatened, they will get around 25 years’ notice if precedent is anything to go by.

I want to put one final test—I slightly realise the risks I am taking by speaking at all—to people, mainly those on the other Benches. I have to take it at face value, although I have my doubts, that they are desperate for further reform of this House. They are urging the Government at the earliest possible opportunity to bring forward a series of reforms. I have never noticed them arguing for that other than in the present circumstances, but that is their argument, to which I say that if I were advising the Government now, in the light of this debate—where a very narrow, well-publicised, well-rehearsed, well-anticipated reform is taking place and has allowed this Committee over five long days and bits of nights to discuss everything from attendance to statutory commissions, the role of the Bishops and everything under the sun—my advice to them would be to think twice before they bring in any piece of reform legislation whatever because all this stuff was able to be debated this time, apparently legitimately, so they would be running a grave risk to their legislative programme if the same amount of time was given to any further reforms.

The real test will be this. Let us get on with the rest of this Committee. Let us get on with Report. I think three days should be the absolute maximum after five days in Committee.

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)]

It is two and a half days.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Leader says two and a half days, and I always bow to her suggestions. And let us put some perspective into this. The image we present through the discussions that we have been, and are still, having—that this is the single most important issue facing this House this Session, and that we need to debate it at huge length, which we do not give to every other subject that comes along—is not the best of public relations as far as this House is concerned. I shall not be tempted to get up again, but I did want to inject a bit of realism into our debate.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, the nature of this amendment has been clearly set out by my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lady Seccombe. My noble friend Lord Forsyth explained what the amendment actually does, and he made us confront the reality of what the amendment purports to do. I heard my noble friend Lady Seccombe say that she was ashamed to have to speak to the amendment, because it is so brutal—and brutal it is.

Therefore, one wonders why this amendment has been brought forward by the noble Baroness. The reason she gave was an odd one. The reason she gave was that, when the House adjourned at 10 pm, as it customarily does, light descended on her and she just had to put down this amendment.

I have not been here as long as the noble Baroness, but my understanding is that the House generally adjourns at 10 pm unless there is an arrangement between the usual channels for a later sitting. I understand that there was no such arrangement and that was why the House came to an end and adjourned at 10 pm. In any event, the idea that that is a reason to go further than the Government’s own Bill in respect of the date by which the hereditaries leave this place is, as a reason, not a reason at all. It is a fig leaf. There must be else something behind it. One wonders, what is that something else? I look forward, as I always do, to the words of the Leader, but especially on this, because this amendment contravenes, in terms, the Bill. It goes well beyond the Bill.

We have been hearing this evening that, when the Front Bench responds to amendments, the Minister should respond to the amendment and not to the debate. Therefore, I look forward to the Leader saying in unequivocal terms that she is opposed to this amendment. Otherwise, there will be a concern that—in a series of groups where very few people have spoken, and very few amendments have been put forward, from the government Benches—this amendment and this speech have been singled out above all else to be made and to be said.

We of course oppose this amendment, for the reasons already set out. However, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, who spoke in this House on one of the various Private Members’ Bills put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. I see that he got in early with the Government’s excuse as to why they cannot do second-stage reform: because it will be so amended and will take up so much time. That was very useful. I do that when I am in court. If I think that point is going to come up in six months’ time, I just put down a “sleeper”, as I call it. That was a good, old-fashioned sleeper as an excuse for no second-stage reform. But I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, who said in your Lordships’ House on 3 December 2021:

“We are not seeking to say farewell to any hereditary already here; indeed, we look forward to their contributions for many more years”.—[Official Report, 3/12/21; col. 1569.]


What has changed to make the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, not content with her own Government’s Bill but seek to accelerate the expulsion of the hereditaries? There seems to be no reason for it at all. I do hope that the Leader of the House will join me in our forthright opposition to this amendment.

21:00

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been an interesting debate. This is the first of three groups of amendments on the commencement. I take the point that it may have been more helpful to debate them together, but we have three different groups, so we will debate them in that way. I will speak to both the amendment and the debate, which may be helpful. My noble friend spoke to her amendment but also about some of the motivation behind it. It seems to me that she felt a little goaded, if I am correct in my interpretation, by how the Bill has been handled across the House, and perhaps some of the talk about delaying its implementation meant that she felt obliged to put the other side of the coin.

I know how noble Lords feel about leaving. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, drew a distinction between leaving here and leaving the other place rather unceremoniously when we were voted out by friends and neighbours and colleagues. He shares that distinction with my noble friend here and the noble Lord, Lord Hanson. It is not a pleasant feeling; it is emotionally difficult. One day you have a role and the next day you do not, and you do not know when it is coming. The thing about this Bill and the way it is proposed by the Government is that we do know when it is coming.

As many of us have been saying for several years now, the failure of the last Government to accept the Grocott Bill has brought us to where we are today, despite the efforts I made to ensure that my party helped that Bill’s passage through both Houses to get it on the statute books. So, I understand the point, and we tried to avoid it, but we are where we are now. I wrote in the House magazine four or five years ago that, if we failed to accept the Grocott Bill, this would be a consequence. It is not one we took with relish, but it is where we are because of what has happened previously.

I reject that it is nasty and brutal. It is not intended in that way. In fact, one of the things my noble friend said, although she spoke to the amendment, was that she did not want Royal Assent to coincide with the end of the Session. She would rather have Royal Assent and then get to the end of the Session, but, if the Bill took too long, they would coincide. I think the balance we have in the legislation is the right way forward.

I remind the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, as wonderful, smart and experienced as he may be, does not speak for the Government. He will be aware of that. I am encouraged, because I have heard so much agreement over the five days. My noble friend Lady Anderson has counted 39 hours of debate in Committee and at Second Reading and we have been greatly encouraged by the support there has been for proposals on participation, particularly, and on retirement. That was not there before we had those discussions. That is of enormous assistance in taking these issues forward and, although it may not have felt like it at times during long debates, I am grateful to those who have brought through those issues.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is worried that, with the departure of hereditary Peers, this House will no longer effectively scrutinise the Government. I have absolute confidence that this House will not shirk its duty and will maintain the ability to hold Governments to account. He will know from his time in government that it is not just the opposition parties who hold the Government to account. It is a matter for the whole House, including, as he will have found sometimes, Members from the Government’s own party. So this Government are confident that it will not affect the ability of the House to scrutinise legislation or hold the Government to account.

