House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

Just to help the noble Lord’s confusion, there are the courtesy titles of the younger sons of certain levels of the peerage.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, my support for this concept is not new. Indeed, this was one of my recommendations to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, for his report. If Prime Ministers had created fewer Peers so that we were not so numerous, I would continue to resist this concept of creating Peers with no right to sit in this House making laws.

However, our numbers are perceived to be a problem. We must recognise that Prime Ministers need to grant peerages not just because they need bodies in this House, legislating, but because they need to reward achievement in the same way as others receive other honours, like knighthoods and other gongs.

Being granted the title of Lord or Baroness is a great reward in itself, but I can see merit in Prime Ministers being able to grant a peerage and the title of Lord or Baroness to someone who would not be entitled to sit in the Lords and make laws, but in recognition of the good they have done in their own particular field. I cannot define a category of these people, but it may be like an even higher version of a knighthood.

This suggestion may give Prime Ministers the flexibility they need to create peerages and reward people for their great work without flooding this House with new Peers. Perhaps the noble Baroness the Leader of the House would like to make this suggestion to the new Lords Select Committee and ask it to report back with recommendations, because I believe there is merit in having non-legislative Peers.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise for intervening, but I have to do so because this is a concept that, like the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, I have proposed in your Lordships’ House on many occasions. I have not heard that support for it from the Conservative Benches in the past, but I have put it forward because I believe it would be a useful component of a wholesale reform programme of your Lordships’ House.

However much I agree that it is useful, I cannot agree that we should vote for it tonight. If I had written the Labour Party manifesto, I might have included it, with many other things, and if I had been the parliamentary draftsman for this Bill, I might have looked much more widely and had a much wider Bill —but I am neither of those things.

We have before us a very specific, narrow Bill. I do not believe that I shall argue later in today’s proceedings even about the content of the agenda for the Select Committee—but this should not be included in it, because it is not based on a manifesto commitment in any way. It is completely piecemeal, and I have not heard support for it in the past as part of a wholesale package of reform. Therefore, however much I might be tempted by the idea, I shall be happy to vote against it if the noble Lord, Lord True, puts the question to the House.

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[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I signed the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and I rise briefly to support him. The House may recall that in Committee I presented three options for the removal of Peers who attended infrequently, and the mood of the House seemed to coalesce around the 10% one. I say to my noble friend Lord Attlee that leave of absence should deal with the problem he has just described.

If we were not being constantly told by the Government that there are too many Peers, I might not necessarily advocate this measure. If a Peer turns up for just 5% of sittings, he is not getting an allowance for the 95% of sittings when he is not here, so there is no burden on the taxpayer. However, there is a burden on all the rest of us doing all our committee work, as we will find out when our hard-working hereditaries are removed and the Whips start calling around for volunteers to fill the slots they were previously filling. We will then realise how much our hereditaries have been doing. Of course, I think this issue will now be considered by the new Select Committee, and I look forward to seeing its conclusions.

I just want to flag up two points. First, I note that this amendment suggests amending the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. That proves the point I made to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, last week: we may need legislation to do these things, and it cannot be done just by internal Standing Orders. Secondly and finally, when the Select Committee makes recommendations on attendance, how will we pass them into law? If we cannot use Standing Orders, we have to use either primary or secondary legislation to do it. In the debate on my Amendment 23A, coming up shortly, I shall lay out a quick, simple and painless way to do it with secondary legislation; I commend it to noble Lords and hope they will all be here to support it.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, when the noble Baroness comes to reply to this amendment, can she assure us that her new committee will look at the question that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, raised as to whether the House of Lords already has the powers to do this? As the Convenor of the Cross Benches said, we all agree to the terms of the Writ of Summons. There is a very strong argument that that inherently gives this House the power, through its Standing Orders, to achieve what this amendment sets out to achieve. It is clear that this question has never been settled or established. The noble Baroness’s committee would be an ideal forum to do that, and I very much hope that it will.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Blencathra]

23A: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“House of Lords select committee: implementing recommendations(1) Where a select committee of the House of Lords has been established for the purpose of reporting on possible retirement ages for peers, minimum attendance and participation thresholds, and that committee makes recommendations to establish or change—(a) the age at which peers must retire,(b) a minimum attendance requirement, or(c) a participation requirement,a relevant Minister must, within 12 months of the committee reporting, take the action set out in subsection (2).(2) The Secretary of State must, by regulations made by statutory instrument, amend the following Acts, as appropriate, in order to give effect to the recommendations in statute —(a) this Act;(b) the Life Peerage Act 1958;(c) the House of Lords Reform Act 2014.(3) The recommendations in this section include a motion to approve the recommendations of a select committee, including any amendments to this.(4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to place changes to the composition of the House recommended by any new select committee on a statutory footing.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, despite the late hour, I make no apologies for returning to the subject of implementing any conclusions reached by the new House of Lords Select Committee in considering possible retirement ages, attendance thresholds and participation rates. The excellent announcement of this Select Committee by the Leader last week was welcomed by all sides, and I am certain that it will provide workable solutions. My amendment would ensure that these solutions are delivered into law expeditiously and without the need for new primary legislation.

The Leader said that she hoped the committee would be up and running by October and would probably report by the end of July 2026, but let us say September 2026 to be on the safe side. We all know that our Select Committees excel in what they do, and I am absolutely certain that this committee will have firm recommendations on some sort of retirement regime, possibly around the age of 85 but with various tweaks. It will most likely recommend an attendance threshold of some sort. Attendance is about those Peers who may turn up for fewer than a set threshold of 5%, 10% or 15%, whatever it might be.

Participation rates are far more difficult. Participation will need to tackle the abuse of those who may turn up for 20%, 25% or 50% of the time and then do absolutely nothing or very little. Determining what and how many contributions will be adequate will be very difficult, and the committee may not reach any conclusions or may have various options for this House to consider as a whole.

However, I believe that, by the autumn of 2026, this House will have before it a report with recommendations, which we will debate and possibly amend, so that by the end of 2026 or early 2027, this House will have agreed by a majority a way forward on retirements and attendance, and possibly participation.

I ask my noble friends not to tell the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, but I may on this occasion be in full agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Newby. If we get attendance, participation and retirements right, we may not need a fancy formula to reduce overall numbers—but that is an aside.

What will the noble Baroness the Leader do with those decisions of this House? She and her noble friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, said in our debates before dinner that we will attempt to use in-house measures—that is, Standing Orders—where we possibly can, and we all agree with that. They also said that we will need to consider the best legislative route for those issues where Standing Orders were not sufficient and legislation would be required. The subtext was that that legislation would be primary.

The noble Baroness would be faced with two options for primary legislation. One is that she could say to the Select Committee, “Thank you very much—very good work. We will now consult on the second stage of Lords reform, maybe consider a partly elected Chamber, possibly with regional elements, and we will add those conclusions to a Bill in due course”. We all know that, if the noble Baroness says that, the whole thing will be kicked into the long grass. The second option is that she could say, “Thank you very much. I will now go to the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee and seek approval for a specific Bill to deliver these recommendations”. For noble Lords who are not familiar with the PBL, it is a committee of the most powerful Cabinet business managers who decide which bids from departments get approval for the next stage—that is, putting a Bill team together then briefing the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, which will draft the Bill. I can tell those noble Lords who have never appeared before it that it can be quite scary at times. It is currently and usually chaired by the Leader of the Commons, with both Chief Whips, the Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the Attorney-General, the Leader of the House and the Minister for the Cabinet Office.

The first question that the committee will ask the Leader will be whether the Bill is a manifesto commitment. Yes. That is a good. Is it short? Yes. That is also good. Can it be easily amended? Yes, because the Lords is much more flexible and can permit a wide range of amendments. The committee will then say, “So, Lord Privy Seal, are you telling us that all this Bill does is put a retirement age and an attendance threshold on Peers, and that they could debate a wide range of amendments in primary legislation?” The noble Baroness, being honest, will say that that could happen. The committee will ask whether there are any votes in it, and the answer will be no, not really.

We all know that the Leader is very able and persuasive, but I suggest that, with possibly just 18 months to go before a general election, she will have no hope whatever of the PBL approving a Bill to implement what our Select Committee decides, at a time when there will inevitably be the annual Home Office criminal justice Christmas tree Bill in the wings, and maybe something on health, employment, immigration and all the other big political issues that will take priority. Does anyone in this House seriously think that any Government would introduce a Bill on changes in the Lords in a King’s Speech in 2027, to be debated in 2028, maybe months or a year before a general election? I simply do not think so. That is why we need my Amendment 23A.

The amendment is self-explanatory. It would simply build in a statutory instrument power enabling the Government to implement any Lords Select Committee recommendations voted through by this House. It would provide that, if this House amends any of the Lords Select Committee recommendations, we can vote that through. It would enable the Government to amend this Bill when it is an Act, the Life Peerages Act 1958 and the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, should that be necessary. I do not know if it will be, but the Public Bill Office thought that we should have the power to do so, just in case it should prove necessary. Of course, amending those Acts is a Henry VIII power, but I do not think that any Government can complain about Henry VIII powers, since all Governments use them excessively in all Bills.

While it may be possible to deal with attendance through Standing Orders, as I think was hinted at earlier, I have not heard any suggestion from any noble Lord that we could invent a retirement or participation regime that we could implement by Standing Orders alone. If that were the case, the Government would have been shouting about it from the rooftops from Committee onwards. It is assumed that these things will require some form of legislation.

Without my simple amendment, we could find ourselves in the ridiculous position of having proposals on which the majority of this House agrees, and with which the Government also agree, but we can only deliver bits of them through standing orders, and have to wait for primary legislation to do the rest—primary legislation that might never come. It will be fascinating to see what reasons the Government use to reject this new clause. It does nothing to undermine the thrust of the Bill. The noble Baroness the Leader introduced the idea of a Lords Select Committee to come up with recommendations. How can the Government possibly reject this simple solution to deliver into law the recommendations of the committee she has proposed? I beg to move.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord will not be surprised to know I do not agree with him. We discussed this before and my view, oft repeated, is that we should, wherever we can, proceed without legislation. We can do that with a number of the issues we are debating. As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, pointed out, the minimum age at which a person can be a Peer was never legislated on—admittedly, it was a bit ago that that was introduced. We need to look at whether it might be possible to introduce a retirement age without fresh legislation. Either way, I do not want to commit to giving the House of Commons the whip hand over what we do about our own rules when we can change those rules ourselves.

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[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

That is actually not the point that the noble Baroness made at the time. Many Members of your Lordships’ House make effective contributions, and she should recognise those as well.

I enjoyed the speech from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra; he is always inventive and engages well on these issues. However, I say to him that I do not recognise the veto that the noble Lord, Lord True, referred to. My reading of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is that if a Select Committee makes recommendations:

“The Secretary of State must, by regulations made by statutory instrument, amend the following Acts, as appropriate … to give effect to the recommendations in statute”.


The Government must then lay those regulations. In practical terms, if a Select Committee were to charge the House with something—if it said, “We would like the House to consider the following options”—how on earth do a Government legislate for all the options a Select Committee may recommend? That is what he would have in his—

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I hope I made it clear in my speech that the House would consider the options. The House would then come up with a firm vote on what they may be, and not give the Government a range of options to legislate on. It would be the decision of the House on the retirement age, the participation rates or the threshold. We would consider the options and end up with firm recommendations.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

The noble Lord’s amendment is uncertain, because I did not read it like that. It says:

“Where a select committee of the House … has been established for the purpose of reporting on possible retirement ages … and that committee makes recommendations to establish or change”


certain conventions,

“a relevant Minister must, within 12 months of the committee reporting, take the action set out in subsection (2)”.

Therefore, the noble Lord will not be empowering the House; he will undermine the House by removing it as a body from the equation. Even aside from that point, however, I disagree that matters of this importance should merely be considered by the Select Committee through a statutory instrument. I am sure our statutory instruments committee would have quite a bit to say about that power and whether it was relevant at all.

The establishment of a Select Committee is a matter for the House; if the House does not want it, it will not be set up. It seems to me that it is a good way forward for the House to provide a view on these issues. Where we can take things forward more quickly, we will do so. Where we can act prior to legislation, we could do so. Where legislation is required, an agreement from your Lordships’ House makes that a smoother process. I think the amendment before us today is unworkable in practice and risks undermining the very role of this House by trying to bypass the House. It may not be what the noble Lord intended, but it is what his amendment would do. It would bypass the House; what happens in a Select Committee is then enacted by secondary legislation. That would be an extraordinary move and one that this House has never seen before. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, in view of the hour and the mood of the House, I intend to be brief. I merely say to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, who said we should pass our own rules where we could, that I agree entirely. My amendment deals with those areas where we cannot pass our own rules.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

Surely the noble Lord’s amendment requires a statutory instrument to cover every single recommendation of the Select Committee.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

Yes, it is one way to guarantee that it happens, but if this House can bring about some of the rules we want through our own Standing Orders, so be it. The legislative power is there; it does not have to be implemented if the House has done it its own way.

It simply comes down to this: are we going to implement the recommendations of the Lords Select Committee that the noble Baroness herself has created, as we may amend them, or are going to hang around hoping we will get a government Bill in due course to do it sometime? I have said before, and I need not repeat it: I simply do not see that happening.

It was rather disingenuous of the noble Baroness to say the amendment is not technically perfect. I am talking about the general concept here of implementing what this House decides through a statutory instrument, and if the amendment is not technically correct, it is a simple—

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

Statutory instruments are not amendable; that is to say that this House would not be able to change whatever was in the statutory instrument.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

Of course, my noble friend is right. I was not suggesting that we would wish to amend the statutory instrument. My amendment seeks to say that when this House votes on proposals on retirement, possibly on participation and possibly on attendance, the Government would then be under an obligation to bring forward a statutory instrument to implement those proposals. My noble friend may ask what would happen if the Government did not do what we asked for. In that case, this House would vote it down.

It is nonsense to suspect that a Government will bring forward primary legislation to deal with little things such as the age at which Peers should retire, and how often they must turn up before they will be slung out of this House. I cannot see that being in a Labour election grid for the next election; it is not going to happen. I also disagree with the noble Baroness because, in a normal Bill, these two little things would be statutory instruments. They would be secondary legislation, and the secondary legislation committee would certainly not disapprove of them. These things are important to us, and I am still convinced that my original assertion is right: the only way we will get these changes through, if this House approves them, is to have my innocuous new clause on a statutory instrument. I cannot understand why the Government are opposed to it, and therefore I intend to test the opinion of the House.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, I too see the benefits of a retirement age and therefore will speak briefly to Amendment 20 in my name, which is a variation on that theme. Whereas the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, proposes a retirement age of 85 in Amendment 7, my Amendment 20 is somewhat simpler. It proposes the introduction, only for newly appointed life Peers, of a retirement age of 80 or of a date 10 years after the Member’s introduction to the House, whichever is later.

