House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[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.