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

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Lord Lea of Crondall

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

[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.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, I have heard some convoluted arguments in my life but we are getting into near-nonsense territory. I ask the House to consider whether the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, for whom the whole House has the greatest respect, can really sustain the argument—I hope he will correct me if I quote him incorrectly—that his fundamental opposition is to a principle not being sustained by this House if we wish to act by legislation, when this House has always said that it would act by self-regulation. That sounds fine but I ask the House to consider how this could be done by self-regulation. I happened to be here just in time for the 1999 Bill. At that time, it was clear that that reform had to be done by legislation. Am I right or am I wrong?

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Lord Lea of Crondall

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll]

Even better. Passing it does not matter then, but at least it would send the right signal and some people may relax. If, as the noble Lord says, it will not change the unfair dismissals process, we can all proceed happy that that continues. Why object? At the moment, I know that the law is biased in favour of the employee, not the other way round. With that, I will sit down. I would love to see other things tried. At the SME end, we need signals sent by the Government, and this is one.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, I think that it is fair to say that the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, has some of the best political antennae in the business. I therefore think that we can look forward with some interest to the response of the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie. In debate in Committee, precisely the proposition made by the noble Lord, Lord King—that in effect people could say, “You can only get this job if you sign up to the scheme”—was made. The Minister said:

“I have not seen the guidance”—

the 3,000-page guidance—

“but I do not believe that it will say that”.—[Official Report, 6/2/13; col. 289.]

Two questions arise. First, can the Minister tell us definitively this afternoon, before we vote, whether the noble Lords, Lord King of Bridgwater and Lord Pannick, are correct or incorrect: yes or no? I will not detain the House, but what baffles me, picking up the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol, is how on earth the Government got the idea that this was convincingly presentable as part of the moral platform for modernising capitalism. As I think that the right reverend Prelate said, straight out of the Bible we have the precept, which is probably in the Koran as well, that you do not sell your birthright for a mess of pottage—that was Esau, I recall. Let me dub this Esau’s clause. It is incumbent on the Minister to give us a brief reply on that question.

House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Lord Lea of Crondall

Friday 21st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll]

I rise to speak to the same point as the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook. I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, was here at the start when I made a statement about one of the dangers of this. I have heard it said that these are just transitional provisions many times before. It is exactly what was said in 1998 about the 1999 Act, in 1911 and so on. This may not end up being transitional. This could in the end be a long-term Act that stays in place for a long time. The end result of this, over the next decade or two, would be a fully appointed House, which is not the wish expressed by a democratic vote of the other place. Therefore, through the backdoor, we have not done what was expected. The hereditary Peers, who were left here to ensure that further democratic reform took place—as was decided in the debates back in 1998—will be got rid of without getting what was desired, which is democratic reform. The problem with that is, if there is no further movement, we will end up with an appointments commission which is not fit for purpose for the future.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

I am sorry, but is not that hypothesis incorrect? The noble Earl makes a big statement, which he is going to develop further, on the hypothesis that the House of Commons has no further say in this matter.

[The Earl of Erroll]

If this Bill gets to the House of Commons, it might get through. We cannot tell what is going to happen and in what circumstances. We might, through the vagaries of the parliamentary process, end up with this measure being in place for much longer than we expect, in which case it has to have the “i”s dotted and the “t”s crossed. This is very good as a transitional measure at the moment as regards the independent appointments commission, but it has to be improved and tidied up if it is going to stand the test of time over a couple of decades. We need to sort that out. We should not just push this through and say that we are doing a brief tidying-up exercise. That is a sloppy way to legislate. Certainly, if I were a director of a company and behaved like this as regards company governance, I would be fired.