Amendment 20 would thereby give effect to the Labour Party’s manifesto commitment to introduce a mandatory retirement age of 80. However, it would also introduce an important allowance for those who join your Lordships’ House after the age of 70. This is an important distinction, as it would do away with an arbitrary 80 year-old age limit and ensure that those such as serving Supreme Court justices, whose period of public service has a retirement age of 75, will be able to enjoy at least a full decade of service in your Lordships’ House, irrespective of the age at which they are appointed.

Noble Lords may recall the probing amendments in Committee from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and his excellent speeches introducing them, along with the famous Blencathra Excel spreadsheets calculating the impacts of various retirement ages. He noted that a retirement age of 80, if implemented immediately, would have a draconian effect on numbers in your Lordships’ House, removing up to some 327 Members. My Amendment 20 avoids that guillotine, as well as the organisational shock that would result therefrom, by imposing the age limit only on the newly appointed life Peers appointed under the Life Peerages Act 1958.

This would ensure that we do not instantly lose the valuable institutional wisdom among our more experienced Members, and it would not impact any current life Peers. Amendment 20 would thus fulfil Labour’s manifesto while tempering the age-based guillotine—at least for our existing Members—and gently introducing a retirement age that certainly seemed to find favour with the majority of those present in Committee who expressed an opinion. On that basis, I recommend it to your Lordships and look forward to the response from the Leader of the House, particularly in light of the indication she gave earlier that there may be a Select Committee convened to consider just this topic.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 20, which was ably proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Devon. Let me remind the House again of the commitment in the Labour Party manifesto:

“Labour will … introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House”.


The next sentence says that Labour

“will introduce a new participation requirement as well as strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced members can be removed”.

As the noble Earl, Lord Devon, so kindly pointed out, in Committee I attempted to help the Government by putting down a number of amendments on retirement ages, giving the House three options of retiring Peers at the age of 80, 85 or 90. A retirement age of 80 would have removed 327 Peers, which was far too draconian. I think that is why the Labour Party suddenly dropped the proposed retirement age of 80—it realised it would lose 95 of its own number. A retirement age of 90 would remove just 16 Peers and would not be worth it. A retirement age of 85 would remove about 185 Peers, and I think there was quite a bit of consensus in the House that that figure was about right. The noble Earl, Lord Devon, then made this refinement, which makes a lot of sense and is a vast improvement on my suggestions. I think he also had the support of the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Burns, and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull—I hope I am not doing them a disservice by misquoting them.

I have not tried the patience of the House by tabling those amendments again tonight, but I suggest that the solution to the objections we will hear from the Government at the end of this debate explaining why we cannot do this lies in my Amendment 14 in the next group, which I will elaborate on then. The Government will reject these amendments—and next week will probably reject Amendment 18 from the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, on non-attendance—on the grounds that they are too complicated for primary legislation, that there are a lot of loose ends still to be tied up, that there are unforeseen consequences, that we must consult goodness knows how many people and organisations before we legislate and, of course, that there must never be any amendments to this sacred Bill, no matter how meritorious.

Apart from the last two bogus points, there is merit in the Government’s arguments. We do not have the minutiae of how a retirement scheme at about 80, with amendments and tweaks, would work. Would it be on a Peer’s birthday or at the end of the Session or the Parliament? As for consultation, I submit that there is not any single person or organisation who knows the slightest thing about the retirement of Peers compared with all the current Peers in this House. We are the people to be consulted. I accept that we do not have the minutiae of retirement provisions ready to put in the Bill or any primary legislation.

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[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly to my Amendment 29, which would link the exclusion of hereditary Peers to a stage-two proposal. In Amendment 29, I have set out what ought to be included in a Bill. There is merit in saying to the Government that the hereditary Peers should not be excluded from this House unless and until the Government have brought forward stage-two proposals—that is the simple purpose of my amendment.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, in theory, my Amendment 14 ought not to be in this group because it would do something quite different. I did not ask for it to be degrouped because I did not want these Benches to be accused of trying to have separate groups of amendments to pad it out.

I say to the Leader that I listened carefully—on the monitor because I could not get in here—to what she said in her opening speech. She did not mention consultation, but in Committee numerous Ministers on that Front Bench told us that retirements and attendance could not be addressed in the Bill because they needed to consult on it, they needed to get more expert advice and there were lots of loose ends to be tied up. The noble and learned Lord, the Attorney-General, did most of that. That is a separate matter that I just wanted to put on the record.

Those of us who were here for the whole of Committee stage knew there was widespread support for a retirement age of around 85 and some tweaks, as we have heard. There was widespread support for removing the minority of Peers who never turn up or turn up so infrequently that their contribution to the House is not essential. A couple of speeches per annum from a grandee who never serves on a committee nor does any of the other heavy lifting in this House does not, in my opinion, justify attendance. That is why I support Amendment 18 from the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, which we will deal with next week.

There is also limited support for a participation requirement, but that is much more difficult and technical and would require a lot of Peers to give thoughtful consideration as to how it would work.

I say to my noble friend Lord Hamilton that I, too, do not like our retirement age, but the Government have said that one of the justifications for the Bill is that there are too many Peers and they have got to reduce the size of the Lords. Therefore, a sensible retirement age is a far more moral and legitimate way to do it than evicting hard-working hereditaries.

On the first two points, on retirements and attendance, I believe there is a majority view in the House that we should do something about it. I believe that view is just as strong on the Labour side. I think Labour Peers want to act on it, but they accept the government line that there cannot be any amendments on this issue since that would open up the Bill to all other amendments. In Committee, the Government said they needed to consult on it, but now they have suggested that a Select Committee do that consultation and all the heavy work and then they will bring forward a new Bill in due course to implement those requirements on minimum attendance, participation requirements and possibly even tightening up the removal of disgraced Members. Today, we have seen a masterful stroke from the Leader in her opening remarks, offering this special Select Committee to look at these matters.

But, if this House and a Select Committee come up with solutions, does anyone seriously think the Government will implement them? I will give way to any noble Lord or Lady who will say that they are absolutely confident that this Government or any Government in the future will bring forward new primary legislation on changes to the composition of this House. I do not think it will ever happen. Any new primary Bill will be subject to getting all the amendments which have been tabled for this Bill. I suspect the Public Bill Office would even accept amendments—because they are quite wide-ranging—on the reintroduction of hereditary Peers, which we would debate for days on end. It is far too dangerous for any Government. With the pressure on the Government over the next few years with all the legislation proposed, I do not see it happening.

My amendment says that we need to build in a mechanism to introduce any changes this House wants to make in a tightly constrained statutory instrument. That is the guts of my Amendment 14. I say to government Peers in particular that there is nothing in my amendment which sabotages the thrust of the Bill to get rid of hereditaries, utterly wrong though I think that is. My amendment would not open up the Bill to a myriad of other amendments. It simply says that, if a resolution of this House establishes or changes the age at which Peers must retire or imposes a minimum attendance level or a participation requirement, then the Government must, within 12 months, implement that resolution by laying a draft SI first.

I envisage it working as follows. On retirement, for example, this House would set up a special committee of the great and the good and try to thrash out a retirement regime. It may take us 12 months, two years or we might never agree on it. If we came up with something, it would come before this House as a resolution. If we approved it, the Government would have to implement it within 12 months in an SI. I trust the Government not to change it.

If, hypothetically, we set a retirement age of 85 with various tweaks, no Government will change that to 80 or 90. If they do, we will simply vote it down and be right to do so. I suggest that the same procedure would apply to the other things of participation or attendance. There would be no obligation on this House to create these regimes and resolutions. We may decide, for whatever reasons, not to do some of them because it is too difficult.

I conclude by stating that the majority mood in this House is that we want to make some changes, especially on retirements and attendance. We cannot do it in this Bill for the reasons I set out, and I strongly believe that we will not get another bit of primary legislation to do it either.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, said that we can do it through orders. But my amendment says that we may need to amend the following Acts of Parliament: this Bill itself when it is passed, the Life Peerages Act 1958 and the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. That is not my whim; it was the advice of the Public Bill Office. It may or may not be right, but I do not think that in Standing Orders we can amend an Act of Parliament; therefore, we need an SI to be able to do it.

I am old and ugly enough to be cynical about what the Government suggest here. Lords Select Committees are brilliant because they are excellent and come up with brilliant solutions. But let us be clear that there may be a danger that the report is so long, and may cover other things, that the Government will decide that they need to consult on it further or not implement it immediately. Let me take the Leader at her word; she is a thoroughly honourable and noble lady.

If the Select Committee is to be the way forward, at Third Reading I will put down a revised version of this amendment, so that when the Lords special Select Committee reports and makes recommendations on retirement, attendance or participation, the Government must introduce an SI implementing them. Nothing else—keep it that simple. If the Lords Select Committee is the answer, an SI implementing its conclusions is the solution. What could be wrong with that? That is the only way to get the reform we want through in an expeditious time.

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[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, once again, we have had a wide-ranging and very helpful debate. I can think of no other legislation before this House or the other place where there is more interest in what the next piece of legislation will be than there is in the current piece of legislation. Nevertheless, I will do my best to help noble Lords.

First, I am grateful to the noble Duke, because he has had discussions with me on a number of occasions, and I know his commitment to reform. I will come to his amendment as well. Where I would depart from him is that he wants something brought forward within the next two years; I would like to move more quickly. His amendment does not specify any detail of what should be in the reform, as he said. It compels the Government to lay before Parliament further legislation within two years of a Bill receiving Royal Assent. I know he is seeking to provide latitude in his amendment and trying to be helpful. I do not think the amendment necessarily does what he intends it to do, because it depends on the length of the Parliament and when the next King’s Speech will be. He will also know that no Minister will ever commit to, or hint at, what will be in the next King’s Speech or the one after that. The assurance I can give him, as I have said, is an absolute determination to deal with these issues.

The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, seemed very welcoming of a Select Committee. The noble Lord, Lord True, seems more sceptical. I do not know what the Select Committee will say. I have heard noble Lords say, “It’ll make so much fuss out of this”, and, “It’ll take so long that you will never get another Bill to reform the House of Lords”. That is an irresponsible attitude to take. I want to see further reform. I am determined that we make progress on these issues. The reason why I have proposed a Select Committee—it is up to the House if it wishes to take advantage of it—is so that there is an opportunity for the House to come to a decision on the particular issues.

I look at these things in bite-sized chunks, because I think that is how we best make progress. Those two issues are stage 2, which I think is quite clear in the manifesto, but perhaps those of us who helped draft it were not as clear as we thought we were. I think it is quite clear. There has also been increased consensus around this House during the debate that Members want action on participation, attendance and retirement. If the House is serious about wanting that and can come to a conclusion on it then that will certainly make it much easier to take legislation forward, because we will have an agreed view.

The noble Lord is right; I would have those discussions with my colleagues. I would expect the House of Commons to listen carefully to what this House has to say to any reasonable proposals within the bounds of our manifesto. I would also ask the Select Committee to look at what is possible, and if it is possible—it may not be; the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is right that, until a committee has legal advice, it cannot be absolutely certain—to take action more quickly without legislation or prior to legislation. I think that would apply in particular to the issue of participation. I think that would be welcomed.

That does not rule out the opportunity of legislation. However, the best way to get legislation through is not, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, suggested, through very long amendments, and lots of different suggestions and options. If we have a clear view, then that will give us a really good opportunity to get some legislation through on a focused Bill.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I was not suggesting a long-winded series of amendments. I merely suggested a short SI to implement whatever the Lords recommend. If a Select Committee is going to recommend things around retirement and participation, can she not just use an SI to implement it rather than new legislation?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I appreciate the noble Lord’s impatience; I was going to come to that point, so bear with me. Part of my problem with his amendment—I have not quite finished dealing with the noble Duke’s amendment—although I fully agree with his direction of travel and intention, is that I am not too comfortable with removing the role of this House. I think there is real benefit, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said earlier, in that the best people to do some of this work are Members of this House—obviously taking advice as any committee sees fit. I am keen that we should do that.

If that does not work, then there is still legislation. We still have the option and the manifesto commitment, but I think it is easier and quicker to get something through if we have a settled view from this House. If we can do things without legislation or prior to legislation then we should do so to move quickly.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is nothing if not inventive. I have always admired his ingenuity, but he will know as a former Deputy Chief Whip in the other place—

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

Chief Whip.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I apologise; I was demoting him. He was a Chief Whip, so he should know even better that a Third Reading amendment is brought back only if the Minister offers to keep something open at Third Reading. I will tell noble Lords why I cannot do that on his amendment. I will be very clear about this. We had a discussion earlier and spoke about the problems of legislation by SI and Henry VIII powers. The noble Lord proposes, within his way of working, that we should take decisions on quite serious and important issues by SI. It is inventive and it is a way he would want to do it, but I do not think a simple resolution such as that is the appropriate way forward. It would also give the other place the opportunity to reject it as well; I do not think that is appropriate. The existing mechanisms or primary legislation would be a better way forward.

The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, has been very thoughtful throughout this debate. His amendment stipulates that the next stage of reform requires, among other things, changing the appointments process to limit the discretion of the Prime Minister and party leaders. We have already discussed that, and I think the House made its view clear on the previous vote, so I do not want to repeat the same arguments. As I have said before, we are committed to strengthening and clarifying the roles and responsibilities in the appointments process, which we discussed earlier.

The noble Viscount also talked about term limits and a size cap on the House. As I have said before, the Government’s preference is for a retirement age. That is something, along with participation, that a committee of this House could look at. His amendment does, in effect, deal with the size of the House, which is a very important issue. I am afraid that the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, went way beyond some of the issues we are discussing here, but I noted the comments that he made.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Blencathra]

12: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Removal of peers with a criminal convictionAny peer convicted of a criminal offence on indictment ceases to be a member of the House of Lords within seven days of the conviction, or the loss of appeal if the peer appeals the conviction.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment intends to ensure that peers who have committed a serious offence are removed from the House, using an indictable offence to provide a clear threshold.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I have shortened my remarks, hoping that we could crack this by midnight, but it may be five past midnight before we finish. My Amendment 12 states simply:

“Any peer convicted of a criminal offence on indictment ceases to be a member of the House of Lords within seven days of the conviction, or the loss of appeal if the peer appeals the conviction”.


Noble Lords will say, “So what? We already have in the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 a power to remove Peers if convicted of a serious offence”. However, that kicks only in if the Peer has been sentenced to be imprisoned or detained indefinitely or sentenced to more than one year in prison; nor does it apply if that sentence is suspended.

