House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

For a second time, it is my pleasure to congratulate my noble friend on the Bill and to give it a very warm welcome.

Of course, I was not here and I did not vote for that deal in the last century, and I have to tell the House that I do not feel bound by it. As I said this time last year, there are hundreds of reasons for supporting this Bill, not least the hundreds of male sons of earlier honoured men who over time have taken their seats here, not because of their own attributes but because of those of their forebears. Surely in 2017 there can be no one outside of the hereditaries themselves who thinks that our legislators should be chosen by the deeds of their grandfathers, their great-grandfathers or their great-great-grandfathers—very rarely their grandmothers.

It is true that the hereditaries in the House today have shown their value, and many—probably most, if not all—could well be here as life Peers, given their own accomplishments. So this Bill is not to say farewell to them, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, but simply to say that when they leave us—by retirement or through a higher calling perhaps—they should not be replaced.

Everyone agrees that this Chamber is too big and should be reduced in size—a size which far outnumbers the democratically elected House. I say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that the recent flood of Conservatives who have already been put here more than makes good for any fall-off there may be if the hereditaries are not replaced. However, I am grateful to him for confessing that it is the Conservative interest, not democracy, that leads some to resist the Bill.

I also say to the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, that I accept what he said about the independence and expertise of your Lordships’ House, but surely he should be arguing for more Members of the Cross Benches and fewer of the political appointments, rather than continuing to appoint Peers by who their father, grandfather or whatever was.

So surely it is time to take forward this very modest measure. My noble friend is making only a very slow and slight attempt to reduce our numbers, but it is surely right to do that.

It is true that we would prefer greater changes, discussed by a constitutional convention rather than in piecemeal measures, but in the absence of that approach, surely this Bill is appropriate. It is tidy, measured and reasonable and it might even be well drafted.

The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, who I think is not in his place, asked whether the whim of the Prime Minister to appoint us is better than hereditary by-elections. But I have to say: we are an appointed House. That was probably the whim of a former Prime Minister who first appointed the forebears of the hereditaries who are here today. I hesitate to say this in the presence of one of the Bishops who is a Member of this House, but I do not think that those Peers were touched by God to be here. It was the whim of the Prime Minister of the day who appointed them. So, in that sense, it is an appointed House.

[Lord Elton]

Does the noble Baroness subscribe to the view of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that our births were accidental, in which case it is not a matter of appointment but of chance?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Well, we are all here by that way.

This is an appointed House: it just depends on the century in which the Prime Minister made the appointment.

It is absolutely clear that those of us who are here should bring to the House our own attributes and experience rather than those of our ancestors, proud though I am of my grandfather who was a miner and my other grandfather who was a baker. Their own geographical spread and attributes contributed to this country. But I should be here not because of them—and I do not believe that it is—but because of what I hope I have done by myself.

As a number of noble Lords have said, if we are to earn the respect of the public for our work, having just 16 people electing someone who is perhaps 12th in line to their title to sit in this House, is not the PR that we would like for the work that we do.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Can the noble Baroness deal with the point made by my noble friend Lord True? Should this Bill go through, will the Opposition recognise the effect that that would have on the political balance and therefore be prepared to see those hereditaries appointed as Conservatives in order to maintain that balance? If she gave that undertaking, it would make it much easier for some of us.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I have answered that. I said a few moments ago that it has already been done because of the number of new Peers that David Cameron appointed. As Prime Minister he appointed more new Peers than the previous five Prime Ministers did in total. Virtually all of them were appointed to that side of the House, and we have had one. So, in a sense, I have already answered the point—because it has already happened.

Of the 32 by-elections that have taken place, which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, mentioned, the total number of votes cast was just under 6,000. That is under 200 votes per seat. All 32 Members elected were white men, as noted by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge. The most significant contribution today was the challenge to the Government that, because of their broader remit, it is part of their responsibility to do something about this. That is a challenge that we wholeheartedly endorse.