Having said all that, the effect of my noble friend’s amendment would be that the remaining hereditary Peers would leave your Lordships’ House on Royal Assent. That is beyond what is currently proposed in the Bill. She made the point about ensuring that there is time for the House to make arrangements for those who serve on committees, on the Woolsack and in other roles in your Lordships’ House, and we think that the sudden departure on Royal Assent would be a step too far. The approach we have taken in this legislation is consistent with the approach that was taken in 1999. That is fair and reasonable. I am grateful to my noble friend, because she has allowed me the opportunity to make some points. She made the point that, if the House wants to move on to the other issues, we need to get on with this Bill and see it through—but I can confirm that it is not the Government’s intention to bring forward anything similar to that, but rather to leave the effective date of the legislation as it is now, so I respectfully request that my noble friend withdraws her amendment.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for addressing the debate as well as just the amendment. Will she assure us that that is the general policy of the Government? Otherwise, I am going to have to draft three times as many amendments for the schools Bill to make sure that all the points I want to raise are covered on paper.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I am sorry: I am not really sure I understand the point that the noble Lord is making at all. I am not sure it is relevant at this point anyway.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

We were taken to task in an earlier group, and answers were given just to the amendment rather than to the width of the discussion.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I was trying to aid the Committee, but I think the noble Lord would agree that in previous debates the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, was congratulated on her ingenuity but that had very little to do with the Bill. It is entirely appropriate for Ministers to respond in the way that they wish, and to speak to the amendment is the usual way forward. I have broadened my comments out to be helpful to the Committee, but we would normally expect the Committee to speak to the amendment and the Minister to do the same.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken in the debate. I particularly welcome not just the support but the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, which was even more ingenious than some of the others that we have heard. Maybe we can make a little list of which two of us should go out with the hereditaries.

My noble friend the Leader of the House clearly understood exactly what I was saying, which is: if we are not careful then this will be on Royal Assent, because if we go much further then it will be at the end of the Session. That was the point of this debate. I think colleagues know I am not ill-minded or—what were the other words used about me?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

Nasty and brutal.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

I am slightly surprised to be called that, I have to say.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I did not say that the noble Baroness was nasty and brutal. I said her amendment was nasty and brutal.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

“Hairs”, “fine” and “splitting” come to mind.

There are two major issues: we have been warned about having these long debates and about amendments that, frankly, are never going to be accepted, because even if they go through here on opposition votes then they will be overturned down there. So what are we doing debating Motions that are never going to be in the Bill and probably should never have been tabled?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, this goes wider than the Bill. That is the second or third time that we have heard the doctrine that this House must never propose or suggest anything that the other House might disagree with. This is the revising Chamber and, even if we fear that the House of Commons might disagree with what we propose, in our wisdom we have every right, on every Bill, to ask the House of Commons to think again.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I do not disagree with the noble Lord, but I remember him saying the opposite from this Dispatch Box.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

Surely the issue is good advice. If I am trying to say anything, it is: can we get on with it? That is really what the amendment is about. We should not be tabling amendments that are out of scope. I am sorry to do this in front of the clerks but, honestly, some of them are not pertinent to the issue. The advice is: can we please get on with this?

I think my noble friend will want to take forward the wider suggestion, but she is clearly not going to do that until we have moved on this issue. So to all those who want more done, my advice—and this was the purpose of the amendment—is not to leave it too long, or it will be the end of the Session by the time this comes in.

I would have loved to have had this amendment debated with the rest. I kept getting draft lists that said “degroup”, and people have clearly been asked to degroup their amendments. I do not know why mine fell out, but I would have much preferred the whole of the idea of commencement to be in one group. Still, frankly, if we are going to have amendments tabled saying that it should go to the end of the Parliament five years on, then of course it must be possible to say, “Are there other dates as well?”

So the purpose of the amendment was to say two things. First, please can we not go on until basically the end of the Session before this comes in? Otherwise, the hereditaries will have no notice of it and the House will have no time to make adjustments. Secondly, can we get it done for the sake of this House moving on? We heard earlier about constitutional amendments. That was in the Conservative manifesto for the election before last, but it never happened. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, quite often used to ask about it at Question Time: “Where is this promised thing?” It did not happen.

I have an answer for the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar. What has changed since 2021 is that at that point it had not been accepted. In 2021, we said, “Can we please just stop the by-elections and keep the people in?” That was rejected by the noble Lord’s Government. That is what changed. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 103 withdrawn.

Amendment 104

Moved by

[Lord Moylan]

104: Clause 4, page 2, line 16, leave out from “force” to end of line 19 and insert “on the day after the Secretary of State has—
(a) issued a document for public consultation containing proposals for ensuring the membership of the House of Lords is more representative of the regions and nations, and(b) published a draft Bill giving effect to those changes.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment makes the commencement of the Bill subject to the prior issuance of a consultation document and draft legislation on the representation of the regions and nations in the House of Lords. It makes subsection (4) otiose.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, we come now to a group of amendments which deal with second-stage reform. I feel it incumbent on me, therefore, to start by tackling directly the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, in the last group where he suggested— I hope I am not misrepresenting him—that noble Lords on this side of the House who advocated for further reform beyond this Bill were either acting in bad faith or at least inconsistently in that they had not been calling for that reform before today.

I think that charge is easily understood. I can entirely understand why the noble Lord might reach that view, and it needs to be answered before we go ahead. The only answer I can offer is to some extent a repeat of remarks I made on an earlier day in Committee that, when you change one part of a complicated machine, other parts of it also change and need to be re-evaluated. As I have said perhaps twice, to turn this House into an entirely appointed House makes it ridiculous in the 21st century in a democracy.

Therefore, one is forced to think by this measure—there is nothing wrong with it—about what the future might be, and we may reach different views. However, it does not mean to say that because we have not articulated them before we are behaving inconsistently or in bad faith. I hope that gives some reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that we are taking these issues very seriously.

I shall speak only briefly to my own amendment and allow other noble Lords to speak to their amendments in this group. My own is in some ways the simplest. It looks forward to what we refer to as second-stage reform but really there are three stages of reform in the programme indicated by the Lord Privy Seal: this Bill; the other measures in the Labour Party manifesto which I regard as being under the heading “immediate” but she believes should follow, presumably, reasonably soon; and then the further commitment, which is clearly separate in time in the manifesto, to consult on altering the House of Lords so as to give more representation to the regions and nations.