However, the Labour manifesto did say that Labour would strengthen

“the circumstances in which disgraced members can be removed”.

I am looking forward to hearing exactly what that means. Surely it is talking about Peers who have committed a criminal offence, or is it suggesting that we will permanently remove Peers who have had to apologise for inappropriate or “un-woke” comments—which might also be considered disgraceful?

Where my amendment, to use the Government’s own words, strengthens

“the circumstances in which disgraced members can be removed”

is that it would remove all Peers who are convicted of an indictable offence—which are, of course, the most serious ones—irrespective of the length of prison sentence they get. Nor would I permit Peers to stay just because the sentence is suspended. In my opinion, if a Peer is found guilty of an indictable offence, he is guilty and should be removed irrespective of whether the sentence has been suspended. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

To reassure noble Lords, the Government remain committed to strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced Members can be removed. Our position on this amendment has not changed, not least given that it is not a matter for the Bill.

It may be helpful to the House if I briefly set out the current arrangements regarding expulsion. There are two routes of suspension. At the moment, under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, a Member of the House ceases to be a Member if the Lord Speaker certifies that they are convicted of a serious offence—that is, they are convicted of a criminal offence and given a non-suspended prison sentence of more than a year.

Where a Member receives a prison sentence but not one long enough to engage the 2014 Act, the provisions of the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015 and Standing Orders will be engaged. Under these, a Member who has received a prison sentence of any length is deemed to have breached the Code of Conduct and may be referred to the Conduct Committee, which in turn may recommend a sanction up to and including expulsion from the House. The current statutory framework is a tightly bound one, where only Peers who have been sentenced to a period of imprisonment can be subject to the sanction of suspension, either on an automatic basis or by engaging the 2015 Act and the provisions in Standing Orders.

The noble Lord’s amendment, in setting the threshold at indictment, would have the effect of bringing into scope a much wider array of offences with significantly varying degrees of seriousness and sentencing. I would question whether that is necessarily the appropriate threshold for expulsion and whether this sanction should not be reserved for the most serious of offences.

The Government are committed to ensuring that those who work in public life maintain high standards of ethics and propriety, not just in this House, but across all public servants and officeholders.

As the House will be aware, the Conduct Committee has only recently concluded its review of the Code of Conduct, which made several recommendations relating to the process following a Peer being convicted of a criminal offence. Therefore, it would be right for the House to allow these changes to bed in before considering what further changes may be needed. But we are open to the idea of pursuing this further in the Conduct Committee.

Given that the hour is late, I plan on finishing my comments there, but I am happy to continue discussions outside your Lordships’ House on this area. I therefore respectfully request that the noble Lord withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I do not think the Minister answered the question of my noble friend. What do the Government have in mind when they talk about strengthening the ways of getting rid of disgraced Members? What sort of offences would those be?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I am ever so sorry: I thought I had answered the question. We are working with the Conduct Committee to bed in what has just been changed and to see if further change is required after we have seen whether the most recent changes have worked.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for her response. In view of what she has said, let us hope that the changes that the Conduct Committee has proposed are effective. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 12 withdrawn.

UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I was sorry to hear the valedictory speech of my noble friend the noble Lord, Lord Boswell of Aynho, magnificent though it was. I had the privilege of serving with him in the Commons for all his 23 years there and as Chief Whip, and he was the careful, thoughtful, intellectual and caring politician then that we have all seen in this House since 2010.

But what a unique day—a valedictory speech from dad but the Boswell lineage continues in this House with a superb maiden speech from one of his daughters, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Prentis of Banbury. I did not know her in the Commons, but I knew of her excellent legal qualifications and her time as Attorney-General, and her fight for our hard-pressed farmers. Also, of incredible importance to me, she had the common sense to oppose HS2, and she and others will be proved right as this shambles continues to stagger out of control. I look forward to hearing more of her contributions in this House.

This is an appalling deal: an agreement that sells out the United Kingdom, the Chagossians and our wonderful marine protected areas, and we are paying a fortune to a country with no legitimate or legal interest in it. The Government say that they had to do a deal with Mauritius, since the UK would soon have been forced to surrender the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, if the International Court of Justice ruled against us in a binding agreement. But that is simply not the case. Mauritius cannot secure a judgment establishing that it is sovereign over the Chagos Islands: the UK is not required to consent to its dispute with Mauritius being adjudicated. The International Court of Justice has no jurisdiction to adjudicate the sovereignty dispute between the UK and Mauritius and its 2019 advisory opinion did not establish that Mauritius was sovereign.

The Government fear that the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea, which has no jurisdiction in questions of sovereignty over territory, will “presuppose” or “assume” that the 2019 advisory opinion has settled that Mauritius is sovereign rather than the UK. It is typical of the FCO to anticipate and plan for failure. The framing of Article 1 is incompatible with the position in UK law, which is that the UK has been sovereign over the Chagos Islands since 1814, including from 1965. Yes, the last Government were negotiating with Mauritius, but we did 11 rounds without agreement, and I am certain that, if we were still in government, we would do another 11 rounds and still not sign off on this appalling deal.

We all know how this comes about with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office: it has a long history of selling out our overseas assets. It gave up Aden and South Yemen in 1967, where the Houthis are now in charge. In 1980, the FCO was secretly negotiating to give the Falkland Islands to Argentina, which led directly to the Falklands War. In 2001, the FCO had secret talks with Spain over the sovereignty of Gibraltar, until Gibraltar stopped it with a referendum in 2002 in which 99% of the population voted to remain British.

What will be next? When will we give up Cyprus, like we gave up Malta in 1979? Why did the Foreign Secretary do it? I can hear the Sir Humphrey of the Foreign Office saying, “Foreign Secretary, the last Government were endlessly negotiating, but failed to close a deal. This is a great opportunity for you. The International Court of Justice is bound to demand that we hand them over, so we can avoid being in default by doing a deal now. Of course, we will have to make a small payment in order to keep Diego Garcia. That will be a small price to pay for pulling off a remarkable foreign policy achievement”. I can imagine that being said, and, in 30 years’ time, we will no doubt get the record to prove it. With a brand new Foreign Secretary, it was easy for FCDO officials to con him into selling out the Chagos Islands. I bet they did not explain to him that we have to tell Mauritius at any time that the US wants to undertake a combat mission from Diego Garcia.

Unlike most of my noble friends, I am not worried about the security situation, because the United States will certainly never tell us well in advance if it is going to use Diego Garcia for any foreign operation. It gave us one hour’s warning about bombing Iran because it simply does not trust us, and it will certainly not trust us in any operations from Diego Garcia, because it knows that the islands’ Chinese friends will be told within seconds.

Nor did the Foreign Secretary’s advisers tell him that the Chagos Islands’ marine protected area of 640,000 square kilometres, one of the largest in the world, is rich in vulnerable species, with 66,000 square kilometres of the finest coral reefs in the world. Under British control, there is a complete ban on all fishing, but we know that, as soon as the Chinese fishing fleets get in there, which they will, they will be stripped bare within five to 10 years, because that is what the Chinese do with every fishing ground: they invade and destroy.

In conclusion, we are paying Mauritius billions to jeopardise our security and destroy one of the finest marine protected areas in the world: a brilliant Foreign Office deal, the best sell-out yet.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Blencathra]

105: Clause 4, page 2, line 16, leave out “Session of”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would remove Exempted Hereditary peers over a longer timescale, to permit the House to benefit from their input while giving them more time to seek alternative employment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, we all accept that the hereditary principle is now over. The Labour manifesto said that they would remove hereditary Peers, but it did not say exactly when. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said that it was to be immediate, but “immediate” in the manifesto referred to modernisation and a retirement age of 80 for Peers. It was the modernisation which would be immediate, not necessarily the removal of hereditary Peers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to respond to the debate—not just to the amendment but to some of the comments of my noble friends. My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham made an excellent speech and moved an excellent amendment. It was modest and moderate, as he said. The Achilles heel of this Bill is that it reduces the capacity of the House of Lords and the Opposition to hold the Government to account. As he pointed out, the House will be the weaker because of it. He made a very good point that, in 1999, the Conservatives had a chance to select those who would contribute most so that the House did not suffer a large drop in capacity. My noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay said that it is wrong that we should not make amendments in this House just because the Commons would not like them and would reject them. He is absolutely right on that point. My noble friend Lord Moylan said that his amendment would give some flexibility and certainty. There is a certain merit in his argument. It would not be on just whenever the Session might end but on a date of the Government’s choosing. That could be announced well in advance to give hereditary Peers who are leaving this House some certainty. I agree entirely with my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean in the tribute he paid to the Leader of the House, who is courteous and thorough and treats all Members with courtesy and respect.

The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, is rightly worried about the disproportionate effect on the Cross Benches. He made a very important point tonight. He was very brief about it and I would like to have heard more, but from what I understood, he made one of the most important contributions in our debate. I thank my noble friends Lord Dobbs and Lord Lucas for their support tonight. My noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar also made the point that the central point of this is effectiveness. This Bill reduces effectiveness. He also made the point that retirement or the way MPs leave their House and the ways Peers leave this House are totally different and are not comparable.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, for her response. Okay, my amendment about going to the end of the Parliament may be going too far, but I think my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham made an excellent argument for just two Sessions. For the life of me, I cannot understand the Government’s undue haste in this. What is to be gained by chucking the hereditaries out at the end of this Session rather than at the end of the next Session? However, having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 105 withdrawn.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Blencathra]

83: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Peers from chartered professional bodies(1) The Prime Minister must recommend to His Majesty the King that one member from each chartered professional body be granted a life peerage under section 1 of the Life Peerages Act 1958 (power to confer life peerages) in accordance with this section.(2) The peerage granted under section 1 must entitle a peer from a chartered professional body to sit in the House of Lords for five years only (a “temporary peerage”), at which point the Prime Minister must propose a new peer from the chartered professional body.(3) The Prime Minister must only recommend the individual proposed by each chartered professional body.(4) Each chartered professional body may determine the individual they propose for a temporary peerage by the method it considers appropriate. (5) A chartered professional body under subsection (1) means any professional body granted a royal charter after the day on which this Act is passed and any professional body below—(a) Association of Chartered Certified Accountants;(b) Association of Corporate Treasurers;(c) Association for Project Management;(d) Association for Science Education;(e) British Computer Society;(f) British Psychological Society;(g) British Society of Gastroenterology;(h) Chartered Institute of Management Accountants;(i) Chartered Association of Building Engineers;(j) Chartered Institute for Archaeologists;(k) Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment;(l) Chartered Institute of Arbitrators;(m) Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists;(n) Chartered Banker Institute;(o) Chartered Institute of Brewers & Distillers;(p) Chartered Institute of Building;(q) Chartered Institute of Credit Management;(r) Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management;(s) Chartered Institute of Environmental Health;(t) Chartered Institute of Fundraising;(u) Chartered Institute of Horticulture;(v) Chartered Institute of Housing;(w) Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors;(x) Chartered Institute of Journalists;(y) Chartered Institute of Legal Executives;(z) Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals;(z1) Chartered Institute of Linguists;(z2) Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport;(z3) Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters;(z4) Chartered Institute of Marketing;(z5) Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity;(z6) Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys;(z7) Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals;(z8) Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development;(z9) Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering;(z10) Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply;(z11) Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy;(z12) Chartered Institute of Public Relations;(z13) Chartered Institution of Railway Operators;(z14) Chartered Institute of Taxation;(z15) Chartered Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys;(z16) Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers;(z17) Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors;(z18) Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation;(z19) Chartered Institution of Wastes Management;(z20) Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management;(z21) Chartered Insurance Institute;(z22) Chartered Management Institute;(z23) Chartered Quality Institute;(z24) Chartered Society of Designers; (z25) Chartered Society of Physiotherapy;(z26) Chartered Trading Standards Institute;(z27) College of Optometrists;(z28) College of Paramedics;(z29) The Chartered College of Teaching;(z30) Energy Institute;(z31) English Association;(z32) Geological Society of London;(z33) Institute and Faculty of Actuaries;(z34) Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales;(z35) Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland;(z36) Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland;(z37) Institute of Chartered Foresters;(z38) Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators;(z39) Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers;(z40) Institute of Conservation;(z41) Institute of Directors;(z42) Institute of Health and Social Care Management;(z43) Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology;(z44) Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining;(z45) Institute of Mathematics and its Applications;(z46) Institute of Maxillofacial Prosthetists & Technologists;(z47) Institute of Measurement and Control;(z48) Institute of Physics;(z49) Institute of Practitioners in Advertising;(z50) Institute of Refrigeration;(z51) Institution of Chemical Engineers;(z52) Institution of Civil Engineers;(z53) Institution of Engineering and Technology;(z54) Institution of Engineering Designers;(z55) Institution of Mechanical Engineers;(z56) Institution of Occupational Safety and Health;(z57) Institution of Royal Engineers;(z58) Institution of Structural Engineers;(z59) Landscape Institute;(z60) The Law Society;(z61) Law Society of Northern Ireland;(z62) Linnean Society of London;(z63) Royal Aeronautical Society;(z64) Royal Agricultural Society of England;(z65) Royal Anthropological Institute;(z66) Royal Asiatic Society;(z67) Royal Astronomical Society;(z68) Royal College of Anaesthetists;(z69) Royal College of General Practitioners;(z70) Royal College of Nursing;(z71) Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists;(z72) Royal College of Organists;(z73) Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health;(z74) Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow;(z75) Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh;(z76) Royal College of Physicians of London;(z77) Royal College of Psychiatrists;(z78) Royal College of Radiologists;(z79) Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists; (z80) Royal College of Surgeons of England;(z81) Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh;(z82) Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons;(z83) Royal Economic Society;(z84) Royal Geographical Society;(z85) Royal Historical Society;(z86) Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland;(z87) Royal Institute of British Architects;(z88) Royal Institute of Navigation;(z89) Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors;(z90) Royal Institution of Naval Architects;(z91) Royal Meteorological Society;(z92) Royal Microscopical Society;(z93) Royal Pharmaceutical Society;(z94) Royal Photographic Society;(z95) Royal Society for Public Health;(z96) Royal Society of Biology;(z97) Royal Society of Chemistry;(z98) Royal Society of Medicine;(z99) Royal Statistical Society;(z100) Royal Town Planning Institute;(z101) Society for Radiological Protection;(z102) Society of Dyers and Colourists;(z103) The Textile Institute.”

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 83 is in my name. At first glance, it may scare your Lordships if 129 of these suggested new Peers descend on us in one fell swoop, in addition to our current 850 Members—but that is not my intention. Let me explain where I am coming from on this. First, I am working on the assumption that we will reduce the numbers in this House by possibly 250 by the end of this Parliament—those retiring, those who fail to turn up and those who fail to participate. I am old enough and cynical enough to say with absolute certainty that I am afraid that no Prime Minister will ever implement the report of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, so we need to reduce numbers some other way.