We wish the Bill well. Last year, the Government used the slightly weasel words that they were sympathetic to any reform but that it should only be part of a broader review. But as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said, because of Brexit we will have very little time to do very much more, and the result of the election removes any such possibility. So we should accept this modest, incremental and reasonable Bill.

I am grateful for the last intervention because of the acknowledgement that it is the Conservatives who are most worried about this because they will lose some of their seats, which I do not think we have heard before. But change will be very gradual. I look round the Chamber and see some of the hereditary Peers who I am sure will have many more years with us, and we look forward to their contributions. But the Minister must rise to the challenge of his noble friend Lady Berridge. This matter is not simply for this House but for the Government to see whether they want to continue a system where white men have a privileged way of finding their way into the Parliament of this country.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 7th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Noble Lords demonstrated their support for Burns in the debate that took place last December. It was also confirmed in a debate that took place a year earlier, which I think my noble friend introduced, where the House voted to take steps to reduce its size. As my noble friend knows, the Burns committee has been reconvened and I hope that progress can be made.

The Prime Minister has maintained her policy of restraint so far as new appointments are concerned, with the lowest number of dissolution honours since 1979 and a smaller House than when she took office. Having restated the Government’s position, I propose to listen with interest and patience to the exchanges on the amendments, intervening only when absolutely necessary or when provoked beyond endurance.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, we will try not to provoke beyond endurance. I regret this amendment to the Motion that we should go into Committee. In a sense, it is another Second Reading and that really is not the way that we deal with Bills. I will say only two things. First, 1999 is nearly 20 years ago; in that time, much has happened and much is happening now. Just down the corridor they are reducing the number of MPs by 50, as if that has no impact on the size of the Government or of this House. It seems extraordinary that when the Government are putting a lot of pressure into doing that, they now sit and say that they will do nothing on this issue. That is regrettable. It is something that we could do.

Secondly, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, is wrong to say that it is not for us to do. In the very wise words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, this is our way of showing that it is for this House to begin to do something. If we take a lead on this, it will help to give a fair wind to Burns. If we cannot even do this minor thing—this just puts more men into this House; a very small number—and begin to reduce the numbers, it does not seem to me that we are very interested in bringing this House into the current century.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My noble friend is setting out the position of our party but the Labour Party manifesto at the last election, which both she and I supported, said:

“Our fundamental belief is that the Second Chamber should be democratically elected”.


Can she explain how this Bill advances that cause?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

This Bill is about something much more immediate. We are not actually in government. It is very nice to say, “If we want to be in government, we could do something about this House”, but we are not there at the moment. The House can do something at the moment with this Bill. It is a very modest proposal and I call on all noble Lords to move with speed today and get the Bill through.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I support this regret Motion and I will support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, as well because it is about democracy. If the other place is reduced by 50 people, I would point out that the proportion of Ministers who are heads of the Executive’s departments will increase in proportion to the number of Back-Bench MPs. The challenge comes because Parliament is here to control the Executive. The danger in the Commons is that if there are too many Ministers who see themselves as more powerful, yet are circumscribed in what they can join in on as Ministers, that weakens parliamentary scrutiny of the Executive. Therefore, the Bill is extremely dangerous because it will reduce the poison pill—us, the hereditaries—but not incentivise further democratic reform, which I have always supported. Both regret Motions are valid. It cannot be piecemeal because once we go, there will not be further reform. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is therefore absolutely right, apart from his point about moving Parliaments backwards and forwards, which does not work very well with Strasbourg. Apart from that, the democratic effect is vital. If your Lordships really think that there will be further reform if you allow this Bill through, I think that is charmingly naive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True]