My amendment simply says that the Bill should proceed only when the Government have issued that consultation document. They are committed to consultation and, presumably, the consultation begins formally with a consultation document that would contain options and questions and so forth—it is not necessarily a firm commitment—together with a draft Bill, which might have alternative sections in it reflecting that consultation document. It would show earnest on the part of the Front Bench that there really is going to be change, that the rest of their manifesto is not a hollow shell and that we are not simply going to be left, as so many of us suspect and fear, with the reform in this Bill and then nothing else to follow.

This is opening a door for the Front Bench to say, “Yes, we are serious about our manifesto, and we believe that these documents should be issued and be there for public scrutiny. The process will start—not conclude—before the Bill commences”. This is a very modest ask of the Government and I hope that the Lord Privy Seal would find herself able to show her earnest by agreeing to it. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

My Lords, I must inform the Committee that if Amendment 104 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 105 to 110 by reason of pre-emption.

21:15

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 109 in this group, which follows on rather nicely from my noble friend Lord Moylan’s amendment but takes it a stage further. The Labour manifesto of 2024 stated:

“Labour is committed to replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations”.


Hence I am, in this probing amendment, reminding the House of the proposals of the royal commission of 2000, chaired by my noble friend Lord Wakeham, in its paragraphs 33 to 38, to receive the opinions of the Government and other noble Lords on them.

The commission recommended that

“a new second chamber of around 550 members should be made up as follows: A significant minority of the members of the new second chamber should be ‘regional members’ chosen on a basis which reflects the balance of political opinion within each of the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. The regional electorates should have a voice in the selection of members of the new second chamber. Those members in turn will provide a voice for the nations and regions. Other members should be appointed on the nomination of a genuinely independent Appointments Commission with a remit to create a second chamber which was broadly representative of British society and possessed all the other characteristics mentioned above. The Appointments Commission should be responsible for maintaining the proportion of … ‘Cross Benchers’ … in the new second chamber at around 20 per cent … Among the politically-affiliated members, the Appointments Commission would be required to secure an overall political balance matching the political opinion of the country as a whole, as expressed in votes cast at the most recent general election. To facilitate a smooth transition to the new arrangements, the existing life peers should become members of the new second chamber”.

The commission then stated that

“party patronage and Prime Ministerial control of the size and balance of the second chamber should cease. The Appointments Commission should ensure that the new second chamber is broadly representative of British society. It should make early progress towards achieving gender balance and proportionate representation … of minority ethnic groups. In order to identify appropriate candidates for the second chamber it should maintain contacts with vocational, professional, cultural, sporting and other bodies. It should publish criteria for appointment to the chamber and invite nominations from the widest possible range of sources”.

The royal commission then presented

“three possible models for the selection of the regional members”.

Each model had the support of different members of the commission. Model A proposed

“a total of 65 regional members, chosen at the time of each general election by a system of ‘complementary’ election. Votes cast for party candidates in each constituency … would be accumulated at regional level. The parties would secure the number of regional members for each region proportional to their shares of the vote in that region, drawing the names from a previously published party list. Regional members would be selected for one-third of the regions at each general election”.

Model B proposed

“a total of 87 regional members, elected at the time of each European Parliament election”.

Clearly, the timing of this would have to be refined, now that we have left the EU. It said:

“One-third of the regions would choose their regional members at each election. The system of election used for electing members”


suggested was the same as was previously

“used for electing the United Kingdom’s members of the European Parliament, although a majority of those supporting this model would prefer a ‘partially open’ list system of proportional representation (PR)”

where electors have the option to vote for the candidate or the party.

Model C proposed a much larger

“total of 195 regional members elected by thirds, using a ‘partially open’ list system of PR, at the time of each European Parliament election”.

Again, this timing would have to be refined.

Model B had the support of a substantial majority of the commission, which proposed that to

“promote continuity and a longer-term perspective, all members (under all three models) should serve for three electoral cycles or 15-year terms, with the possibility of being reappointed for a further period of up to 15 years at the discretion of the Appointments Commission”.

With regard to religious faith, a substantial majority of the commission recommended a

“broadening and deepening of religious representation in the second chamber. Representation should be extended beyond the Church of England to embrace other Christian denominations … and representatives of other faiths”.

In conclusion, the report states that its proposals

“represent a significant change from what has gone before. No new member of the second chamber will arrive there on the same basis as any existing member of the House of Lords. No new member of the second chamber will get there via an Honours List. The new second chamber will be more democratic and representative than the present House of Lords”.

The Chamber would be more democratic because it

“as a whole will reflect the overall balance of political opinion within the country. Regional members will directly reflect the balance of political opinion within the regions”.

The House would be more representative because it would

“contain members from all parts of the country and from all walks of life, broadly equal numbers of men and women and representatives of all the country’s main ethnic and religious communities”.

In conclusion, I believe that the Wakeham commission proposals would make the House of Lords more representative of the regions and nations, as per the Government’s election manifesto.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 111 in this group. Over the last four days of debate, I think I have been convinced that there are better ways of achieving this.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, this group and the next group of amendments all seek to either defer the implementation of the Bill or to set conditions on its implementation. The reason for that second point has to do with various other changes that noble Lords wish to make in how the House is constituted and behaves, which it believes that it is most likely to achieve by setting those conditions. I disagree with that; I think that the simplest and most sensible thing is to pass this Bill as it is and proceed to look at the other things, as I will now suggest.

Early in these debates, lost in the mists of history, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that he thought that it was unfortunate that the powers that be had allowed amendments on such a wide range of things, and I said that I agreed with him. To a limited extent at least, I have changed my mind, because the earlier debates around retirement, participation and attendance demonstrated that there was a very considerable degree of agreement in your Lordships’ House. Hopefully, that gives us a basis for going forward that did not exist before—and that was a good thing.

The question is how we go forward. An assumption has been that the only way to make those significant further changes is by further legislation. As I said earlier in these debates, I am very wary of that, because the House would cease to be a self-regulating House and would become a Commons-regulated House. The House of Commons would determine what it said about when we should retire, how often we should come and how we should behave when we are here.

Knowing some of my new colleagues, I can quite well imagine that a lot of them think that 80 is far too old for anybody to be in your Lordships’ House. They will think, “Well, I’ll make a bit of a name for myself by putting down 65”. I can see a lot of people thinking, “That’s a jolly good idea—we’ll show ’em”. The arguments that we have heard ad infinitum here about how wonderful we are cut zero ice at the other end of this Palace. I can well imagine that we would find ourselves with a different retirement age to the one that is currently likely to form the nearest thing to consensus in your Lordships’ House.