We boast that we are a House of experts, which is true in comparison with the House of Commons. We have lawyers, doctors, farmers, financial experts, a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Peer, veterinarians and some other specialists. But we do not have the full range of specialists we could use. I asked the Public Bill Office to add the names of these 129 professional chartered institutes and royal colleges so that noble Lords could see the wide range and just what we could be missing.

At first glance, noble Lords will say, “Goodness me, we can’t have all these people here. What would they bring?” But I challenge any noble Lord to say that the presidents or vice-presidents of any of these royal colleges or chartered institutes would have nothing valuable to contribute to some of our expert debates. Of course, we will all have our personal views and biases on which ones are more important and prestigious than others, and we may have some snobbish put-downs about some. I am reminded of the time when John Major allowed technical colleges to become universities and I heard some commentators call them “hairdressing degree universities”.

I agree that some of the experts from the royal colleges of medicine may have more to contribute to a debate about assisted dying than, say, the institute of waste management—well, probably, although it may have a view as well. However, in seeking, for example, a better-designed Holocaust memorial than the monstrosity Adjaye wants to inflict on us, I would prefer to hear from the institute of designers than any distinguished royal colleges. It is horses for courses, and in the House of Lords we have an awful lot of courses.

When our expert Select Committees embark on a new inquiry and need to interview experts and collect evidence, it is to many of these organisations on my list that they will turn. Look at the lists of evidence submitted, for example, and you will see the names of many of these organisations. When the Government go out to consultation, every one of these organisations will be on their distribution list as a stakeholder for the relevant subject or area.

I suggest that if the Government consult these organisations as knowledgeable stakeholders, we should have one of their number in here on a short-term peerage. We have some very able accountants and financiers, but every day this House and its committees would benefit from having Peers from the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and the Chartered Institute of Taxation—and I may be so politically rude as to suggest that maybe the Chancellor too could benefit from some of their advice at the moment.

We have the long-running problem that after 17 years we still cannot get on with restoring this building. Perhaps if we had Peers from the Association for Project Management, the Chartered Association of Building Engineers, the Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists, the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering, the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Institution of Structural Engineers, the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and others, perhaps the place would be rebuilt by now. We do not have enough experts in this House who design and build things. I also think we need experts from trading standards and environmental health.

On the environment, we have some experts here already, but we could do with more, such as from the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, the Chartered Institute of Horticulture, the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, the Institute of Chartered Foresters, the Landscape Institute, the Royal Agricultural Society of England and the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management.

Last week in Grand Committee we had the digital markets regulations and the immigration biometric information regulations. Today in Grand Committee we debated—although I did not debate it as I could not understand any of it—the Electronic Communications (Networks and Services) (Designated Vendor Directions) (Penalties) Order 2025, which is on the tip of all your Lordships’ tongues, to be followed by the Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2025. I accept that I may be the only Peer in this House who would not have a clue what these regulations seek to do, but perhaps if we had experts from the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the Institute of Physics, the Energy Institute and the British Computer Society, we would have a much more informed debate.

If noble Lords look down the list in Amendment 83, they can see experts in some of the Government’s central priorities for education needs in this country—and, if we are to have growth, institutes for housing, science education and a whole range of mathematical and science disciplines, as well as logistics and transport. Noble Lords may say, “It’s all right; we can get some of them already if they are nominated through HOLAC”. Yes, but it is very hit and miss, requiring someone to nominate someone who may or may not be an up-to-date, current expert in any of the 129 disciplines listed in my amendment—and that person, like the rest of us, will serve until death or retirement, whereas my amendment would ensure a new expert from the institute every five years.

The key point of my amendment is that these Peers nominated by their respective institutes would serve for five years. That would ensure that we were getting a constant flow of experts who were up to date with their areas of expertise. What I did not put in the amendment is the logistics of doing this. I suggest that we could bring in up to 26 per annum over a period of five years so that they did not all arrive in one fell swoop and all depart at the same time. Their order of introduction could be done by ballot.

My amendment states that the Prime Minister cannot substitute his own preference, but I neglected to say that HOLAC would still have the final say on propriety and, if HOLAC rejected a nomination, the institute would have to propose someone else who satisfied the propriety test. They would all be Cross-Benchers and be instructed that they were not spokespersons for their institute but individuals giving us their personal expertise based on the professional expertise for which the institute nominated them in the first place.

In our debate on an elected House a few nights ago, a few noble Lords made the point that we can widen the franchise, so to speak, and be more democratic without requiring direct elections. If we adopted the system that I propose, we would be introducing an indirectly elected element that would be more democratic, I suggest, than just the Prime Minister making appointments. I would also hope that we would not need individual nominations through HOLAC or the Prime Minister because they wanted a Peer with experience in taxation, ecology, archaeology or any of the 129 disciplines in my amendment.

Of course, the Prime Minister will still make political appointments, but my system in this amendment would guarantee that, in five years’ time, the House had 129 experts from these professional bodies, constantly renewing their expertise in addition to any other noble Lords who have been appointed. I also suggest that this would give us a more regional spread, since it is likely that some of the appointees will be from countries of our United Kingdom other than England—and, indeed, seven of the institutions listed here are not English.

In conclusion, this suggestion is not as frightening as it first appears when one looks at the Marshalled List with these 129 organisations. These experts, introduced to the House at a rate of up to 26 per annum and changing every five years, would give us a whole new cadre of experts and at least 100 professionals that we do not have in here at the moment. If noble Lords worry that that is too many at one time, then I would remind the House that the Prime Minister has introduced 45 new Peers in his first 250 days as Prime Minister, and we can expect another large batch of politicians and aides in the last Prime Minister’s resignation honours.

Naturally, of course, my amendment will not be acceptable—possibly by all sides of the House—but I suggest quite humbly that I think I have got a germ of an idea here which, with refinement, could give us more independent experts, widen the franchise, be more democratic and not allow the Prime Minister to be solely in charge of Lords appointments. I say we need more experts; if we boast that we are a House of experts, then let us prove it by accepting this amendment. I beg to move.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

Front Bench!

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate, and there has not been very much support for the noble Lord’s proposal. One thing that impressed me—he may have gained a record, at least so far on this Bill—was that he managed to produce an amendment longer than the Bill itself. I do not recall that happening before.

It is clear that the different backgrounds, experiences and knowledge of noble Lords from around the House are really valuable in our deliberations. There are indeed past presidents of societies sitting in the House at the moment. The noble Lord, Lord Rees, has been president of the Royal Astronomical Society. The noble Baronesses, Lady Rafferty and Lady Finlay, have been presidents of the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal Society of Medicine respectively, and the noble Lord, Lord Trees, was president of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. They have enhanced the debates—the noble Baroness, Lady Rafferty, has not been here very long but we look forward to more contributions from her; she has proved herself already—and these appointments are always welcome to your Lordships’ House. I think the noble Lord gets that.

Where I struggle with the noble Lord’s amendment is with regard to all the other organisations. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, got it absolutely right: once you get a list, you look at the things you are excluding, and I do not think the chartered institutes and royal societies are the only groups that can provide such expertise. I also note that, had all the appointments been made that the noble Lord speaks of, they would make up about 30% of the House as Cross-Benchers. I think the noble Lord, Lord Norton, said that the Cross Benches should make up around 20%, which is roughly what most people were talking about, and this amendment would take it well over that. They would probably be larger than either of the two parties of government.

The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, made the point that I would have made, but he got there first—obviously, it is a very good point to make, because it was what I was thinking. Why are we here? We are here for our experience, our knowledge and the contributions we make, but basically, we are here for our judgment. We listen to people who are experts and those who are not experts, and we listen to the public. We take on board all those things, and ultimately, we all have to act on our honour and make a judgment on the information before us.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, pointed out how much the expertise that Members bring to this House would cost if it came from outside this place. But I do not really want a House just of experts, and I do not know where the noble Lord got that from. We are not a House of experts; we are a House that comes together to reach an expert opinion. We have experts among us, but not all of us have an expertise. Many do, but others are here, as the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, said, to exercise judgment. We want Members to speak not just on one issue in which they have expertise; we expect them to look at a range of issues while they are here.

I am also uncomfortable with the idea of temporary membership of the House, which the noble Baroness, Lady Laing, raised earlier as well. We want all Members to be equal and to have equal status here; we do not want some Members who are temporary and some who are not.

I am sure that the noble Lord tabled his amendment with the best of intentions, but I ask him to withdraw it.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, my political antenna detects that my suggestion has not received universal acclaim. I say to my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach, who was my superb Chief Whip, that I am sorry if I missed out the royal agricultural societies of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. That would put my list up to 130, from 129. He does not like lists, but the Bill is nothing but a list of 88 people to chuck out, so I suggest that it is a list as well.

The esteemed organisation of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, is not a chartered institute or a royal society. I say to the Leader of the House that one has to create a cut-off somewhere. There are lots of other able organisations, but I wanted to pick those that were officially chartered institutes and royal societies, and which had therefore reached a certain level of acknowledged expertise, possibly among their peers. I note the points made by my noble friend Lord Leicester, and I largely concur.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, was quite strongly against my amendment. He did not want these experts in here; he would prefer to pay them to speak to us. Suppose that, over the next few years, HOLAC had nominated each of these individuals. Why would it nominate them? It would nominate them because they were experts in their field. We would say, “Jolly good, welcome here; we need your expertise”. Of course this House needs experts and expertise. I say to the Leader of the House that I am not suggesting having 650 technical experts; I am suggesting 129 experts, plus any others we may have, which would leave another 400 or 500 Peers to exercise our judgment. I agree with my noble friend Lord True that we need to look at innovative ways. I said that I had the germ of an idea here. Most people think that this germ should be disinfected and done away with immediately, I suspect, but there is a possibility here to do things differently. He said that my plans were too corporatist. I thought that he said that they were too corpulent, which the House rather is at the moment; it is too large.

I am clearly not going to succeed. I do not intend to bring this back on Report. I was floating an idea and in five years’ time, say, the House may wish to look at it. I am grateful for the Minister’s response. In view of the attitude tonight, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 83 withdrawn.

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, after what I acknowledge was not a popular measure, I hope that this one will find more support on both principal Benches of your Lordships’ House.

My Amendment 90 seeks to address the long-running problem we all acknowledge of the number of Ministers serving in this House who are not salaried. When I had the privilege of being a Minister in the previous Conservative Government, I was lucky enough to be in receipt of a salary that was important, principally, for the pension contributions and the national insurance contributions it allowed me to pay. But some 40% of my colleagues on the Front Bench in the previous Conservative Government were unsalaried. That meant that not only were they not taking home a salary cheque at the end of the month, they were also not paying into their pension, their national insurance contributions were not being made and, in some cases, because of this and because of their age, they were not in receipt of severance pay when the general election put an end to their time as Ministers.

This is a problem that affects both the major parties when they are in government. It dates from the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act of 1975, which was written with a noble aim to ensure that the Executive does not grow too large by comparison to the legislature and that the cost to the public purse should be limited, but it was drawn in an age when Ministers in the House of Lords were assumed to be drawn from the landed gentry. We are not anymore, and, in the absence of baronial lands in Whitley Bay being granted to me, I was very grateful for the salary that allowed me to carry out my work as a Minister.

This is a problem that my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and many others have raised in previous Parliaments and in this one. I know that it is one that draws the attention of the noble Baroness the Leader of the House. I hope that, much as in the debate on power of attorney, this may be an opportunity for us to solve a long-running problem that causes problems for Governments’ ability to find Front-Benchers and to draw people from all walks of life, from modest backgrounds, to serve their country in government. I beg to move.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support my noble friend, who is absolutely right. If I have got my figures correct this time, this Labour Government are abusing only four Lords Ministers, while the last Conservative Government, disgracefully, abused 11 Lords Ministers, by not paying them. That is simply not right.

Part of the problem is that Prime Ministers like to stuff their departments full of paid MPs and, of course, they have their PPSs as well to help them. The larger the payroll of MPs in the Commons, the less likely there is to be a rebellion. So it pays for any Government to have as many paid Members of Parliament as possible, and their PPSs.

About 35 years ago, as a junior Whip, I encountered a colleague who was very concerned that that he was not fully involved in policy development in his department. He said to his Secretary of State that he would like to be more fully involved. The Secretary of state told him, “You’re just a PUS. Your job is to reply to all the letters from people whingeing about not getting their bypass”. That rather put him in his place.

My noble friend is right: there has been a large expansion of the roles of PUSs and others. I personally think that that is wrong. There is also a view that Peers can afford to do it for free: “Let’s have as many paid MPs as we can within the ceiling of the allowance, and then get Peers to do it for free”. That is utterly wrong. Many of them cannot do it for free. Noble Lords in this House who have been doing it for free have been doing it out of a sense of duty, not because they can afford it.

On that note, I see my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie in his place. He and my noble friend Earl Howe were Ministers for 30 or 40 years between them. I doubt if they got paid for two or three years of that. There were those who did job after job unpaid. It is not right that any Government, whether Conservative or Labour, should abuse Peers in that way.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, public service in the old days used to be quite a different thing. My forebear, Admiral Robert Barlow, used to be the superintendent of the Chatham Shipyards. He ran the shipyards through his personal account and took quite a lot of the Government’s money to build large houses for himself and his family. But we are now in the 21st century, and we should be doing things in a different way. We should not be relying on public servants to pocket cash. We should have a modern, meritocratic form of government. It is therefore completely and utterly wrong that we expect Ministers to work hard for no pay at all.

I pay tribute to the noble Lords, Lord Hanson of Flint, Lord Timpson, Lord Ponsonby, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and Lord Hendy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Gustafsson, all of whom are on the ministerial list with the word “unpaid” underneath their names. I was one of those Ministers. I had my name on the ministerial list with the word “unpaid” underneath it, and it was a complete humiliation. I found it completely undermining that it was thought in government that I was someone who was not worth the salary that others were paid. I was not worth the £81,000 that a Minister of State got; I was not worth the £71,000 that a PUS got. It hit me that I was not taken seriously in my department in that respect.

This is an old-fashioned system that we need to end. The 1975 Act was well-intentioned, but it is out of date. We should be supporting a meritocracy. I have seen in my own Government some of our finest people walk out of government because they could not afford to hold down the job. Instead, the people who could afford the job got the place. In this day and age, this is quite wrong. I know that the Leader is very keen not to amend the Bill, but this is such a ripe opportunity to undo a serious injustice in the way we do government. I beg the Leader to take this opportunity and accept this amendment.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Blencathra]

19: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Attendance requirement of 20%A member of the House of Lords who attended fewer than 20% of possible sittings in the 2019–2024 Parliament must retire from the House of Lords within two months of the day on which this Act is passed.”Member's explanatory statement
Alongside other amendments in the name of Lord Blencathra, this amendment has been tabled to permit the House to vote on three options for requiring peers who have made little recent contribution to the work of the House to retire. According to analysis of Library figures, requiring a minimum attendance of 20% of sittings between 2019 and 2024 could remove 154 peers.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, the Labour manifesto said that

“we will introduce a new participation requirement”.

