House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Earl of Shrewsbury Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con)]

My Lords, when I came into this House nearly 44 years ago, I was given great advice by my godfather Earl St Aldwyn, a greatly respected former Conservative Chief Whip. He advised me: “You are here to speak and vote on your conscience. Do not be bullied by the Whips or Ministers into changing your mind. Always be polite, courteous and respectful of others, be they friend or foe. Be mindful that, to have a seat in this House is a huge responsibility, and it is your duty to take it seriously. You are here to bring your experience of your life and work outside of this House to the benefit of this House’s deliberations”. My word, how things have changed.

I am very much in favour of the reform and modernisation of this House and its membership. I am a strong believer that there should be available, in the honours system, an honorary peerage—and here I agree, probably for the first time in my life, with my noble friend Lord Lucas—which would be one step up from a knighthood, if you will, to recognise those who have been exceptional achievers but do not warrant, either through lack of available time or lack of interest, a seat and a vote in this House.

As we all are aware, there are individuals among our Members who perhaps should retire but will not. I am sure that this is the case in many such institutions. However, this Bill to eject the excepted hereditaries does little to reform the House, and it is certainly not stage 2 of reform, as promised by the 1999 Blair Government. We should expose it for what it is: a blatantly obvious move by this Government to kick out a large number of Conservatives and Cross-Benchers to make way for the Prime Minister’s appointment of a similar number of Labour supporters. Why does this plan not affect the Bishops’ Benches? I believe that, following the passage of this legislation, there will be no more reforms for a very long while.

My noble friend Lady Finn will confirm that I approached senior Conservative figures on a number of occasions over recent years, suggesting that they convert the excepted hereditaries into life Peers—for that is almost what we have become. I proposed ceasing the by-elections as part of the deal, while ending the hereditary principle in this House. Old Father Time would have played his part as well, as would retirements. Sadly, however, although my plan had considerable support, it fell down a stony path. In hindsight, it would have saved us all from wasting our time with these distractions now. The by-elections, which were unpopular on all Benches, have produced a raft of extremely talented and able hereditary Peers who are nothing but a credit to this House.

My family were awarded their titles not, as has been stated in various previous debates, for sleeping with a king or a queen—although actually, I believe that one of them did sleep with the Duke of Buckingham, who then killed Lord Shrewsbury in a duel and ran off with his missus. He should have been an hereditary. They have served this great country at home and abroad, but we made a serious error in the Hundred Years’ War, when one of my ancestors—in fact, the first Earl—won the vineyards of Château Talbot and then lost them.

I understand that my time is up, in more ways than one, and I shall adhere to my late godfather’s advice. I shall go quietly, with dignity and courtesy, knowing that my family have served for 600 years and that I shall be the last. I have made many friends on all Benches and shall be eternally grateful for the great privileges which have been afforded to me—yes, I grant you, by an accident of birth. I conclude by expressing my grateful thanks to all the staff who support us so diligently, especially to my friends the doorkeepers, without whose wisdom and friendship life here would have been very much the poorer. It has been a privilege to have known them all and, sadly, they will have to find someone else to cook their game pie next Christmas.

Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 4) (Coronavirus) Rules 2020

Earl of Shrewsbury Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I have in the past been a residential landlord and I am currently a residential tenant, so I am aware of the difficulties that can be faced by both entities. I am fully aware of the very serious hardships experienced by both tenants and landlords alike from the current pandemic. However, in the property rental world there has always been a minority of bad tenants—those who cause misery for other tenants and neighbours through anti-social behaviour or for other reasons—and landlords need to address situations where a small minority of tenants are regularly in arrears. There are bound to be instances of arrears which go back way before Covid. While I have every sympathy with those who have suffered financial difficulties as a consequence of Covid, I have little sympathy with the other group.

It is plainly wrong to regard landlords as being wealthy individuals and businesses that can afford to take a hit from rent arrears. The majority of landlords have only one property, and a considerable number purchased a property with their pension fund and have the rent as their sole form of income. To evict a tenant for whatever reason is a slow, arduous and expensive exercise in itself, notwithstanding the considerable loss of rent.

I have no time to comment further, but suffice to say I strongly support the Government in their views on the rules before us today.

Business and Planning Bill

Earl of Shrewsbury Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome this Bill, which paves the way towards economic recovery post Covid-19. I support the points on smoking made by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover; that is very important for the comfort of customers and others surrounding them.

The Bill provides the opportunity to modernise and enhance our high streets’ commercial activities, to lift many planning activities into the modern age, and to promote new job-creating construction schemes. Although the briefing notes state that the measures in the Bill to address these many issues will be temporary, I suggest to your Lordships that some should be looked at as providing a more permanent solution to the woes experienced on high streets currently.

Those woes cannot be blamed simply on the effects of the pandemic. Our high streets have been steadily declining for years, with the advent of out-of-town shopping facilities and the internet. How easy it is to sit at home and order something from eBay or Amazon or such like and have it delivered to your door the following day—and you do not have to go into town or try to find a parking space. How can the high street compete with that?

For a long while, many of us who live in rural communities have been concerned at the demise of the high street in our rural towns. I live near Ashbourne in Derbyshire. The town is described as the gateway to the Peak District, which indeed it is, and therefore the gateway to a most popular tourist destination of outstanding natural beauty. The traffic flow through the town is vast; it comprises not just tourists, visiting the peaks with their bikes and caravans, but, as a main route in and out of a major quarrying and mineral-producing region and a vibrant agricultural region, includes quantities of large lorries and agricultural machinery, and leaves the town gridlocked, especially in the spring and summer months.

Who suffers? The street cafes, the local traders and the public houses—all small businesses. Car parks are expensive and full to overflowing. Industry, whose trucks have to go through the town, suffers considerable financial loss through long delays. A bypass to the town has been talked about for many years, and the Bill might just provide an opportunity to get those plans going again. I really hope this happens.

The Derbyshire Dales District Council has done a great job in the past couple of weeks in Ashbourne in converting the streets and pavements to be social-distancing friendly. The measures which will be enabled by the Bill might just help rural towns such as Ashbourne, where tourism, local hospitality and quality small shops are key, to pick themselves up and move forward to a brighter future.

Finally, the bounce-back loan initiative has been extremely helpful to many small firms—it is a lifeline on which I congratulate my right honourable friend Mr Sunak. However, and to their great detriment, some of the big four banks have been absolutely abysmal in their handling of applications. For example, on 5 May, the small business of which I am a director applied to HSBC to open a feeder account, with a view to applying to the BBLS. Despite phone calls, the bank has yet to respond, and we are now heading towards the middle of July. In mid-June, the company applied to Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank to open a new business account, and then applied for the loan. Within two weeks, the whole process was successfully concluded—Barclays Bank did not even answer the telephone. Will my noble friend tell me what percentage of BBLS applications have not been processed in time and what percentage have been declined?

I very much welcome the Bill and wish it a speedy passage.