I equally think that colleagues at the other end, who know very little or nothing about the way we work, would be appalled that we think the kind of attendance level we have been discussing—10%, 15% or 20%—is even vaguely reasonable. They think that we are here to do a job and you cannot do a job on one day a fortnight. I am therefore strongly of the view—and I hope the Leader will take a lead on this—that we should look at ways, which I believe exist, under which we can introduce retirement, participation and attendance norms that would satisfy your Lordships’ House and continue the principle that we are a self-regulating House. I hope she might take a lead by convening a group herself or establishing another group to do the task, within a set timescale, of reaching consensus—or rather, something that nearly everybody can live with—on those areas, so that we can deal with them ourselves.

Apart from anything else, beyond thinking that no further legislation is possible in this Parliament, anybody who has been in government will find it difficult to believe that any Government would introduce a House of Lords reform Bill in two successive Sessions. That is very unlikely for any Government. When I was the Government Deputy Chief Whip, I was on the future legislation committee with Members of the Commons—I think the noble Lord, Lord Young, chaired it at one point. I pity the poor Minister who came to argue before that committee that they wanted a second House of Lords reform Bill within 18 months. I just do not think it is doable.

There is a way forward for all those second-stage reforms. Then there is the third stage: the possibility of the House of Lords being elected. There is a very easy way of dealing with that within the context of this Bill. It is simply for everybody to vote for a resubmitted Amendment 11, in my name, which I shall put down before Report, calling on the Government to start drafting a Bill which looks at electing your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Does the noble Lord accept that, if you are going to elect your Lordships’ House, you have to decide what it will do beforehand?

[Lord Newby (LD)]

No.

[The Lord Bishop of London]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 109, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook. Those of us on these Benches are clear that we support the inclusion of wider faith representatives in your Lordships’ House. Since before the Wakeham commission, we have favoured wider representation. Many of us work alongside different faith leaders and we know well the expertise that they can bring. In past submissions to this House, the Church of England has offered to work with the appointments commission on how representatives from other denominations and faiths might be identified to serve here. However, this is not straightforward. For example, Roman Catholic clergy are prohibited by the Vatican from serving on legislatures, and it is not easy to find representative leaders among diverse bodies such as Churches or other faith groups. This would require serious discernment, more than is offered by Amendment 109.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I think that I am the only Member of the House, except for the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who was here in 1999 for the first expulsion—

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I was.

[Lord Wrottesley (Con)]

I was.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

We voted for it.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

Oh, there were others.

I remind the Committee that we were brutally removed when the Act was passed. It was late December that the Bill was taken through its final stages, and we were out of the House by the end of December. The great difference—as I hope other noble Lords who were there in 1999 will remember—is that we did not have any long debates. We had no debates about the future constitution of the House of Lords, except whether it would be elected or appointed. That is where our discussions ended. I am getting a nod from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, so I am getting support on that point.

21:30

I participated only at Second Reading of this Bill. I jumped up once to remember a noble Lord on the Cross Benches who had had prison service and became the penal expert in the House, but other than that, I have not intervened. I have not listened to all the debates, but this has been an interesting five days, with a lot of points made. The firm congratulations should go to my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal, who patiently dealt with one amendment after another. She did not make the point—which I think she could have—that most of the amendments fell well outside the Long Title of the Bill.

When we get to Report—I am particularly addressing noble Lords on the other side of the Committee—we will have had all the discussions about the future constitution and role of the House of Lords. So could we on Report, partly out of kindness—there is kindness from all sides of the House toward my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal—leave her undertakings to consider many of these constitutional features of the House and bring forward the necessary legislation or the changing of the rules of the House? Can we have a thoroughly shortened Report stage and not another elongated stage, like this Committee?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I do not know if it is a sentiment shared by the Ministers opposite, but I for one think that the 39 hours we have spent in Committee on this Bill has been time well spent—maybe 39.5 hours now, I suppose.

The Government chose to affect this part of the reform that they set out in their manifesto not through a royal commission or constitutional convention but on the Floor of your Lordships’ House, in a Bill they drafted knowing, through their experience, all the downsides of that when it comes to the scope and role of your Lordships’ House to scrutinise and ask questions. They chose to do it that way. I am glad that the five days we have spent in Committee have afforded the Lord Privy Seal the opportunity to hear the consensus, enthusiasm and anxiety of many noble Lords to see the Government turn to those other parts of their manifesto commitments on the reform of this House as swiftly as possible.

The points covered in these amendments echo questions that were left unanswered in 1999 and in the decade of Labour Government that followed that Act. If the remaining hereditary Peers are to be expelled before these questions are answered, we owe it to them at least to set out a timetable within which these matters will be turned to. We would not have needed five days in Committee if answers were a bit more forthcoming to some of the questions that noble Lords raised. I hope that the Leader of the House is able to address the questions that underly these amendments and to set out, with a bit more certainty, when the Government propose to turn to the second stage of their reform of your Lordships’ House.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a theme we have discussed which regularly goes beyond hereditary Peers. I understand the point the noble Lord has made. The Committee has been useful. I would not have expected the debate to range so widely, given that it was quite clear in the manifesto that there were three stages here—the first being immediate reform to hereditary Peers; the next being to talk about participation, retirement, HOLAC and things such as the citations that we now have for people, which have already been put into place without needing any legislation. We will see more issues coming forward on the kind of things that we can do. Though it was unexpected, the scope of the amendments has been rather wide.

It has been useful—I think the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, would agree if he was listening—if unexpected, because I had not realised quite the degree of interest and concern from noble Lords, and support for bringing forward the other issues on participation and retirement. I think that helps us move things forward. It was unexpected and at times frustrating but it has been very helpful. I am grateful to noble Lords for that.

However, these amendments go further than I would be willing to accept because they all make the progress of the Bill towards Royal Assent conditional on certain actions being taken. That would be a rather unusual step for this House to take. The objection is not that further reforms should not happen—noble Lords will know from conversations I have had with them that I am committed to that, and our manifesto committed to it. There was support from around the House, which had not been forthcoming before, so I was very encouraged by that. But it should not be conditional on the Bill.

