House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Smith of Basildon

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[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.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Smith of Basildon

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Smith of Basildon

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.