My Amendment 26, in the next group, deals specifically with the very small number of Peers who turn up and then do nothing.

The Government keep complaining that many amendments to this Bill have nothing to do with the removal of hereditary Peers, saying that the Bill is narrowly focused. That is true, but it was a political decision by the Government to make it so narrow and not include the other priority issues from their manifesto. The Government are seeking to give the impression that dealing only with hereditary Peers is somehow sacrosanct or ordained from on high. If we were in the Moses Room right now, I would be looking at the tablets that he brought down from Sinai to see if there was an 11th commandment saying, “Thou shalt have no other provisions in thy Bill except the removal of hereditary Peers”. Governments often widen the scope of Bills and adjust the Long Title. Indeed, today in the other place the Government have tabled Amendments 262 and 263, which will amend the Long Title to the Employment Rights Bill. They could do so for this one also if they were so minded.

With these amendments, I am seeking to explore the possibility of retiring Peers who have attended few of our sittings. Let me make it crystal clear that I reject the idea of a full-time House of political professionals. The great strength of this revising Chamber is that, with a very wide range of expertise to call on, most noble Lords do not sit here all the time intervening on issues that are not their speciality, but participate in our debates and Select Committees on issues on which they are expert.

I recall a debate on an amendment to the precision breeding Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, was debating a point with the noble Lord, Lord Winston, concerning recombinant DNA—whatever that is. The rest of us sat there watching a very civilised ping-pong match, and they were the only two in the whole Chamber who knew what they were talking about. Indeed, when my noble friend the Minister wound up, he said that neither he nor his officials in the Box knew anything about the subject, either, and would both noble Lords come to the department and explain it to them? That is one tiny example of the superb strengths of this House—that is the House of Lords in action. For the record, both noble Lords had attendances in the last Parliament well above 30% and 40%.

I turn once again to the Excel spreadsheets produced by the Library, which have the attendance record for all Peers in the last Parliament. There may be some names missing and there are other little technical errors; however, these figures are not the full picture, since the attendance data is based on contributions made in the Chamber and Grand Committee and does not include participation in other committee meetings. The Library tells me:

“This is because of the way in which different types of data are stored in the House of Lords’ internal systems and the challenges in extracting it to provide a dataset which we can be confident is accurate for all members and across the full duration of the Parliament, unlike chamber contributions which we can be sure is robust. We are actively looking at ways of incorporating committee attendance into this analysis and hope to resolve this in future releases, conscious that we want to present as comprehensive a picture as possible.”


Nor do the attendance figures count all the days that Ministers are working away from the Lords in their departments, or abroad. Nor do they include the 25 days per annum when 23 Members of this House are away serving at the Council of Europe, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the OSCE.

With those caveats, the figures are nevertheless accurate enough for us to debate the concept of retiring Peers below certain attendance thresholds, and they give us a fairly good picture of attendance. If we retired Peers who attended fewer than 20% of possible sitting days in the previous Parliament, that would be 154 Peers. What does 20% mean in actual sitting days? Over the past 10 years—I have done the number-crunching myself —the number of sitting days has averaged 148.1 per annum. That ranged from just 15 days in 2019 to 350 during the 2017-19 Session; thus, an annual average is more accurate than a sessional average. Peers who attended 20% of the time therefore attended for just 30 days out of 148. Peers who attended 15% of the time attended 22 days out of 148, and those who attended just 10% of the time were present here for just 15 days.

If noble Lords access the spreadsheet, they can come to their own conclusions on whether the occasions on which some of those 154 Peers spoke or participated merit continuance in this House. I have seen a few names who made worthwhile speeches, but my recollection is that the vast majority of the 154 Peers in this category have not contributed much to the work of this House. Those who attended fewer than 15% of possible sittings number 118 Peers. When I look at the 10% and below—the 70 Peers who turned up for a maximum of 15 days per annum—I cannot see, in my opinion, any whose contribution was so essential or vital that we should retain their presence in this House for their very rare words of wisdom. Indeed, I can recall only three of them making any speech, and none has served on any of our committees.

This is not one of my amendments, but if we opted for removing those who have attended 5% or less of the time, that would be just 39 Peers. My noble friend Lord Hailsham has suggested a 1% threshold, but that is 12 Peers and, in my opinion, it would make us look a bit silly if we went that low. However, I agree with his other amendments: of course we must exempt those on leave of absence—but not for too long—or those with royal duties, such as the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, or the new Lord Chamberlain, the noble Lord, Lord Benyon.

These figures are out by about eight because of judicial appointments and some deaths since the Library compiled them last year, but noble Lords can see the ballpark figure—if that American term is still acceptable. Noble Lords may say, “What does it matter if they don’t turn up? They are not getting any allowance and not costing anything”. I agree with that view, but we are here today because the Government say that there are too many Peers, and the Government’s solution is to get rid of 88 hereditaries, many of whom are assiduous attenders. Indeed, there are only 14 hereditaries who have attended less than 20% of sittings.

I do not have a firm view on my options, but I think that noble Lords would consider the 20% or 15% thresholds to be on the high side and a bridge too far to begin with. When noble Lords look at the names of the 70 who would be retired for an attendance figure of fewer than 15 days per annum, I think we might have some consensus around that, with the necessary exemptions suggested by my noble friend Lord Hailsham.

Now, where this gets really interesting is if one combines an age cut-off and an attendance cut-off. The Excel spreadsheet gives some interesting figures. I will not waste time by running through the extremes: at one end, a retirement age of 90 and an attendance of just 1% would retire 89 Peers; at the other, retirement at 80 and a 20% attendance cut-off would retire 420 Peers, which I think would be a tad excessive. 

The more sensible criteria might be a retirement age of 85 and an attendance of 10%; that would retire 304 Peers by 2029. A retirement age of 85 and an attendance of 5% would retire 213 Peers. I suggest that that figure is on the edge of a possible solution, reducing our numbers to those who turn up, take part and are not perceived from outside as too old to do the job.

I have a couple of final points on attendance. I think that it has to be retrospective and based on attendance in the previous Parliament. That is highly contentious, but if we introduced, say, a 10% threshold for about 15 days in future, we would have some colleagues counting their attendance and rushing in to attend for a few days at the end of the year just to get over the threshold. We would also need some special appeal mechanism—a committee to which Peers could appeal if they felt that they were being wrongly excluded. I will say more about that when we debate Amendment 26. 

I appreciate that this is contentious and goes against the precedents we have had for centuries. But I come back to my starting point that retirement of those who turn up infrequently and say little is infinitely preferable to throwing out all hereditaries, over 70 of whom who turn up regularly and participate fully in the work of this House. 

Of course, if we were to go down this route in future, we would need complete and accurate figures for attendance in the Chamber, the Grand Committee and all our committees, as well as on Ministers and shadow Cabinet Ministers working away from the precincts of this building and those Peers on foreign delegations. 

In conclusion, I look forward to the unanimous support of my noble friends, and I beg to move.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I rise very briefly to speak to the four amendments in my name, Amendments 22 to 25. The first three would amend the lead amendment, Amendment 19, moved by my noble friend. For reasons that I shall come to shortly, I very strongly disagree with it.

First, I express some cautious agreement with my noble friend as regards future participation. My noble friend Lord Blencathra has urged the case for requiring a future minimum degree of engagement as a condition of membership of this House, and there is clearly a case for that. My own Amendment 25 suggests a participation record of 10%. However, I would be a bit cautious about setting too high a requirement; first, because occasional interventions from those who are not regular attenders can be very valuable, sometimes on esoteric subjects, although not exclusively so.

Moreover, and more generally, there is a danger that too demanding a requirement could encourage interventions for the purpose of meeting the criteria from those who are not currently great participators. We all know that speeches in major debates are time-limited, and very often the time available is very short. The question that arises is: do we want to make a more restrictive timetable? I think not, but that could well be a consequence of an increased participation requirement. As my noble friend touched on, there needs to be a degree of flexibility with regard to minimum requirements. Members may very well have good reasons for not participating: illness, leave of absence, overseas commitments, family problems and so forth. My suggestions in Amendments 22, 24 and 25 are designed to address these problems.

Where I actively and positively disagree with my noble friend is in his Amendment 19 and his related Amendments 20 and 21. Your Lordships will have noticed that those amendments relate to the 2019-24 Session. That is retrospective in character, and my noble friend is suggesting that if a Member fails to satisfy the stated participation level in the past Parliament, he must retire.

I am against retrospective requirements or sanctions. My noble friend’s proposal is just that. It imposes a penalty which is entirely retrospective in character, in respect of a failure to meet a requirement which did not exist at the relevant time. I regard that as a thoroughly objectionable proposition and I very much hope that this Committee will not go down that road.

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[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I fear I have been set a challenge by my Leader to try to get Andrew Lloyd Webber’s lyrics into my speech, but with very little notice, so no one is going to cry for me today.

Before I start, I wish the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, a very happy birthday. I am sure he could think of no better way to spend his birthday than to be in a debate with your Lordships.

Since I joined in 2022, one of my favourite parts of being a Member of your Lordships’ House is the fact that every week I learn something. The calibre of debate in your Lordships’ Chamber is exceptional. When I am asked about it by my friends—who do not necessarily follow our debates as much as they should, although I believe my mother now watches every one—I suggest that, at least once a month, I have the privilege of listening to my own version of a Reith lecture. That is the quality of the debate that we have in this House, from those who the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, highlighted as high impact, and from noble Lords across your Lordships’ House. It is a privilege to be part of it, and I welcomed very much that part of the debate.

I thank all noble Lords who have contributed. The debate on this topic has been valuable and insightful. I am aware that the next group of amendments looks at different ways of devising a framework for the changes that have been discussed, so I will try to keep my remarks brief and confined to the attendance requirements outlined.

From debates that we have had in the past, as well as the one we have had today, it is clear that there is broad agreement that Members should attend and participate in the core functions of this House. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, highlighted, that looks very different internally and externally when it comes to quality and the demands that we may make on each other.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for sharing his data with the Committee and the Government, particularly my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal. It has provided a structure for the conversations that we are having.

As noble Lords will be aware, there are existing measures to remove Peers who fail to attend the House once during a Session, and this Government have indicated their intention to go further in relation to requiring participation. Although this Bill is not the right vehicle to make such a change, this debate has been very helpful in examining the ways in which it might be achieved.

There is rightly a public expectation—and, having listened to the debate today, an expectation among your Lordships—about how Members should contribute. That is why we are developing a new participation requirement, a process which could include looking at the attendance of Peers. It is my hope that we can work together across your Lordships’ House to define what this new participation requirement should look like and how often Members should attend. There are genuine arguments about the quality of attendance and participation, as the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, highlighted. The range of amendments tabled on this topic and those in the next group, which considers other forms of participation, demonstrates that, although we are not at that point yet, we are focused on finding some agreement. As the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, stated in his opening remarks, not even he has a firm view.

The amendments that we are debating in this group all identify attendance as the metric through which to judge a Member’s contributions to this place. As we will see when we come to debate the group of amendments concerned with participation, attendance is not the only way in which contributions could be measured. Is a simple requirement to attend the House for a certain amount of time, as proposed in the amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra and Lord Lucas, the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, a reasonable measure of participation, or should we be more specific about the type of activities that need to be undertaken? I will refrain from pre-empting the later debate on this point, but this will be an important matter to consider when we look to clarify what is expected of Members of this House.

Before we consider the means by which we introduce a new participation requirement, I suggest that we should think not about the previous attendance records of the current membership, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has suggested in his amendments, but about a long-term solution that is fair to Members. A priority is to ensure clarity on what the right and expected level of participation is, whether it be attendance or some more specific contribution, and to ensure that this is adhered to in the future.

Briefly, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, for the series of amendments that he has tabled to further shape the proposals for an enhanced attendance requirement. He has made a number of sensible suggestions that should be considered when addressing the matter of participation, such as whether a Member is on an agreed leave of absence. Any work on this area will need to include reasonable exceptions, such as those identified by the noble Viscount. There is a question about the implementation of any enhanced attendance requirement: should the requirement be comprehensively set out in legislation, or should the detail be left to this House to decide and subsequently set out in our Standing Orders, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas?

I will briefly address the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, on the commencement of the Bill—Amendments 101E to 101G. I addressed these amendments during Monday’s debate. They would bring forward removal of the hereditary Peers to Royal Assent of this Bill, and make the noble Lord’s other amendments subject to a further resolution of the House, potentially delaying the measures indefinitely should both amendments be successful. The Government cannot support this change to the commencement of the Bill. The arrangements currently set out seek to balance the timely delivery of a manifesto commitment that promised an immediate reform, while not undermining the business of the House. As I have previously noted, they follow the approach set in the 1999 Act.

It is clear that the Committee wants to discuss this issue, and we welcome the suggestions that have been brought forward as part of that. There is positive momentum behind ensuring that there are clear expectations of Members, but this Bill is not the right vehicle to introduce this change. I therefore respectfully request that noble Lords do not press their amendments.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to every noble Lord who has taken part in this debate. Again, as with retirement ages on Monday, we might be seeing some consensus on the proposals from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, supported by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. I will very briefly rocket through the comments of some of those who have spoken.

I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Hailsham on retrospectivity. Others made that point as well and I think it would be possibly better. Well, the House would never approve that in any case—any changes would be for the future. He also made the point that there is a danger that a threshold would cause Peers to come in to speak just to get past the threshold.

The noble Earl, Lord Devon, with his idea of 10% of sitting days in the future, may be on to a winner. Of course, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, again supported that. It was a very good point about the Writ of Summons. It is not something that occurred to me—that the Writ of Summons would suggest that we should attend more frequently than some noble Lords do. I think my noble friend Lord Dundee also said no retrospectivity, and he also supported the 10% agreement in future.

My noble friend Lord Astor said there is a danger that it would encourage people just to turn up. And what about those brilliant young men and women, the executives, who could not afford to do 15 days per annum? I say to my noble friend that a threshold of 15 days per annum is not too high for brilliant whizz-kid young executives. If they boast about doing 18 hours a day in the City, I am sure they could manage to turn up here for 15 days per annum.