The reason why this part came forward—I feel as if I am repeating myself, but it has happened before and it will happen again, and I am not the only one—is the principle established over 25 years ago on hereditary Peers. We signalled this part of legislation several times beforehand—I will repeat myself—but we offered support to get my noble friend Lord Grocott’s Bill through; that was rejected and we said this would happen, and here we are now.

I had not realised how much support there was around the House for the other issues, so we can look at that and, I hope, bring things back some time soon. So this is the immediate reform and it can happen separately, prior to other reform.

The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, made proposals for a draft Bill along the lines of the Wakeham commission’s findings. I had not heard him speak so often or so eloquently on Lords reforms before this Bill, so I am grateful to him for doing so. The Wakeman commission was in 2002. That does not mean that some of those proposals are not still relevant and cannot be considered, but it was a long time ago and things change, as he will know. But I am grateful to him for his interest in that, which I had not appreciated before this Bill. I look forward to working with him and others on that as we go forward.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, I think his memory is slightly remiss on this one. It was, in fact, in November that the Bill got Royal Assent, and it happened so quickly then—I think this was the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, made earlier—because we had Royal Assent towards the end of the Session.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, had concerns about this. When he raised this point previously it was almost as if—to coin a famous Tony Blair phrase from a Labour Party conference some years ago—Members heard the sound of pennies dropping. I got the impression that many noble Lords thought that it would be preferable if this House came to an arrangement or to a broad consensus on participation and retirement rather than having legislation on it. I am happy about either. I would like to find a way forward to get some consensus, if that is possible. It may be that legislation has to follow that, or that there will be legislation if there is no consensus. As I say, this is how I would have preferred to deal with this issue had we been in government sooner, but as Leader of the Opposition I made it clear that it was my view that, if the House can come to a consensus and arrangement on how we do things—I hope to be able to talk more about the process—then I would be happy to do so. As I say, I am greatly encouraged, even by noble Lords who have never previously spoken on or shown any interest in Lords reform, that there is a different mood now, and I think Members want to look at this issue.

I want to correct the noble Lord, Lord Newby: the proposals in the Labour Party manifesto were not for an elected second Chamber. It was not so specific. It talked about “alternative” arrangements for a second Chamber, and that would be for consultation. I know some noble Lords from across the House would prefer an elected Chamber, while others prefer other arrangements.

On my own view, I must admit that I am nervous. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, has said that he thought we should challenge the House of Commons more, and that greater democracy in this Chamber would make us challenge the House of Commons more. I still think of the House of Commons as the primary, elected Chamber. There is a different role for your Lordships’ House, which brings me to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, raised, in a rare moment of agreement between us: we have to look at the function of a second Chamber before we move forward too quickly on the arrangements for a fully reformed second Chamber.

There is a debate to be had about that, which is why our manifesto talks about engaging and consulting, including with the public, to do so. It is right to give that careful consideration. We have a proposal before us. I do not think that the commencement of the Bill should be conditional on any of the measures before us, so I ask that noble Lords do not press their amendments.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who spoke in this short debate. All of them were excellent, but I will comment in particular on the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, which I found very interesting and hopeful, in many ways. He is right that many of the measures in the Labour Party manifesto, which many of us are asking to see brought forward, at the very least for debate, would be better dealt with in and through your Lordships’ House than by means of legislation. Indeed, that would make it easier for the Front Bench to bring them forward in a prompt and timely manner. He also opened the door—as did my noble friend Lord True, when he spoke earlier in Committee—to discussions with the Lord Privy Seal about how to take these things forward. The great difficulty we have had so far is that there has been no substantive response to that, but I found what the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said interesting.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord says that there has never been a substantive response. I can be clear that I have always said almost exactly the same words as I have said today, or paraphrased them: I have always thought that the best way is to seek consensus in this House. At the conclusion of this Bill, I would like to reach consensus in this House on other issues that we have been discussing in the manifesto, and I look forward to bringing in some proposals for how we might achieve that. It is up to the House whether it wishes to accept those or not.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

Nothing in what the noble Baroness just said contradicted what I said. There has been no substantive response. The noble Baroness might want to proceed by consensus. That is a method of proceeding. I refer to the substance, and there has been no substantive response, despite the fact that it has been perfectly open to the Front Bench to bring forward substantive proposals, at least for discussion, so far.

There is no need for my Amendment 104—again, this relates to what the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said—to be embedded in legislation. The noble Baroness, from her years in opposition, complained that it is designed to hold up implementation of the Bill. She knows perfectly well that, to a degree, it is a contrivance to attach an amendment to a commencement clause in order to allow for a debate, but the plain words of my amendment, which are largely taken word for word from the Labour Party manifesto and include not a commitment to a democratic House but to exactly what it says in that manifesto, could be achieved by the simple expedient of the Government bringing forward exactly the consultation document they promised and exactly the draft Bill that needs to go with it, exactly as it stands in their manifesto, at a time of their choosing but in the near future, as an earnest of what they are doing so that we can see the direction in which they are going. Obviously, the need for legislation or any amendment to this Bill would then fall away, because the Government would have done what the amendment calls for.

We are to some extent going round in circles. We want to hear the Government’s programme. There is no substance to the Government’s programme. I am glad that we have flushed out that there is no substance to it. With that, all I can do is beg leave to withdraw this amendment.

Amendment 104 withdrawn.

Amendment 105

Moved by

[Lord Blencathra]

105: Clause 4, page 2, line 16, leave out “Session of”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would remove Exempted Hereditary peers over a longer timescale, to permit the House to benefit from their input while giving them more time to seek alternative employment.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, we all accept that the hereditary principle is now over. The Labour manifesto said that they would remove hereditary Peers, but it did not say exactly when. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said that it was to be immediate, but “immediate” in the manifesto referred to modernisation and a retirement age of 80 for Peers. It was the modernisation which would be immediate, not necessarily the removal of hereditary Peers.

21:45

It has been suggested that some of us in this House have come rather late in the day to wanting to see reform and retirement ages and so on. Some noble Lords will be aware of the spreadsheets which I commissioned from the Library. We had a debate on day 2 using all the information on them. They came about last year when I emailed the splendid Mr Tobin in the Library. I said, “Dear Mr Tobin, do you remember all those spreadsheets that you prepared for me in 2015 to send to the Lord Burns committee? Could I have them updated, please, for this?” I used that information then, and many of us have believed in reform for a long time. The information that I supplied to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, was about retirement ages, participation rates and attendance rates. There was also a suggestion that the Government could introduce a non-legislative Peer: Prime Ministers need to give out gongs to people; they could give out gongs and call people Lords but not necessarily with a writ to come to this House.

