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

Debate between Lord Anderson of Swansea and Lord Blunkett

Friday 23rd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I oppose the amendment. The word “idiosyncrasies”, which was just used, springs to mind rather powerfully. Earlier this week, we paid tribute rightly to the late Lord Ivor Richard, who I knew as a member of the Cabinet in 1997. The compromise that was reached in 1999 has been referred to, the Wetherill amendment included. It was intended to ensure that progress could be made on a modest way of modernising this second Chamber. Today, we are trying to take a very modest step in that direction as well.

I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Grocott. When I heard him speak at Second Reading, I thought it was a masterpiece in forensic analysis and humour—humour, because the situation he was addressing sadly leads to us believing that we have to put aside something that, outside this House, is seen as a complete anachronism. I have heard many forensic speeches in my time from my own side—from John Smith and Robin Cook included, who I counted as friends—and I think they would have been proud to have heard my noble friend’s speech and the case that he has made.

I want to be timorous today, in an unusual fashion. I would like to persuade the Conservative Benches and the Government that it is in their best interest to take this very modest step. We have the Burns recommendations and the restoration and renewal of the House, leading to the decanting of both Houses of Parliament, both Houses having voted for it. A combination of these measures requires us to take steps now which will then lead to a logical and rational balancing of the political and non-political interests in this House.

It is not just about those who are nominated by the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition or the Liberal Democrat party; it is also about the balance with the Cross Benches and the Bishops’ Benches. Unless we get it right on the anomaly of having by-elections for hereditary Peers, and unless we move now—I am opposing the amendment so that we can make progress—it will make it extraordinarily difficult to maintain that balance as we move towards implementing the Burns committee recommendations, which I hope we will rapidly do, combined with the prospect of decanting. When this House decants, there will be Members who logically choose that moment to retire, and there will be people who choose to leave in advance of it. In the lead up to the decant, if not handled very carefully, that will completely distort the balance of the different parties and Cross-Bench Peers in the House.

To continue the by-elections in that run-up period, and during the implementation of Burns, we would distort the balance between the nominated, those who go through the commission and those who are elected by this bizarre medieval process, which retains only one section—those who are here because their grandfathers or great-grandfathers or great-great-grandfathers were in favour with the monarch or managed to get their hands on sufficient property and land.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My noble friend omitted one category: those who paid Lloyd George and Maundy Gregory for a certain favour.

[Lord Blunkett]

I had better not go into the payment of favours in your Lordships’ House—it might be a difficult road to travel.

It is odd for a Labour Member to say this, but if noble Lords think it through, they will appreciate it. The historic mission of the Conservative Benches and the Government has been to be sufficiently willing to bend and move with the times, which has been of historic benefit to them. Therefore, I am surprised to hear that the mover of the amendment is in favour of very radical change: namely, a wholly elected House or a substantially elected House. It is odd to advocate a substantially elected House but to want to retain by-elections or inherited peerages. If you had this debate anywhere in the United Kingdom in any forum—from traditional media to social media, in colleges or schools, where many Members of this House attend and make a positive contribution in explaining how our democracy works—people would think that you had lost your marbles if you argued not for the immediate abolition of the hereditary Peers but to continue to have by-elections to fulfil those vacancies.

In doing so, whatever else happens around us, whatever we do with Burns and the lead up to decanting, whatever happens in terms of the natural processes of noble Lords leaving this House either under the 2014 Act or by death, the hereditary Peers would retain their numbers. That is illogical, irrational and would cause extreme difficulties as we move over the next seven years to decanting to other premises with noble Lords rationally looking to reduce the numbers in this House. That is why we should wholeheartedly back my noble friend Lord Grocott’s Bill.