My Lords, surely this is a matter than can be addressed when we reach the Burns report. I understand the fervour of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who is a good old Labour man, to end the procedure that his party agreed on. However, every time he puts his point before the House, I feel that I must repeatedly say, so that the public realise, that the result of this legislation would be the creation in time of an all-appointed House of Lords. That is the effect of this legislation, but the noble Lord never refers to the effect. One of my fundamental objections is that we would, through passing this legislation, create over time an all-appointed House of Lords without the consent of the British people to a manifesto commitment or a Bill brought before Parliament by a Government. That is the proper way to proceed. This House should not, by a hole-in-the-wall procedure masquerading as modernisation, pass legislation that will have the effect in time of creating an all-appointed House for which there is no current democratic consent. Every time the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, makes his point, I will put that point before the public.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, this is an all-appointed House; it is just that some people are here because their fathers, grandfathers or great-grandfathers were appointed by the King or the Queen at the time. It is an all-appointed House.

[The Earl of Erroll]

The difference is that because we are here and that is found objectionable by some people, we might get a democratic House. If we go, we will not. Those of us who are democrats think that there should be democratic authority and legitimacy in the House of Lords for it to survive long term.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Judge (CB)]

Before the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, answers that question, while I am not speaking on behalf of the Cross Benches—because nobody speaks on behalf of us—can the Cross-Benchers be left to look after themselves, please?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Perhaps I may make one small point. I apologise to my noble friend, having said that I would stay quiet all day. I want to say one thing about why the Labour Party so supports this amendment. It was never about the political balance in this House. In fact, it has been a Labour Party claim for a long time that the idea that because people whose fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers and sometimes great-great-grandfathers did service for this country and were therefore put in this House, their subsequent children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren should be here is one that we no longer find democratic. That is the reason why we support this Bill. We put the issue of any political balance on the very wide and strong shoulders of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and when we are able to move to a smaller House, we will deal with it then. This is not the way to do it. The importance of the Bill is that it is incredible that in the 21st century, we are talking about having by-elections for people because of what their ancestors did.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, the incredible thing about the proposal before us is that we would entrench a wholly nominated Chamber of Parliament in perpetuity. My noble friend, whom I hugely respect, says that we support this amendment because it is in line with Labour Party policy. My noble friend Lord Grocott gave me a lecture earlier about how my position was inconsistent with that of the party. The Labour Party’s policy at the last election was:

“Our fundamental belief is that the Second Chamber should be democratically elected”.


I keep inviting my noble friend Lord Grocott to say whether he supports the Labour Party’s policy. Does he support a democratically elected House of Lords?

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 23rd November 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly address just two of the points that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, made objecting to the Bill. The first objection is on the basis that the Bill would end the one part of the existing process for the creation of new Members that is democratic because it depends on election rather than appointment. I can perfectly well understand, though I profoundly disagree with, those who argue for an elected House rather than an appointed House. What I fail utterly to understand is why it should be considered less objectionable—indeed, considered a partial answer to those opposed to an appointed House—that 92 of its Members and those who currently elect their successors come from a privileged class of hereditary Peers who, alone, are candidates for election. This is what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and, indeed, I in the past, have called the “assisted places scheme”. It is nonsense. It is hardly going to persuade those in favour of democracy that: “Ah, we meet that test now; we wouldn’t if this Bill went through”.

The second point is in relation to Amendment 58B: the suggestion that we wait until we are down to 600 before we implement the Bill. Under the Burns proposals, which are the route by which we hope to reduce the House to 600, those who leave by death or retirement are to be replaced—initially one for two, later one for one—by new members of the same party, so if hereditary elections remain, Tory slots in future would sometimes inevitably have to be filled by hereditaries wherever there is a gap. That would reduce the number of new Members whom the party leader might otherwise prefer to be in the House. If this Bill passes, therefore, and the Burns scheme succeeds in reducing us to 600, the Tories will not lose in numbers but will gain in the choice of who fills the available slots. If the Bill fails, hereditaries will form an ever-larger part of the Tory group. Is that really what they want?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

There is only one point I want to raise, other than to say that of course we want a general election. Actually there are two issues. One, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, has just mentioned, is the importance of refreshing this House not only with those who happen to be sons of people who, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said, were appointed by a monarch or a Prime Minister. It will be important to refresh the House so that it is not just men who are appointed. That will certainly be the case for the Conservative Party which, otherwise, will end up very male-dominated.