We now have this Bill, which says:

“This Act comes into force at the end of the Session of Parliament in which this Act is passed.”

Therefore, we can assume, as everyone has said, that the hereditary Peers will be chucked out in about six months’ time—or maybe just into the new year if the Government continue to introduce massive Bills which are ill thought-out. However, why the haste to throw out some of the most hard-working Peers in this House? We all agreed in earlier debates that there were about 118 Peers who turned up for fewer than 15% of our sittings and over 70 who turned up for fewer than 10% of our sittings. We agreed that there were a dozen or so Peers who turned up but did absolutely nothing. There was also agreement that we needed a retirement age of about 85. However, the Government have refused to countenance any of these changes which would deliver the smaller House that we all want to see.

Again, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, who I regret is not in her place, said that if we had not wasted five days debating this Bill, we could have dealt with those other things. That is disingenuous, because the amendments that I moved on day 2 did tackle those things. To be fair, the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, came up with a far better amendment on participation rates than the one that I introduced. On a retirement age, the noble Earls, Lord Devon and Lord Kinnoull, had a far better amendment than my suggestions for retirement. Other suggestions on attendance rates were supported by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. Those suggestions were made, but “We do not want them in the Bill because it is too complicated and unnecessary”.

The only amendment that we need on Report—this is where I disagree with my noble friend Lord Moylan—is a simple one which says something like, “Whenever the House of Lords passes a resolution relating to retirement ages, participation or attendance, the Government shall bring forward regulations and lay them before both Houses of Parliament”. That gives this House six months, 12 months, 10 years, to figure out the details of retirement and participation and then pass a resolution which will be laid before both Houses in a regulation by the Government. That is all we need—no new legislation, just to build that tiny power into the Bill.

Instead, we have this vendetta against 99 hereditaries in the belief that the Government will win more votes here if they do this. I did the figures—again for the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Burns—and, if any Labour or Conservative Government in this House wanted a guarantee that they would win votes for the majority, they would have to reduce the combined numbers of Cross-Benchers, Lib Dems, Conservative, Labour and non-affiliated Peers to no more than 250 in total. Alternatively, it would have to add about 300 Labour or Conservative Peers.

Since when has a lack of a majority here stopped the Government getting their legislation through? Between 2005 and 2010, the Labour Government suffered 175 defeats in the House of Lords. The Conservative Government of 2019 to 2024 suffered 410 defeats. Yet, for all those defeats, I do not recall any major Bill in the Labour or Conservative manifestos being completely blocked or sabotaged by Lords action—by the Opposition action, whether Conservative or Labour.

Of course, what it means is ping-pong, which is inconvenient for Ministers and a bit boring, but at the end of the day, the Government always get their way, and rightly so—just as it is right that they have to work a bit harder for it. Thus, I suggest that throwing out some of our hard-working Peers at the end of this Session is vindictive and politically unnecessary for the Government to get their business through. We should have the decency to let them serve out this Parliament.

The Labour manifesto said that it would introduce a retirement age for Peers turning 80 at the end of the Parliament, not the Session. On the one hand, the Government will get rid of the hereditaries at the end of Session, but on the other hand, Peers aged 80 will not leave until the end of the Parliament. Why that inconsistency? I cannot understand the difference.

Finally, I will make a hypothetical but valid point. Suppose a Conservative Government decided to introduce a retirement age for some life Peers at age 85, meaning that they would be slung out the second the Bill became law or at the end of a Session, and say that would mean 30 Labour Peers being slung out. I think there would be outrage in this House. There would be outrage on the Conservative side that a Conservative Government would dare to treat Peers in that way. Labour Peers should reflect on that: if they are going to do that to hereditaries, what would it feel like if a Tory Government did that to them? That is what the Government plan to do to 88 hereditaries in a few months’ time. I leave it to noble Lords to reflect on that, and I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 107 and 113 in my name seek to postpone the removal of the hereditary Peers to the end of the next Session, rather than the end of this one. For the record, I have never sought to have my amendments degrouped from any others.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, earlier on today, this is the first time I have spoken on the Bill, though I have, of course, followed the proceedings. I support other amendments that would postpone the removal of the hereditary Peers, but I believe mine has the best chance of getting the support of other parties, because the postponement is relatively modest and so does the least injury to the haste with which the Government have committed themselves in their manifesto.

The real criticism of this Bill is not that it is gerrymandering or prosecuting a class war. There are perfectly respectable arguments for removing the hereditaries. The substantial criticism of the Bill is that it will undermine the capacity of the House of Lords to hold the Government to account by removing some of its most active Members—that is its Achilles heel.

The House of Lords is not a place where sheep may safely graze. It is a key part of our constitution, improving the quality of legislation and giving the other place an opportunity to think again. We have repeatedly heard of the disproportionate amount of heavy lifting done by the hereditary Peers; I will not repeat those arguments, but not only have they gone unchallenged but Government Ministers have gone out of their way to heap praise upon the hereditaries for the work they do.

The Government’s public response to this criticism is to say that it is an insult to the rest of us to imply that we cannot backfill the void. But in their hearts, they know that the House will be weaker. I believe they plan to do something about it, but they will not acknowledge this publicly, or begin to discuss what their response might be, until the Bill is safely on the statute book. My amendment seeks to allow more space for that discussion and more space for the subsequent response than is provided for at the moment by postponing their departure until the end of the next Session. It would give more time for ranks to be replenished and capacity to be retained, possibly by the retention of some of those due to leave.

As we have heard, many hereditary Peers sit on Select Committees, the work of which goes on from one Session to the next. We heard from my noble friend Lord Forsyth about the five Deputy Speakers. We need a longer transition if the work of the House is not to be disrupted. The amendment is perfectly consistent with the manifesto, and it actually addresses the weakness in the Government’s defence.

I believe there is a further argument for more time: we should treat fairly those who have given up careers outside and give them more time to adjust. I note what the noble Lord, Lord Burns, said on Second Reading on 11 December:

“My first reservation is the implication that all excepted hereditary Peers should be required to retire once the Bill becomes law”.


He went on to say:

“Often, they have given up alternative careers to join this House”.—[Official Report, 11/12/24; col. 1736.]