Oh—I am sorry. I should say, first and most importantly, a happy birthday to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, was highly supportive of a minimum threshold level, but I suspect that his strong support from the Lib Dems will not enamour him to my noble friends behind and around me. Nevertheless, he did say that we would need future legislation on this. I say to the noble Lord and other noble Lords: look at my Amendment 32, coming up later, because there I see that, in order to avoid future legislation, we can take a special delegated power, a regulation, to make any amendments the House decides in future without further Acts.

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde also said no retrospectivity, and I think he supported 10% as well. My noble friend Lord Trenchard suggested about 15%, so long as the House does not change its sitting hours, and that is a valid point. My noble friend Lord Hannan made a brilliant speech as usual—tremendous rhetoric—and I agree entirely with him. Having 850 Peers on the books is not a real problem, and it is not a problem if only 450 turn up regularly and the others do not come. They are not claiming any money and there is no cost to the system. But the reason we are here, I say again, is that the Government say it is a problem. The Government say there are far too many Peers. The Government want rid of Peers and their solution is to get rid of 88 hereditaries, 70 of whom do turn up. I suggest it is better, if we want to reduce the numbers, to do it through the measure I propose here.

My noble friend Lord Dobbs supports the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and says that the Government should reach out across the House to try to reach agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Sentamu, criticised having these amendments to the Bill—but, as I said at the start, it is perfectly legitimate to amend any Bill. The Government have drafted it very narrowly. They do not have to draft it narrowly; it is legitimate to amend it.

My noble friend Lord Bellingham again supported the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. He liked the idea of excluding those who do not turn up for six months at a time, following the Local Government Bill. It is an idea to be explored. My noble friend Lord Bethell said that parliamentarians need to appreciate—he thanked me kindly for raising this concept—that it is right that Peers do turn up.

My noble friend Lady Lawlor said that the Government should seek consensus across the House. I am grateful that my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay said he found the Excel spreadsheets useful. He made a brilliant and witty speech. But I am not quite sure what percentage he would recommend to the House. If I missed that, I am sure I will be corrected later on. He played a very careful sitting-on-the-fence game, which is an important political skill.

As for the Minister, I like her generally warm welcome for the concept of a threshold, and I think she was being very honest and sensible in saying that. Of course, she says it is not for this Bill. Again, I refer her and noble Lords to my Amendment 32, which may solve that problem.

So I am pleased to have tabled these amendments and I take credit for two things. I think my amendments have provoked and prompted better amendments from some other noble Peers, and of course the Excel spreadsheets have given us all something of substance to talk and argue about. Without those spreadsheets, we would be talking in vague generalities.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Blencathra]

26: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“House of Lords participation requirement(1) Standing Orders may make provision for a member to cease to be a member of the House of Lords if they have not met a reasonable level of participation based on requirements other than attendance.(2) A peer who does not meet the level of participation required may be notified and given six months to do so before the provision set out in subsection (1) takes effect.(3) For the purposes of subsection (1), “participation” includes—(a) speaking in the Chamber and Grand Committee;(b) serving on committees of the House;(c) asking oral questions;(d) tabling written questions;(e) participating as an official delegate in international organisations;(f) any other activity which the Committee considers to be participation in the work of the House.(4) The House of Lords may appoint a committee to consider and approve revisions to the Standing Orders to give effect to subsection (1).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is intended to ensure that members who attend but then say or do little or nothing are removed from the House.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, if one thought that my last amendment was slightly controversial, it is nothing in comparison to this one. I and the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, can again say to the Leader of the House, “Neither of us is from the Government but, again, we are here to help you”. We will help to implement the Labour Party manifesto that

“we will introduce a new participation requirement”.

Part of what I propose here is simple and straightforward, but another part would be difficult and highly contentious.

The first question is: why is this necessary? We all know that there is a tiny number of Peers who, shall we say, clock in and then disappear without any participation. Even if it is only one Member or up to 10, that brings the House into disrepute. There is more than enough abuse in the media about hard-working Peers getting the £361 per day tax-free allowance, so we must root out the small number who turn up and do nothing.

The easy bit is collecting the statistics, as per the list in the amendment’s proposed new subsection (3). Thus we know exactly who has spoken in the Chamber or in Grand Committee and how often. As the Library said, statistics are also being collected for our Select Committees. We know who has asked Oral and Written Questions, and how many. We may not record those who attend and work in other committees at the moment, as they do not count for attendance. That work is also vital to the functioning of this House. It can be very time consuming, but we can easily collect the names and statistics there also.

We know who serves on international delegations such as the Council of Europe, NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and that is 23 Peers in this House. As an aside, if noble Lords will permit me, the half-allowance that we get for that work is nonsensical. The hours and threats that the noble Lords, Lord Dodds and Lord Lancaster, and I faced when we observed the elections in Georgia last November were far longer and tougher than anything we do in this place. I can also say, with all certainty, that those of us who serve in those three organisations are going to some very long and hard days in our next few meetings as we wrestle with the new security threats in Europe. All our meetings start at 08:30 and end at 20:00 and we get £15 per hour for our attendance.

That was a personal aside—now, back to my amendment. My concluding item is to include any other work that a committee would consider to be participation in the work of the House. The only area in which I differ from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, is that I would not let any Secretary of State get his or her fingers on this. We can set this up ourselves without government help, and either call on the Procedure Committee to do it or create a new committee specifically to decide on the metrics for adequate participation. A new committee would probably be best—one that would keep this under constant review and act as an appeal body for those Peers who objected to retirement on the grounds of attendance below any threshold, and participation below any new threshold also.

That is where the contentious parts will be. It is easy to collect the statistics, but how will we decide what minimum level of participation should entitle one to continued membership of this House? This is where I am looking forward to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, particularly on his proposed new subsection (3) on a minimum participation level and the metrics to set it. Neither of us can say today what that should be, but I can pose some of the questions that the committee would have to adjudicate on.

If a Peer did nothing save put down a few Written Questions, would that suffice? If so, how many? Would one speech per annum in the Chamber or two in the Grand Committee qualify? Would we treat participation in all committees as equal, or would we say that some were more important than others and one would have to attend two or three lesser committees to equal one attendance at a more important one, however one defined “important”?

Then there is the vexed question of effectiveness. As soon as I was elected in Penrith and The Border to succeed the great Willie Whitelaw, he said: “David, you must distinguish between activity and achievement. Many MPs run around being active but achieve very little”. Suppose that we have a Peer who has asked only one Written Question in the whole year, but it revealed some terrible scandal or made the Government change policy; or a Peer who came high up in the Private Members’ Bill ballot and his or her Bill became law and changed the lives of thousands—for the better, one hopes and assumes.

I appreciate that, the more I talk about the difficulties of a minimum participation level, the more your Lordships will conclude that it is too difficult and we should leave well alone. But that is not our normal modus operandi in this House. The Lords tackles issues which Governments and departments shy away from. Just look at our Select Committee reports. I cannot believe that a committee of all sides of this House will be unable to draw up the metrics which the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, proposes. If it says after serious deliberation that it cannot be done, that is the end of the matter. If the great and the good of this House cannot find a solution to set a minimum participation level, no one can. Of course, we need to incorporate the exceptions proposed by my noble friend Lord Hailsham. I also look forward to my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay naming names, if he has anyone in mind.

I conclude as I began. We have a very small number of Peers failing to participate at all, or participating very infrequently, and that is bringing the House into disrepute. Fixing it is not beyond the capabilities of noble Lords. I beg to move.

Amendment 27 (to Amendment 26)

Moved by

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[The Attorney-General (Lord Hermer) (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords for their amendments and for the thoughtful and good-faith contributions that have marked this debate. The amendments in this group share a great deal of commonality with those in the last group: all of them, in their essence, seek to expand the purpose of the Bill to introduce a participation requirement, attendance being just one aspect of participation.

This debate demonstrates that there is a very considerable measure of agreement that there should be an obligation on Members of your Lordships’ House to participate in our proceedings; that we should arrive at settled metrics to assess the adequacy of participation; and that, absent very good and legitimate reason, a failure to meet the recognised standards should be deemed incompatible with continued membership of the House. There, however, the considerable agreement, if not consensus, ends.

As the amendments and the debate have demonstrated, there is as yet no measure of agreement on what the requisite participation levels—the metrics—should be. As all noble Lords know, participation in this House can take many different forms, but specifying which metrics should be applied to requisite participation is a complicated and nuanced matter. Participation, and specifying responsibilities so as to capture genuine and active work in the House in a way that can be measured in practice, will require further discussion and thought.

For instance, is a simple requirement to attend the House for a certain amount of time, as suggested in the amendments that we considered in the previous group, a reasonable measure of participation, or should we be more specific about the types of activity that need to be undertaken, as suggested in the amendments that we are now considering? If more specificity is desired, is it spoken contributions that should count, or votes in Divisions? Likewise, tabling amendments is a fundamental part of the work of this House, as is the valuable contribution made through Select Committees. Whether any one vote counts as participation, or a single Written Question should have the same weight as an afternoon chairing a Select Committee, are all nuanced questions and issues that will need to be considered.

On top of the identification of the metrics, there is an additional important question about how we implement those metrics. Should the requirements be set out comprehensively in legislation, or should the details be left to this House to decide and set out in Standing Orders, as suggested by the amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra and Lord Lucas. This throws up numerous problems. On the previous group, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, touched on why legislation might be thought on the one hand to be preferable vehicle for the certainty and solidity that it gives, but may create all sorts of unintended consequences that the noble Lord set out.

In the Government’s view, these questions serve to underline the utility in our intent for the current Bill to remain focused on the single issue of hereditary peerages, leaving the important—I stress “important”—issue of participation levels to be the subject of further consultation and discussion with all your Lordships, not least to see whether a general consensus can be found. It is the Government’s hope that we can work together across this House to define what this new participation requirement would look like. As I have said, although we are grateful for this discussion and for your Lordships’ focus on this issue in this group of amendments, the very range of the amendments and scope of the debate that we have had demonstrate that we are not at a point where consensus has been reached and that further work and discussion are required.

Turning to the particular amendments, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, for his amendment, which seeks to impose a maximum participation threshold. In listening to the noble Lord’s contribution, I assume that the amendment seeks to ensure that minimum participation levels do not have an adverse impact on the operation of this House or incentivise participation for participation’s sake. The Government agree that care will need to be taken when we come to discuss what participation levels look like. It is one factor that will go into the pot as we try to calibrate what requisite participation will look like through discussion—or, indeed, potentially through the algorithm suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Desai.

The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, seeks to impose an obligation on the Government to establish the cross-party Lords commission which, within six months, would set out recommendations requiring the Government, within a further six months, to adopt those recommendations in a draft Bill. I thank the noble Lord for his engagement on this matter, the thought that he has given to it and the spirit in which it is adopted. In his speech, he said that the purpose of his amendment was to get the Government to show a little ankle as to where we were. I am anticipating that that was metaphorical, not literal and I hope that I can reassure him and this House that the Government are committed, once this Bill has passed, to moving forward, hopefully through consensus, to push to the next level of reform, at which participation will be key.

However, I hope the noble Lord will also understand that we cannot support his amendment, even as we work together collegiately on that issue, for two reasons. First, the Government do not believe that it is necessary or helpful to prescribe on a statutory basis the mechanism by which a proposal for participation requirement is identified. Secondly, the final aspect of the amendment would oblige the Government to publish a draft Bill implementing the recommendations of the commission. We fully intend to work with your Lordships across the House and are committed to finding solutions that have the support of this House, but binding the Government to the recommendations of a commission that is not yet established is not an appropriate way to proceed.

Amendment 26, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, seeks to create the participation requirement that is now based on metrics other than attendance and allow for removal of Members who have not met a reasonable level of participation. The amendment seeks to appoint a committee to approve the relevant standing changes. I thank the noble Lord for his amendment. As I said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, the Government are committed to working collaboratively on the issue. I also thank the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, for the series of amendments that he has tabled to further shape the proposals for the participation requirement. He has made a number of very sensible suggestions that must form part of any further discussions on participation. They will need to take account of the sensible points raised by the noble Lord.

These are all significant and nuanced questions across the range of amendments, to which thought will need to be given carefully and collaboratively. The Government will welcome that discussion. As many noble Lords will know, my noble friend the Leader of the House has already engaged in over 60 discussions with your Lordships, trying to fashion and develop how we move forward after this Bill. Channelling the spirit of the debate, I respectfully request that noble Lords do not press their amendments.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, once again we have had a fascinating debate. The Government may not have wished us to discuss this and to take an hour to do so, but noble Lords on all sides of the House have welcomed the chance to raise this important point. As I said at the beginning, like it or not, a tiny number of Peers come into this place for only a few minutes each day—then they disappear. That is quite a different matter from those who come here and participate at some level in discussion, including on a committee.

I do like Amendment 63, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell. He made the point that, if we do not tackle this now, we never will. Both our amendments call for this special committee to be set up, which will come up with metrics and decide on a level of participation. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde was right to say that this is an important constitutional matter and that it is right to discuss it now.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

The Opposition side!

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

—we would never dream of kicking her out of this place. She was absolutely right to say that all hereditary Peers should be given a life peerage. That would kill this nonsense stone dead.

My noble friend Lord Lucas has proposed an excellent amendment. As he said, we are all engaged here in trying to improve the effectiveness of the House. Asking new Peers to make a commitment for the future has merit, but we still have the genuine problem of the handful of Peers who come here, clock in and do nothing. I say again to my noble friend Lord Swire that I am not suggesting measuring the quality of speeches. If Peers are making speeches, then they are participating in the work of the House. The quality of their speeches is not something to be measured by this committee. My noble friend Lord Trenchard also supports participation level, but I would say to him that legislation is not necessary if we accept Amendment 32 when we come to it later.

As I am leading on all six groups of amendments today, I fear I have fallen foul of my noble friend Lord Parkinson’s exhortation not to speak too much. He quoted an incident that occurred years ago in the Commons, when I was a junior Whip and the marvellous Harold Walker was Speaker in the Chair. We were in government, and we had an agreement with the Opposition on a two-minute time limit for speeches on Commons consideration of Lords amendments. We were rocketing through our consideration of Lords amendments to yet another criminal justice Bill. We were getting on fine until our friend Sir Ivan Lawrence QC —I am not naming names, this is in Hansard—got up and said, “Everything that could possibly have been said on this Bill has been said, but not by those of us qualified to do so”. He spoke for 20 minutes, and the Labour Chief Whip said, “That’s it—the deal’s off!” We spent another two hours in Committee.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, whom I congratulate on his birthday, showed support for the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, and a minimum level of participation. He also criticised those who, as he said, turn up for 20 minutes and then leave. I think those were my exact words, too, and we did not collaborate on that.

My noble friend Lord True, speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, said that it is legitimate to discuss these issues, which were in the manifesto. He said that there is a widespread view in the House that we have to do something about the problem of those who do not participate. Peers contribute in myriad ways. The committee that the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, and I are suggesting setting up would take those myriad ways into account before establishing a minimum.

The noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General said that agreement on doing something, having a metric and removing those who fall short of that level is important and that we should do something about it, but we are not setting it up here. All we are asking for is a committee to decide on the detail. The noble and learned Lord was justifying not doing anything because, he said, there were too many nuances. Of course there are nuances, dozens of them—there are hundreds of things to be taken into account—and that is the purpose of the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell. If we pass his amendment and set up the committee, it will do the consultation on all sides and spend a year or two figuring out the details.

I say to the noble and learned Lord that he reminded me of that wonderful “Yes Minister” attitude, where Sir Humphrey says, “Yes, Minister, that is a very good idea. We will set up an interdepartmental working group and consult the Cabinet committees and this, that and the other. Then we will publish a Green Paper first and then a White Paper. I am sure that we will be able to deliver on your promise—eventually”.

In conclusion, there is a mood in the House to take this participation problem seriously. Most noble Lords favour the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell. He stressed that some noble Lords were fussing about the details. He suggests that could be done by the committee.

Amendment 27 (to Amendment 26) withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Blencathra]

29: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Removal of peers with a criminal convictionAny peer convicted of a criminal offence on indictment ceases to be a member of the House of Lords within seven days of the conviction, or the loss of appeal if the peer appeals the conviction.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment intends to ensure that peers who have committed a serious offence are removed from the House, using an indictable offence to provide a clear threshold.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure noble Lords will be relieved to hear that my speech will be much shorter on this occasion. I leave it to my noble and learned friends and other noble Lords to suggest improvements to my amendment.

Again, my starting point is the Labour Party manifesto. It said:

“Labour will ensure all Peers meet the high standards that the public expect of them, and we will introduce a new participation requirement as well as strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced members can be removed”.


The term “disgraced” is a bit vague. If we get into the business of removing Peers who have disgraced themselves, there will be quite a few, depending on how we judge the subjective word “disgraced”. It is safer to stick with those who have brought the House into disrepute and have committed a crime which has resulted in a prison sentence. My suggestion is that the prison sentence which triggers expulsion should be reduced from 12 months to six. My noble friend Lord Hailsham is right that his amendment would rectify my sloppy and imprecise legal wording. I hope noble Lords will agree that, however it is properly and legally phrased, the term should be reduced to six months from 12.

There are a number of related issues that the Committee needs to tackle. Suppose a Peer is convicted of drunk-driving and gets a three-month prison sentence and a 12-month driving ban—any drunk driver is a potential killer—should we not suspend him or her from the House for the same period as the driving ban, for example? We have a problem—some Peers, two I believe, who have served time in prison are still here because we did not have the expulsion power when they were convicted. Another defrauded the House of over £120,000 —the largest ever expenses scandal—but was never charged with a crime. We need to use the legislative power to retrospectively deal with those disgraced Peers.

No matter how heinous the crime might be, right up to the level you get when applying for a visa for the United States—“Have you ever waged thermonuclear war against the United States?”—if a Peer was instantly expelled and could never enter the House again, their title, Lord, still remains. In those rare cases, I suggest the title must be removed.

A peerage can be removed only by an Act of Parliament. The most recent Act that did that was the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, which I am sure is on the tip of your Lordships’ tongues. It was used to remove peerages from enemies of the UK during the First World War. Specifically, Section 1 introduced powers to remove a peerage from anyone who had

“during the present war, borne arms against His Majesty or His Allies, or who have adhered to His Majesty’s enemies”.

The Act meant that any Peers suspected of assisting the enemy could be investigated by a committee of the Privy Council, which would then lay a report to both Houses of Parliament for 40 days. If this period elapsed without either House tabling a Motion disapproving the report, the report would be taken as final and presented to the monarch. The Peer would then be struck off the peerage roll and would have all rights to receive a Writ of Summons and sit in the House of Lords removed. The Act took away four titles. Three of them—the Dukes of Cumberland, Albany and Brunswick —were high-ranking German noblemen and their peerages came from Victoria. The fourth, Viscount Taaffe, an Irish title, was serving in the Austrian army.

It would be a simple matter to have a new Act of Parliament replicating that, called the “Titles Deprivation Act”, for serious criminal offences, implementing exactly the same procedure of a committee of Privy Counsellors of both Houses deciding whether or not a title should be removed because of the severity of the crime committed by the Peer. Of course these issues are not in the Bill, and I am not asking that they should be, but I cannot think of any other opportunity I would have, this year or in the next few years, to raise that little issue, which I believe should be addressed by Parliament in the future to remove disgraced Peers. I beg to move.

Amendment 30 (to Amendment 29)

Moved by

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[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a short but interesting and thoughtful debate on the amendments trying to probe these issues. The comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, on how the House can deal with this matter were very helpful.

Currently, as the noble and learned Lord said, under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, a Member of this House automatically ceases to be a Member if they are convicted of a serious offence—that is, if they are given a non-suspended prison sentence of more than a year. We have already heard about the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015; the Standing Orders of this House and the Code of Conduct deal with that very clearly. If a Member receives a prison sentence—of any length and regardless of what the sentence is—that is deemed to be a breach of the code.

There has been a general view across the House about having some strengthening of their roles but, as the noble and learned Lord has said, a number of factors have to be considered in the round. For example, would it be right automatically to expel a Member if the Crown Court considers that the offence is not sufficiently serious to warrant a custodial sentence? Are there particular offences that the House may consider should be treated more seriously, or as being incompatible with membership of your Lordships’ House and warrant automatic expulsion?

Noble Lords also raised the question of somebody being prosecuted overseas. As well as what we might determine malicious or political prosecutions, somebody could be prosecuted overseas for something that is not an offence in this country. Further debate is needed on how we can strengthen the rules. Another factor that I will take into account is the rules across both Houses. It was interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, set the threshold in his amendment lower than the recall conditions for Members of Parliament, but the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, set it higher. Some consistency across Parliament would be helpful.

The noble Lord also raised a very interesting point about the removal of peerage. I am sure I am not the only noble Lord to have heard this point—the noble Lord, Lord True, may have had similar correspondence: if somebody has been stripped of another honour, why do they remain a Peer? In fact, that has nothing to do with the membership of the House of Lords. Someone can retain a peerage. That is not a matter for this House, but I think that those comments should be taken on board as well.

That indicates that we would be willing and happy to maintain an ongoing dialogue on this particular matter—

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

The manifesto mentioned “disgraced” Peers. I know that the noble Baroness may be consulting on this, but can she indicate what she means by “disgraced” Peers? Is it only those who have committed serious criminal offences?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

It is hard to look at this without looking at criminal offences, but if noble Lords have other examples they would wish us to consider, we would be happy to do so. Ultimately, these are matters for the Code of Conduct and further dialogue, so I respectfully request that noble Lords do not press their amendments.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, we have spent 15 minutes on this, so I hope we will not be accused of filibustering in this small but rather important debate. I take on board the complexities that my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie and the Minister have described. Nevertheless, it has been a worthwhile debate.

There has been a surprising amount of consensus over the deprivation of titles. If one can take away a knighthood, it should be possible, in very controlled circumstances, to take away the title of Peer. It is a matter for this House in conjunction with the Commons, because the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 said that a Joint Committee of privy counsellors from both Houses should look at peerages and decide who had aided the enemy. If we had removal for serious offences, however we determine “serious”, again, it would be determined by a committee of privy counsellors from both Houses. And it would not be automatic; we would not be looking back at someone like Lord Montague and automatically doing it. The committee would determine whether the seriousness of the offence, whether in the last few years or further back, was worth taking forward. It would not be an automatic removal of title.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 31 (to Amendment 29) not moved.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 29 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Lord Blencathra]

32: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Legislating for changes to the composition of the House of Lords(1) Where a resolution of the House of Lords establishes or changes—(a) the age at which peers must retire,(b) a minimum attendance requirement,(c) a participation requirement, or(d) a type of criminal conviction which results in expulsion from the House,a relevant Minister must, within 12 months, take the action set out in subsection (2).(2) Where a resolution is passed by the House of Lords in accordance with subsection (1) (a “relevant resolution”), a relevant Minister must, by regulations made by statutory instrument, amend this Act in order to translate the relevant resolution into statute.(3) The regulations must use the wording of the relevant resolution, without any alteration.(4) The relevant Ministers are the Leader of the House of Lords and the Leader of the House of Commons, by whatever titles they are then known.(5) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to establish changes regarding the composition of the House in law, while allowing the House flexibility to change them.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I consider this amendment quite important and a solution to many of the problems that have been posed by noble Lords on Monday and today; that is, that we may want to change things in the future, but we need to wait for an Act of Parliament to do it—an Act which may never materialise.

Let us suppose for a moment—and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility—that we make an amendment to this Bill which succeeds, so that the Act of Parliament may contain provisions that set out a retirement age, a minimum participation requirement or an attendance requirement, or sets up the committee that the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, described in his amendment. After 12 months or two years or longer, when that committee reports, if this House decided that we needed to tweak it and that the retirement age or attendance criteria were not right, we would need primary legislation to change it.

The justification for my Amendment 32 was in fact made, I believe, by noble Lords on Monday night. Noble Lords may recall the debate we had on retirement ages and the amendment on transitional arrangements proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Devon. It was supported by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who said that it

“proposes a simple set of transitional arrangements with two legs that would reduce that organisational shock enormously and allow the House to transition to an age limit of 80 without pain or any loss of our capability and effectiveness … The second leg would give everyone who comes in a minimum of 10 years”.—[Official Report, 10/3/25; cols. 560-61.]

The noble Lord, Lord Burns, said

“if we are going to have an age limit, we do not have to choose between 80, 85 or 90 for ever. We could begin with an age limit of 85 and then, for the following Parliament, have an age limit of 80: we would get two bites at the process of bringing down the numbers. I support what my noble friend Lord Kinnoull says. I think the transition arrangements for this are just as important as they have been in the whole debate about hereditary Peers”.—[Official Report, 10/3/25; col. 563.]

Winding up that debate, my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie had a similar argument—to bring the age down to 85 by the end of this Parliament and to 80 by the end of the next Parliament.

What those four speeches have in common is that, at some future point, a further Act of Parliament would be required on House of Lords reform. It is highly unlikely that we will get any new legislation on changes to the House of Lords, even little ones, and it would probably be outside the scope of even the usual Home Office “Christmas tree” Bill—a criminal justice Bill. The Government have had their fingers burnt with this Bill and will not want a rerun of it, even if they worked out ideas on improving

“national and regional balance of the second chamber”,

as they said in their manifesto. Thus, my solution is to have a special regulation-making power in the Act to enable any of the suggestions on retirement ages, term limits or anything else.

As your Lordships will know, all Governments over the last 40 years have ruthlessly extended the delegated powers in Bills to include more inappropriate delegations. I submit that no Government can be trusted with an open-ended regulatory power to change the four Lords rules that I have suggested in my amendment. I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said about delegated powers: that, in the past few years, they have expanded dramatically, which is not acceptable. The report from our Delegated Powers Committee, when I chaired it, suggested that every Government over the last 40 years had increased their delegated powers.

Therefore, we need a tightly constrained delegated power that the Government could not change or delay. That is why I state in my amendment that the regulation must copy verbatim the wording of the resolution of the House of Lords, and it must be made within 12 months of our House passing such a Motion. We would need to look at it first, just to ensure that there was no accidental wrong wording in the government regulations.

The Committee may think that I am being a bit cynical, but after four years as chairman of the Delegated Powers Committee, I can show noble Lords real cynicism in some of the appalling delegated powers that government departments have inserted into Bills. We revealed that in our report, Democracy Denied? The Urgent Need to Rebalance Power between Parliament and the Executive, and I can slip noble Lords a few copies at very little cost.

Let us build in now the power to make changes in the future. It would not commit us to making any of those changes, but it would ensure that, if this House of Lords decided on a retirement age or term limits or participation—or to implement anything that the committee described by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, agreed on—we would not have to wait many years for a new Act of Parliament and for the Government to find time in their legislative programme. Looking at the myriad problems that always affect the country every month and year, I cannot see any Government in the next two or three years finding time for another Bill on House of Lords changes. The regulation-making power that I suggest should be tightly drawn, unlike a Bill, which would be fair game for another 116 amendments as per this Bill.

Before concluding, I must say that I was impressed by the transitional arrangements propositions. If those four noble Lords—the noble Earls, Lord Devon and Lord Kinnoull, the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie—can agree some consensus amendment for Report, I will happily not push ahead with the more blunt instrument of retirement at the ages of 80, 85 or 90. In the meantime, I commend my Amendment 32 to the Committee and beg to move.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for moving his amendment. However, I am not convinced that it is a very good idea, not least because it would alter the constitution and enable this House to exclude Members of another place from coming here at some point, without affording them the opportunity to say no or to express their concerns.

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[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

In our Standing Orders we are already able to exclude Peers for non-attendance. That right exists at the moment. The discussion we have had is about whether it is at the right level, but we could do that through our own Standing Orders.

I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is right in the first point he made, because the amendment says:

“Where a resolution is passed by the House of Lords in accordance with subsection (1) … a relevant Minister must, by regulations made by statutory instrument, amend this Act”.


So there are instructions for the Minister to amend the Act—there would have to be a vote, I am sure, but it is an instruction.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for making that clear. It would be an instruction for the Minister to lay it as a statutory instrument but, of course, there would be a vote on it in the House of Commons at any rate.

My noble friend Lord Northbrook asked about the mechanics of the resolution. We write Standing Orders and they are perfect, so we would draft a new Standing Order on whatever it may be; the resolution of the House would then ask for that Standing Order to be a statutory instrument, which the Government would implement.

My noble friend Lady Finn was worried that we would impose on the Government the wording of this statutory instrument but get it wrong. If I may say so, there is a better chance that the House of Lords will get the wording of a statutory instrument right than any government lawyers; that has been my experience in the past. I welcome my noble friend Lord Lucas’s support.

I am sorry to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Newby, but I believe that we are capable of drafting sufficient regulations on some of the issues in my amendment and that we do not need an Act of Parliament. I regret that I put the criminal convictions in—that was a step too far—but, hypothetically, surely we should have the power to do as I have suggested as far as the retirement age and a participation rate are concerned. Those things do not need massive outside consultation or an Act of Parliament. As the House of Lords, it should be within our power, if the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, comes up with metrics on participation—or if the suggestions from the noble Earls, Lord Devon and Lord Kinnoull, on retirement ages and transitional rules come up—to say, “These are the rules that we want”. In the current circumstances, we would say that to the Government. If the Leader of the House, on whatever side, said, “Jolly good idea”, he or she would then go to the Government and say, “This is what the House of Lords wants to change. Can we please have an Act of Parliament sometime to make these amendments to our rules?”.