My other point, from the point of view of the Labour Party, is on an issue that has been raised and which I have responded to before about the binding commitment. The binding commitment was, of course, not binding in law; it was binding until it was possible to change the composition of the House. I remind the noble Lord that that commitment was made in 1997. After we lost office, his party were in government in coalition from 2010 to 2015 and did not manage to bring in a change to the House, they were then not in coalition and did not do it, and they are now effectively in coalition again and are not doing it. The lack of commitment to changing the House means that a commitment made much earlier no longer has the standing that it had at the time.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I am grateful to a number of noble Lords who have spoken in favour of the Bill, and I do not want to add to the points that they made. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, shared a useful piece of information about the views of important people in the Commons in relation to this legislation. It gives me great heart if I am able to think that, should this House pass the Bill, as I very much hope it will, it would be a huge example to almost any other institution of an institution reforming itself in a sensible way.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, for that, and to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, who mentioned the need for speed. These by-elections will take place with increasing frequency; that is the inevitable consequence of age. We are talking about people who were identified as the 90 in 1999. There have been 44 by-elections since then—or 44 new Members as a result of by-elections; some have been for two new Peers—but inevitably they will come with greater frequency. There are two in the pipeline. The need to get this Bill through is all the more urgent if we are not to be subject to, it seems to me, the reasonable accusation of looking completely ridiculous with some of these by-elections. The point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, about the effect that an increasing proportion of the membership of the House being hereditary Peers will have on different parties is powerful.

I do not disagree at all with the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, about the need for a cap on the size of the House. I think very strongly that we should reduce the number of people here. But of course, if nothing is done specifically about the hereditary Peers—this is the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown—it will be significantly harder to reduce the size of the House if there are 92 people to whom “two out, one in” does not apply. The stats in the second, most recent report of the Burns committee are quite clear. They are small numbers so one should not draw huge lessons from them, but they make it pretty plain that it is difficult to reduce the size of the House if hereditary Peers are being replaced one-for-one, whereas everyone else is being replaced on the basis of one in for every two out.

This is a big group of amendments and I urge the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, not to press them further, either here or on Report, as they would have the cumulative effect of delaying the Bill’s implementation. I will be kind to him today and say that he is not trying to wreck the Bill with these amendments—though it was hard for me to say that—but they would certainly significantly delay it. One or two of them are, frankly, close to being silly, such as the idea of reviews of the work of both Houses. But let us leave it at that, and I appeal to him not to press them further either here or on Report.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook]

With respect to the noble Lord, I was not part of that deal so I cannot go into the detail of it. With reference to the Burns report, I have just seen that the Government do not accept the committee’s recommendation that the Prime Minister must now commit to a specific cap on numbers, absolutely limiting appointments in line with the formula proposed. Thus an important element of the Burns report is deemed to be invalid and the major reform which was promised for phase 2 is incomplete.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, it would be helpful if we could intervene from these Benches just once. I have to say that just at the moment I do not feel like a shadow Minister. I feel rather like Alice through the looking glass, as though I had fallen through a door and discovered myself—I will not say at the Mad Hatter’s tea party—somewhere in quite a different century.

On the so-called promise made in 1999, women of my age—or rather six months younger than me—were promised throughout their working lives that they would have a pension at the age of 60; they then discovered, unprepared, and without the money, that it would be 67. This House let that through, so it is quite possible to change what has been promised by an Act of Parliament. It is right to do it by an Act of Parliament rather than any other method, but let us not have any of this, when we consider what has been taken away from women. I am one of the very lucky ones—the last cohort of women who got their pension at 60, which was a long time ago—but a whole swathe of women have lost out.