I was relieved to hear that the Government will not support Amendment 103, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter.

Here, I will refer to what happened last time. In June 1993, the Labour Party committed itself to a two-stage process of reform, removing the hereditaries in the first stage. After the election in 1997, they actually left in 1999—six years after the commitment and two years after the election.

By contrast, there has been dramatically less notice this time. There had been reports in the last Parliament that, following the publication of the Brown report in 2022, the House of Lords would be abolished and replaced with a form of regional representation. In February 2024, it was reported that wholesale reform would not be a priority for the first term; then there were reports that a Labour Government would confine themselves to implementing the Grocott Bill. It was not until 13 June last year that the Labour Party committed itself to the abolition of the hereditary Peers, leaving some 18 months before removal.

The Government sometimes point to the contrast with MPs, who lose their job overnight. But there is an important difference. Every MP knows that there will be a day of reckoning every five years or less: that is the deal. But it is not the case with Peers. Also, for every MP who is removed, a new one takes his or her place—an important distinction.

In 1997, there was a key difference. The two groups of Peers principally affected, the Conservatives and the Cross-Benchers, were allowed to choose their share of the 92 remaining. That meant that the capacity of the House to hold the Government to account was affected only marginally. There is no such safety net this time round, and the time in which to rebuild that capacity, as in the Bill, is much less.

I end with a final reason. It is important to avoid the ungracious way in which the hereditary Peers were made to depart in 1997: “Thank you and goodbye”, with T-shirts celebrating their departure. There was an absence of generosity of spirit last time, which I know the current Administration are anxious to avoid.

This amendment is moderate and sensible. It deserves serious consideration from the Lib Dems and Cross Benches, on whom its fate will depend.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, who set out some wise and compelling reasons for his amendment. I hope that the Government will consider it as seriously as it deserves to be taken.

My Amendment 106 in this group is not so much about timing as about ensuring that proper bicameral consideration has been given to the Bill before it becomes an Act of Parliament. It seeks for commencement to take place not at the end of this Parliament but at the end of the Parliament after this. This follows the point that I raised at Second Reading, when I pointed out that we have a very new House of Commons: more than half the Members of another place were elected for the first time in July last year. When I spoke at Second Reading, I pointed out that the other place had sat for only 62 days; with their greater experience by the end of this Committee, they have now sat for 115 days—still not a great deal of time.

In this Parliament, we have so far passed only three Acts of Parliament. Two were money Bills and one was about renationalising the railways. At Second Reading, I wondered how many MPs had had the chance to experience effective working between the Houses and across the parties to see how we make laws better by working between the two Chambers. There has still been little opportunity for them to do so; on the whole, they are still a rather green bunch on the green Benches.

That is why, while I and all noble Lords respect the primacy of the elected House and the mandate on which the Government were elected, we would find it disappointing if this Bill, which seeks to make such profound changes to your Lordships’ House, has to be rammed through with no amendments from your Lordships’ House; and why I find it disappointing to hear again from the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, and others that we should not dare to put an amendment that we know will be overturned in another place. With a majority of 174, that argument could apply to every piece of legislation brought before us in the rest of this Parliament. That is not the role of your Lordships’ House. I hope that it does not become it.

Not by seeking to lengthen the time before commencement but by asking that greater thought is given to this by both Houses of Parliament, full of people who have experience of legislating for the better interests of our country—and sharing some of the concerns that were set out by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, about becoming a House regulated by the lower House—I hope noble Lords will look at my Amendment 106 with seriousness as well.

22:00

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, the hour is late, so I simply want to say this: I hope that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House will take on board the very wise advice given by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham in speaking to his amendment. He is vastly experienced, having been Leader in the other place. I think all of us, with the possible exception of the odd Conservative Whip, have much enjoyed the way in which he takes a sometimes very independent and always well-considered view of matters before the House. Notwithstanding the earlier debate, I would like to be on record as very firmly in support of what he suggested. I hope that the noble Baroness the Leader will treat that seriously in the interests of the House as a whole.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, other amendments in this group have a tendency to delay the date of implementation of the Bill. My Amendment 107A is neutral on that. It would remove the words relating to the end of the Session from the Bill and instead would make the implementation of the Bill dependent on a statutory instrument to be moved by the Government. To make it all the easier for the Government to accept it, I have ensured that it would be through the negative procedure, so it would be the easiest thing in the world for the Government to do. That flexibility might be of advantage to the Government; indeed, if I were them, I would seize this amendment with open hands and adopt it as my own.

Noble Lords who are hereditary Peers may think that it introduces an element of capriciousness about their fate and that they would therefore be uncertain about when they would come to the end of their term. But there is already a large degree of capriciousness and uncertainty, because the end of the Session is, of course, not a fixed date: it will be decided, in effect, by the Prime Minister, and I am sure he will decide it according to a broad range of considerations. The fate of Members of your Lordships’ House is probably quite low on that list. The Session could end at any time. Noble Lords who feel that they would somehow be losing control of events by handing this power to the Government just need to remember that the end of the Session is equally in the Government’s power. But this would give the Government a little more flexibility and allow them to have more discussions, perhaps after the Bill has passed, about an appropriate time for implementing it, so as to be able to carry noble Lords with them a little more.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I spoke in November and December, and again in this Committee, about the necessity of avoiding a cliff edge when we were thinking about retirement ages. I thought it would be interesting to inform the Committee of the nature of the cliff edge for the Cross Bench and the necessity I therefore feel for considering very carefully the transitional arrangements, which this series of amendments really goes to.

In a pure sense, we would lose 18.5% of our membership—and, therefore, of the people who put in the hours in this House—upon the coming into force of this Bill. If you adjust that by taking out the people who come less than 10% of the time—the people who really are inactive—that rises to 22.5%. Without a transitional arrangement, the Bill represents quite a difficulty for the Cross Bench in trying to deliver the services we try to deliver to this House.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, I will be incredibly brief. My name is on the amendment, along with that of my noble friend Lord Blencathra. It is an issue I raised at Second Reading. It is something that has been of great importance, but we have had some very fine interventions and speeches this evening, which I do not wish to repeat.