I am suggesting that we would not need to go through that palaver if we built in a tightly constrained regulatory power. It may have to be tweaked—I am not suggesting that my wording here is perfect; clearly, it is not—but, if we gave ourselves the power to change our rules on retirement ages and participation rates, say, and that regulation power could go to the Government, as I suggest, the Government could then put it in an SI the way we have worded it. The House of Commons could then vote on it. I suggest that this would be a simple solution but, as I think I am the only one here with an amendment, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 32 withdrawn.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Blencathra]

11A: After subsection (3) insert—
“(3A) The consultation paper under subsection (3) must assess the implications of securing a democratic mandate for the House of Lords for its powers and conventions, which may include—(a) the powers of the Lords in relation to money bills;(b) the powers of the Lords in relation to statutory instruments;(c) the Salisbury Convention;(d) the Prime Minister being drawn from the House of Commons;(e) the limitations in the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 on the powers of the House of Lords;(f) the role of the Lord Speaker and their relationship with the Speaker in the House of Commons.”

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 11A and 11B would amend the Lib Dem Amendment 11 to say that we should first consult on the role of the Lords, if it were elected, and have a referendum to see whether the public actually wanted an elected Lords.

Let me reassure my noble friends that I am completely opposed to having a consultation paper on this, and to having a referendum. My amendments are a response to the usual deliberate attempts to advance the case for an elected House without first working out how the whole balance of powers between the Lords and the Commons would change if this House were composed of elected Members.

My Amendment 11A seeks to deliver what the Government Chief Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said to the House magazine on 13 July 2021. He said:

“We have to be very clear, what are the powers of the Lords, what do you want the Lords to actually do, and why is it there? Answer those issues, and then we can decide”.


Those were very wise words from the noble Lord. Even the commission chaired by my noble friend Lord Wakeham avoided this by suggesting just 150 elected Peers, so that their membership was so small in comparison to appointed Peers or hereditaries that the supremacy of the Commons would not be challenged.

Then we had the ludicrous Gordon Brown proposals suggesting an assembly of just 200 elected Members from the regions, with our current powers reduced and the Lords just a regional talking shop. I can do no better than quote the words of our new noble ambassador to Washington, who described the Brown proposals as

“a sort of multi-layered cake with an assortment of very diverse ingredients in it with a thin layer of icing at the top, which is called a new second chamber of the regions and nations, which has barely been put in the oven yet, let alone fully baked”.

Thank you, Mandy. So it is raw, not even half-baked—but that is Lib Dem policy for you.

There was one report which suggested 450 elected Members, but most suggest just 300 elected Lords senators. Thus, we would have an elected Lords with about half the number of Lords senators as MPs. Before looking at the new roles of the two elected Chambers, we need to consider who those new senators would be. First, they will all be party-political people—Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem, SNP, Northern Ireland Members—exactly the same as the House of Commons. Just look round this Chamber and see how many here would be selected as candidates. Will the Cross-Benchers form a party? Possibly, but highly unlikely, so we would lose all that expertise. What about the older hands here, those who have had 30 or 40 years’ experience in their various professions, business or industry? Will they apply or be selected as political candidates? Even we older politicians, who have the scars and experience of doing things in government in the past—we will be out too.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes) (Con)]

To the best of my knowledge, we are presently debating Amendment 11A, an amendment to Amendment 11.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I did not intend to respond at length, or indeed to respond at all to the debate. It has been a thorough debate—two hours and 10 minutes.

I raised the point about the problems we would have in this House if we concentrated only on form, rather than on function. That point has been eloquently made by all sides. I have no intention of summarising the debate any further. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 11A (to Amendment 11) withdrawn.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soames of Fletching (Con)]

My Lords, in moving the amendment in my name, may I say first, without sounding too much like Lord Copper, what a great privilege it is to take part in this debate, and to have listened in particular to two magnificent speeches from my noble friends Lord True and Lord Forsyth? These matters are not just events and things to be trifled with; they matter. As my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said, English legislation in particular is bedevilled with the law of unintended consequences, so these things matter.

I do not want to detain the House unduly and I have no doubt that other noble Lords will wish to say a few words. I wanted to put down this amendment just to urge the House to recognise the extraordinary service that has been given. I absolutely accept what the Leader of the House said about not differentiating between life Peers and hereditary Peer, which both make a very important contribution to the House. But if you look at the Opposition Front Bench today, of the 33 Peers currently serving on it nine, or 27%, are hereditary Peers. Of the 24 Deputy Speakers currently serving, there are the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, the noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Geddes; many more have served as Deputy Speakers in the past. I suggest that that is a staunch reminder of what a significant contribution the hereditary Peers make to this House.

There has been a lot of talk about hereditaries and life Peers. I am still not sure how I got here—which list I was on—because I was fired by the Prime Minister who I thought had promoted me to this House. Whatever it was, I very fortunately made my way here and was lucky to do so, but I recognise the extraordinary role that the hereditaries play, considering their numbers.

I do not wish to sound controversial but while this is a constitutional Bill, obviously of the first importance, it is also a mean Bill. That meanness can be unleavened by my amendment, which will particularly cover the question that the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth and Lord True, asked about honour and justice. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said at the beginning of this debate that the world is falling about our ears, and here we are debating reform of the House of Lords. But a sense of certainty and tradition is now more important than ever, and that is represented in this House in a very meaningful and formidable way by the hereditary Peers. I beg to move.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Soames and agree with everything he said, particularly his praise for the two excellent speeches we had at the beginning.

We are removing the 88 hereditaries, but in the first 234 days of the Government’s existence the Prime Minister has created 45 life Peers, which creates a record, and in this Bill, we are removing some of the hardest-working Members in the House. Hereditaries have a better attendance record than we life Peers, they have a better turnout record at Divisions and they participate fully in all aspects of the work of the House. My noble friend talked in general terms about the contribution they make. I think it is time, if the House will permit me, just to briefly name names. Who would we be chucking out?

According to my noble friend’s amendment—I am grateful to the Library for producing this for me at rather short notice—we will be chucking out: my noble friends Lord Ashton of Hyde, Lord Bethell and Lord Camrose, who were also Ministers; the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, a Deputy Speaker; my noble friend Lord De Mauley, a committee chair and a former Minister; my noble friend Lord Courtown, a Deputy Chief Whip since 2016; the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, a Deputy Speaker, Convenor of the Cross Benches and a committee chair; my noble friend Lord Minto, a former Minister; my noble friend Lord Geddes, a Deputy Speaker; my noble friend Lord Harlech, currently a Whip; my noble friend Lord Henley, a committee chair, former Chief Whip and former Minister; and my noble friend Lord Howe, who is currently deputy shadow Leader, and who has been continuously on the Front Bench since 1991.

I do not know whether noble Peers remember the great Raymond Baxter, who was the best-ever commentator at the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance. He used to introduce the Chelsea pensioners during it; I can imagine that if my noble friend Lord Howe were there, he would have said, “And now we have the great Earl Howe, known to his mates as ‘Freddie’ and 34 years with the colours”.

Of course, there is also the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, a committee chair and former Minister; my noble friend Lord Peel, the Lord Chamberlain of the Royal Household for almost 20 years, and a superb Lord Chamberlain he was; my noble friend Lord Roborough, a shadow Minister; the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, a Deputy Speaker; and, of course, the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, a Deputy Speaker, who has graced us with his presence for the last hour.

Then there is my noble friend Lord Trefgarne, a committee chair and former Minister; the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, the former finance committee chair—he did a superb job there; my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie, almost continuously in ministerial office since 2013; and my noble friend Lord Effingham, currently a Whip. Last but not least, there is my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, a Minister and Leader of the House, who was an absolutely superb junior Environment Minister under my command as Minister. I would like to say that I taught him all he knows, but that would not be the case.

Those are the colleagues—the hereditaries—who will be slung out by the Government and who are on the list in my noble friend Lord Soames’s amendment. But, very briefly, that is not the full story; his amendment does not go far enough. Many other hereditaries who do a superb job chairing other committees of this House and doing other work are not included in my noble friend’s amendment. If the House will permit me, I will run through them briefly; I will not use titles, such as “my noble friend” or “the noble Lord” but simply list the names which the Library has kindly circulated in a superb Excel spreadsheet.

Those Peers are: Lord Aberdare, Lord Altrincham, the Earl of Arran, Lord Borwick, Viscount Bridgeman, the Earl of Clancarty, Lord Colgrain, the Earl of Cork and Orrery, Lord Crathorne, Lord Cromwell—I know that the noble Lord was in Georgia, heading up the OSCE delegation that observed the elections; I was with the Council of Europe delegation, and he did a superb job there—and the Earl of Devon, who has also chaired committees. In the main, these are hereditaries who have served on committees or are currently serving on them.

To continue: the Earl of Dundee, who served for many years on the Council of Europe as well and did a superb job, Viscount Eccles, Lord Fairfax of Cameron, Lord Glenarthur, Lord Grantchester, Lord Hacking, Lord Hampton, Viscount Hanworth—we are halfway through.

[A noble Lord]

Oh!

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

But it is worth knowing the names of all those hereditaries who have been working their socks off in this place for years and will be thrown out. There is the Earl of Leicester, the Earl of Lindsay, Lord Londesborough, Lord Lucas, the Earl of Lytton, Lord Mancroft, Lord Meston, the Duke of Montrose, Lord Mountevans, Lord Moynihan —whom I see in his place in front of me, and who has already been rightly praised—Lord Ravensdale, Lord Reay, Earl Russell, Lord Sandhurst, the Earl of Stair, Lord Thurlow, Viscount Thurso, who has already spoken —I think that he welcomed his own demise—and Lord Trefgarne, also a former Minister, Viscount Trenchard, Lord Trevethin and Oaksey, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, and finally, the Duke of Wellington.

I make no apology for reading out those names; I have not taken very long to do so—less than six minutes. If the Committee is going to go ahead with ejecting hereditaries, we simply need to know all of those colleagues, the work they have been doing in this House and the expertise we will lose. We will not only lose their expertise but be doing them a disservice by rejecting all the work they have done over the last few years by saying, “You’re just a hereditary, you can now be slung out.” I think that is an insult to the hard work they have been doing.

[Viscount Astor (Con)]

My Lords, I knew that I was unimportant when my noble friend Lord Blencathra omitted me from his list, but now it has been confirmed. I am very grateful to him for doing that. As we approach the dinner hour, it is obviously time for very long speeches, and I intend for my speech to be very long and to cover a number of hugely important issues. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Soames on his amendment, because it would actually affect me, as a former Minister of the Crown, by inserting proposed new subsection (A1)(a). I thank my noble friend and support his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I think this amendment shows the problem that we were discussing earlier with the groupings, because we have actually been discussing, along with this amendment, Amendment 9 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord True, and they both deal with the question of the future of those hereditaries who play a major part in your Lordships’ House.

The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, told us what he finds extraordinary. I think the vast majority of the country would find it extraordinary, if they realised it, that 10% of the legislature derives from fewer than 800 families in the country. Most people do not really realise that; if they did, they would be very surprised and most of them, frankly, would be appalled.

I looked at the hereditaries as a group one wet, sad afternoon. I divided them not into sheep and goats but into three: those who were active, those who were partially active, and those who were inactive. In response to the list of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, of those who are very active, I could, but will not, read out to the Committee a list of equal length, if not longer, of hereditaries who are virtually inactive. This is not a criticism of them more than it is of any other group. However, it is the case that some Members in the hereditary group are very active and well respected, but, like in all other groups, there are others who, frankly, are not.

Therefore, if we are looking to what should happen next and whether we should seek to retain some of the expertise that the hereditaries have, surely the way to do it is not as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Soames, nor by the noble Lord, Lord True, but to encourage the parties to appoint those hereditaries who are very active and eminent in their groups to life peerages as those numbers come up. I hope very much that we will do so in respect of the Liberal Democrats—we have fewer hereditaries than some of the other groups—but that seems to me to be the logical way of doing it. It is what we did, to a certain extent, in our party after the vast bulk of hereditaries left in 1999. That is the precedent that we should seek to follow now, rather than having a broader category of exemptions, as the noble Lord suggests, or a complete continuation along the lines previously proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, which the noble Lord, Lord True, is about to suggest.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

Can I correct the noble Lord on one factual error that he has made—quite inadvertently, I am sure. According to the Library list, leaving aside the one mistake in the case of my noble friend Lord Astor, there are fewer than 20 hereditaries who do not participate in the work of the House or who are, as he said, doing nothing. The vast majority have served the House, are working in the House on committees or have been Ministers.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

If the noble Lord looks down the list, he will see that there may be some people who come twice a year and vote three times a year, but I did not include those in the list of people whom I consider to be active. I am happy to go down the list with him; I did not do it with the intention of proving anything but wanted to satisfy myself as to the true position.

Business of the House

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I rise simply to seek assurance from the noble Baroness the Leader of the House that we can table amendments to this Bill when we consider it next Wednesday. The Bill asks us to provide taxpayers’ money to assist Ukraine. I entirely support that, as it is vital that Putin does not win. However, the West has immobilised about $300 billion of Russian assets, including about €210 billion immobilised in Europe. The United Kingdom has frozen about £18 billion of assets, and I understand that the United States has frozen only a few billion dollars. Nevertheless, the United States and Canada have passed legislation permitting their Governments, should they wish, to utilise those former frozen Russian assets for the reconstruction of Ukraine. The US legislation is called REPO: rebuilding economic prosperity and opportunity for Ukraine.

Last year the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe unanimously adopted a resolution calling on each state that holds Russian assets to co-operate in the transfer of those assets to an international mechanism to compensate Ukraine for the losses it has suffered. The United Kingdom Government—the previous Government and this one—have consistently said it is clear that Russia must be held responsible for its illegal war. That includes its obligations under international law to pay for the damage it has caused in Ukraine.

I simply want to table a very straightforward and short amendment to the Bill, giving the United Kingdom Government the same powers that Canada and the United States have taken—namely, after the words “money provided by Parliament”, to add, “or out of any assets, reserves or any other property held within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, directly or indirectly, by, for or on behalf of the Russian Federation”. I say to the noble Baroness and to the House that it is a simple permissive power. It does not force the Government to do it if they do not want to, but it would give us the same power to utilise those frozen Russian assets. I simply ask the noble Baroness whether it would be possible for me or any other noble Lord to table an amendment such as that to the Bill next Wednesday.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is an experienced parliamentarian. He may be confusing the two Houses. This is a money Bill and the procedure in this House is that there are no amending stages on the Bill. It has already been debated in the other place, so when it comes to this House there will be no opportunity to table amendments.