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

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Lord Northbrook

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

[Lord Northbrook]

That is beyond the terms of my amendment.

The Peerage Act 1963 gave all hereditary Peers of Scotland the right to sit in the House of Lords, instead of requiring them to elect 16 of their number, as had been the case since the union with Scotland in 1707. But no similar measure was introduced for the Peers of Ireland.

We move on to 1965. A number of Irish Peers, led by the Earl of Antrim, petitioned the House of Lords for recognition of their rights to elect 28 representative Peers to sit in the House of Lords. This was referred to our Committee for Privileges. The committee concluded that as there was no longer one Ireland, the Act of Union 1800 provision for 28 representative Peers no longer applied. However, Lord Wilberforce, dissenting in part, made a crucial point. He said as follows: because the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland, as well as other offices such as the Clerk of the Crown in Parliament, which enabled the election of Irish representative Peers, had been abolished in 1922, it made it impossible to follow the procedures laid down in the Act of Union 1800 for a replacement when one of them died.

The Committee for Privileges’ verdict, in my layman’s view, is unsatisfactory because it failed to recognise, first, that the Irish representative Peers represented the Peers of Ireland and not Ireland as a whole. As a result, any change in Ireland was irrelevant. It also ignored the continued existence of part of Ireland—Northern Ireland—in the United Kingdom. Lord Wilberforce also expressed doubts that an Act of such constitutional importance as the Act of Union with Ireland could be repealed by implication or obsolescence.

Returning to the Scottish peerage, I cannot fail to mention the challenge of the House of Lords Act 1999, which stated that there should be 16 Scottish hereditary Peers in perpetuity in the House of Lords and that their abolition was contrary to Article 22 of the Treaty of Union between England and Scotland.

This is therefore an excellent opportunity to redress the scarcity of elected hereditary Northern Ireland Peers and maintain the number of elected Scottish hereditary Peers.

[The Earl of Erroll]

I wish to say—very quickly, because we have just had a history lecture—that, under the Peerage Act 1963, hereditary Peeresses, Peers in their own right, could sit for the first time in the House of Lords. My mother was one of the 16 elected Scottish representative Peers to sit, and one of the first five hereditary Peeresses to sit in the House of Lords—so we did get a bit of female representation. The answer to the Wales question is that of course it was not a kingdom. The issue of the Scots Peers was around the merging of two kingdoms under a Scottish king.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Northbrook]

My Lords, as far as I am aware, this is a new amendment which has not been moved before. It suggests that any excepted person under the House of Lords Act would, once the Burns commission report has been adopted, remain a Member of the House for a fixed term of 15 years, as other Members will be after the Burns report is implemented. However, until the legislation changes, a by-election could still be held at the end of 15 years after the first hereditary Peer had been elected. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Erroll]

This amendment sounds quite sensible as it brings us into line with the spirit of the Burns report.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Lord Northbrook

Thursday 28th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook]

As a supplementary, could I ask whether having been amended in the Commons, the Bill now has to be reapproved by the heads of government?

[The Earl of Erroll]

On that subject, I may be able to assist. It depends on whether they passed Acts in the parliaments to say that they would agree to whatever we do or whether they try to enact the particular provisions. It would be worth the Minister looking at how they implemented it in Canada or Australia. Did they say, “We will assent to whatever”, or did they say, “This is what we are going to do”? For simplicity, I suspect that they may have gone down the route of saying, “We will assent to whatever the UK Parliament decides”. If so, it solves the problem; though the Executive may enter into treaties on behalf of the Crown, it is for Parliament to enact the rules that govern the Executive and therefore Parliament legislates and forms the principles of these things. If this were a treaty, I would have said it was then in the power of the Executive to agree this. If it is not a treaty, it is in Parliament’s remit to decide what is done. I suggest the Minister should look at how these countries have enacted it into their local laws.

House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Lord Northbrook

Friday 21st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, I have often thought about this. It is an anomaly that dates back to when the Lords had the same sort of power as the other place. We can no longer vote on money Bills. This is my point. I seem to remember that they had a tea party in Boston on this very issue, which is that there should be no taxation without representation, or at least the right to vote. We are the only ones excluded, apart from various others. We are not allowed to vote on money Bills here, and nor are we allowed to vote for the very people who are putting them through and deciding upon them in another place. Logically, I think we should. We should either be given some powers over money Bills, which would be one answer or, alternatively, we should be given the right to vote.

[Lord Northbrook]

I support the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, on this point. First, we should have more powers on money Bills and, secondly, it seems quite ridiculous while we can vote in local elections and European elections. Why on earth should that right not be extended to voting in general elections?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Northbrook]

My Lords, I am disappointed that we will not be discussing the appointments commission today, particularly, as was said earlier, in view of what the noble Lord, Lord Steel, said on the Constitutional Reform Act. My concern is that if the Government’s reform Bill runs into the sand, we would be left in limbo and no statutory appointments commission would be appointed at all.

[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.