I would simply say, without trying to sound in the least bit pompous, that constitutional change is not just a matter of winning votes; it is also about winning arguments and taking others with you. I simply say to the Government that, judging from the mood I have sensed this evening, if they were to give even a little in this area, they could gain a great deal. I encourage the Government to look again a second time, and indeed a third time, at some of the very fine points that have been made in this House this evening.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I express my support for the last speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, on his approach to what might happen on Report, and encourage him to reflect on the suggestion from my noble friend Lord Blencathra that, if that needs reinforcement, it might be by way of making sure we can make changes to this House as a result of secondary legislation that is initiated here.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, given the hour, I can also be brief, because the essential points have been made by the Convenor and by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. In essence, what lies behind all these proposed amendments is the question of effectiveness and the importance of putting in place some transitional arrangements to make sure that we do not face the cliff edge, to pick up that phrase from the Convenor, which would be to the detriment of all of us in this House and, indeed, to Parliament generally. We have, as my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay reminded us, a bicameral Parliament and we have to make sure that both Houses work well together. So, the critical point here is that of effectiveness.

This group shows again why analogies are dangerous in this area. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, spoke in the last group and we had, yet again, the analogy with MPs. It is not a good analogy. The problem with analogies, as a Court of Appeal judge once put it to me, is that they are different, and we are dealing with a vastly different circumstance here: hereditary Peers leaving this House as against MPs leaving the House of Commons in a general election.

The central issue here is one of effectiveness and proper transitional arrangements. Therefore, I look forward to the response of the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal to these various options as to how we might best proceed here.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

I am afraid I start by disappointing the noble Lord.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

Forgive me—I apologise.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

As long as it is not a disappointment, my Lord. It would have been a disappointing end to Committee—although we have one more group to go—if we had got to the final groupings without reference to the now famous spreadsheets of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. So, I thank him for that.

With regard to some of the comments, before I move on to the substance, I just want to correct for the record a couple of things. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, underestimates the interest of our colleagues at the other end of the building: not least, I believe that my fiancé is watching on television, so I am pretty sure that some Members of the other the other place are interested.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

I was wondering. I bet a fiver that that lot at the other end of the building are not sitting. If they are sitting in front of a television at home, they are not sitting in that Chamber, as we are. The analogy between us and them and our salaries simply does not hold water.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his comments. I am a former Member of the other place and I am very aware of their sitting hours. They sit earlier than us. Also, my other half is sitting in his office doing casework while he waits for me to finish. Their hours are extensive and many Members of the other place work excessive hours. It was not unusual for me to work 100 hours a week as a Member of Parliament. I work not dissimilar hours serving your Lordships’ House.

I would also suggest that not only does the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, underestimate other colleagues, but I want to correct the record for both him and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. Actually, 13 Bills have received Royal Assent since we took office.

I also thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for their thoughtful contributions, which I think changed the tone of this evening’s debate.

As we have heard, the amendments in this group would delay the commencement of the Bill. Noble Lords may be about to experience a sense of déjà vu, as much of my response will sound familiar from the past two groups. I think it is a fair to observe that the topic of commencement has been particularly affected by the groupings, not necessarily at the request of individuals Members, so I apologise to noble Lords if this feels repetitious.

At one end of the scale, Amendment 107, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, would delay commencement until the end of the Session after the Session in which the Bill is passed. The amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, goes further by delaying it until the end of the Parliament in which the Bill is passed. The amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, would delay the removal of hereditary Peers from this place until the end of the Parliament after the Parliament in which the Bill is passed, which would potentially delay the implementation of this overdue reform until as late as 2034—not that I know the dates of future general elections. Just for the record, we talked about future general elections and MPs having an appreciation of that. I was an MP for four and a half years, and I fought three general election campaigns. I did not really have time to prepare for my departure in the way that has been suggested.

As to Amendment 107A proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, it appears to make the Act come into force at the end of the Session of Parliament which the Secretary of State appoints by commencement regulations. We cannot accept any amendment that would cause delay to the commencement of the Act. The Bill currently provides that it comes into force at the end of the parliamentary Session in which it receives Royal Assent, as set out in Clause 4. In response an amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Hayter, in the previous group, my noble friend the Leader of the House made it clear that these arrangements seek to ensure the timely delivery of our manifesto commitment without undermining the business of the House and are entirely consistent with the approach taken in 1999. I respectfully say to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that the Government already have a precise plan of when to bring this legislation into force, as set out in Clause 4. It is not a good use of the time of the Government, nor indeed that of the House, to require an additional piece of legislation to commence the Act. Given all that has been repeatedly said, I respectfully ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to respond to the debate—not just to the amendment but to some of the comments of my noble friends. My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham made an excellent speech and moved an excellent amendment. It was modest and moderate, as he said. The Achilles heel of this Bill is that it reduces the capacity of the House of Lords and the Opposition to hold the Government to account. As he pointed out, the House will be the weaker because of it. He made a very good point that, in 1999, the Conservatives had a chance to select those who would contribute most so that the House did not suffer a large drop in capacity. My noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay said that it is wrong that we should not make amendments in this House just because the Commons would not like them and would reject them. He is absolutely right on that point. My noble friend Lord Moylan said that his amendment would give some flexibility and certainty. There is a certain merit in his argument. It would not be on just whenever the Session might end but on a date of the Government’s choosing. That could be announced well in advance to give hereditary Peers who are leaving this House some certainty. I agree entirely with my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean in the tribute he paid to the Leader of the House, who is courteous and thorough and treats all Members with courtesy and respect.

The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, is rightly worried about the disproportionate effect on the Cross Benches. He made a very important point tonight. He was very brief about it and I would like to have heard more, but from what I understood, he made one of the most important contributions in our debate. I thank my noble friends Lord Dobbs and Lord Lucas for their support tonight. My noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar also made the point that the central point of this is effectiveness. This Bill reduces effectiveness. He also made the point that retirement or the way MPs leave their House and the ways Peers leave this House are totally different and are not comparable.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, for her response. Okay, my amendment about going to the end of the Parliament may be going too far, but I think my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham made an excellent argument for just two Sessions. For the life of me, I cannot understand the Government’s undue haste in this. What is to be gained by chucking the hereditaries out at the end of this Session rather than at the end of the next Session? However, having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 105 withdrawn.

22:15

Amendments 106 to 113 not moved.

Clause 4 agreed.

Amendment 114 not moved.

Clause 5: Short title

Amendments 115 and 116 not moved.

Clause 5 agreed.

House resumed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Returned from the Commons

The Bill was returned from the Commons with amendments.

House adjourned at 10.16 pm.