Along with some colleagues, I met a group of Slovak MPs here in the House earlier this week. As very often when women politicians get together, we fell to discussing female representation in our various Parliaments. I have to say that they were completely mystified as to how this House—with the advantage of appointments and therefore not having to worry about whether the electors always choose equally—had not moved further towards female emancipation. I then pointed out that, with one exception, we had a caucus of 92 men who would always remain here because the system was that, when they left, they would be replaced by another man, and nothing that anyone else could do would alter that. They were a little mystified.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

I am afraid that I have two sons and two daughters, so the two sons would have to go first with no male heir for the daughters to get here; but there are those possibilities and several others here in that position.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

There were several others but, as we know, the figure has gone down from four to one; that is why I said that, with one exception, they are all men. For most on the list, as we have already heard, we are talking about men; in a House of only 400 or 500 active Members, 91 places will always be held for men. That may not make others ashamed, but it makes me ashamed and I am not even one of the people who are here by virtue of my father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-uncle or anyone else, noble though those people were in their own right. I did not come here having inherited that right through the attributes of some earlier generation. That is what those who stand in the way of this Bill are trying to retain. They are trying to preserve, with some exceptions, the right of sons of people whose attributes 100 or 200 years ago were notable to have a seat in Parliament.

I do not believe that is the right way for us to choose anyone. I do not believe Picasso’s child should be recognised as a top painter simply because their father was. I do not know whether the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, has children, but surely they should not be considered a top ballerina just because their mother was. Yet we think that legislators should be here by virtue of their fathers, grandfathers or earlier forebears. I am not embarrassed by this, but I am embarrassed for those who are here for that reason now—nothing in this Bill will alter the position of those here at the moment—that they should seek to preserve a system whereby, with some exceptions, the sons of people whose forebears were given a seat here should have it, and that they should try to continue this ludicrous system.

We in the Opposition say: this Bill has our support. What we are seeing is a filibuster to try to undermine, talk out and stop the Bill, which will alter something fundamental to our constitution. That is not good enough. It belittles this House, and I think it belittles the hereditaries who are here to vote for the continuation of this system.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, perhaps I could intervene briefly at this stage to restate the Government’s position on the Bill. I begin by commending the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, on steering his Bill through the obstacle course in Committee and reaching Report, where there are still a number of hurdles in front of him. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that I am a life Peer but a hereditary Baronet. I hope that does not confuse his rather binary approach to these issues.

It is clear that many noble Lords wish to see the end of the by-elections, but, despite the oratory of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, he has not achieved total unanimity. A number of my noble friends, and in earlier exchanges some Cross-Benchers, believe that hereditary Peers should remain, in line with the commitment given at the time, until we have comprehensive reform. I pay tribute to the role that the hereditaries play in our proceedings, as they have a higher participation rate than us lifers.

As the Bill has proceeded through your Lordships’ House, the Government have not obstructed it, nor will we. On the contrary, my noble friend the Chief Whip has been exceptionally generous in the amount of time he has allocated to this Private Member’s Bill, in a field where there are many contenders. While we have some reservations about the Bill, our position is actually academic, as the chances of it reaching the statute book in this Session are, frankly, small, however many meaningful votes are held. The Government’s view is that our energies would be better spent in taking forward the recommendations of the Burns report, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Elton, which I believe is a more effective way of getting our numbers down than abolishing the by-elections. The Prime Minister has assisted in this process by showing commendable restraint in her nominations to your Lordships’ House, which has caused a lot of distress among former Members of Parliament.

On this particular amendment, noble Lords will know that the House of Lords Appointment Commission was established in 2000 to make nominations for membership of your Lordships’ House to the Cross Benches. It is also responsible for vetting the propriety of all nominations to this House, including candidates for party-political membership. We believe that it does an excellent job and have no plans to make it statutory. As was said earlier, I do not think that amendment sits easily with the main purpose of the Bill. Having set out the Government’s position, I do not plan to intervene again, unless provoked beyond endurance.