House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Baroness Smith of Basildon and Earl of Caithness

Committee stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

The noble Lord is resisting that temptation but I say to him, as I say to all noble Lords, that I have always been open to discussions. But I need assurances, so when we see degroupings, filibustering and threats on different things, that does not give the confidence that allows me to have those kinds of discussions. To have them, I need some confidence that the Opposition want to do this in a proper way.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for her reply. We have some useful additional information from her. However, I would take issue with her, just as she took issue with anybody who tried to misrepresent her in the debate. I did not in any way imply that the hereditaries were better than the life Peers or the life Peers better than the hereditaries. The purport of my amendment was solely that once you get rid of the hereditaries, there is increased power to the Prime Minister on appointments and nominations to this House, because the element of the hereditaries has gone.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I do not accept that at all. There is no change whatever in the powers of the Prime Minister at that point. I have explained the process. I think the noble Earl is saying that it is not everybody in the House. Currently 88 Members are here because of their ancestors being here, on the hereditary basis. The Prime Minister cannot appoint those now and there will not be those places in the future, but it does not increase his actual power at all.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

As a result of this Bill, there will be a greater percentage of the House appointed by the Prime Minister than now.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

Can I just finish? My point was that this could be abused. If I recall rightly the noble Baroness said, and I agree with her, that most Prime Ministers have behaved very responsibly, but on some occasions it has not been quite as we would have hoped. I am grateful for her support on that.

I am grateful for what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, did. As she will have noted, the amendment is carefully drafted to say nominations—nominated by the Prime Minister—rather than appointments. I focused on appointments rather than nominations, but I think I covered the point that she raised.

The memory of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, seems to have failed him a little, I fear. He said in response to my noble friend Lord Strathclyde that he had wanted to get on with his Bill and was in a hurry to proceed. That is slightly contradicted by the fact that a few minutes earlier he had taken the House to a Division and appointed Tellers for both the Contents and Not Contents, after the amendment had been withdrawn, and wasted a considerable amount of the House’s time. I think his memory is not quite as good as it used to be.

I am grateful to all those who took part in this debate and beg leave to withdraw my amendment.