House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Crickhowell and Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

Friday 9th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for introducing this Bill which, as always in this House, has provoked an interesting and engaging debate with speeches from many of your Lordships. He has a long association with the arguments surrounding further reform of your Lordships’ House, and the whole House recognises his particular expertise.

Before the noble Lord sums up the debate, I will endeavour to respond from the Government’s perspective to as many as possible of the points and questions raised. Before I start, I shall answer the point made by my noble friend Lord Norton. He suggested that the Government should put the House of Lords Appointments Commission on a statutory footing. Importantly, we feel that the Appointments Commission is rightly independent of government and vets all appointments made to this House.

I say from the outset that the Government recognise greatly the value of this House. Your Lordships play a vital role in the workings of the House and the scrutiny of legislation. We are committed to ensuring that the House continues to work well, and I therefore welcome the opportunity to debate this matter. As mentioned by several noble Lords today, in the previous Parliament the Government introduced the House of Lords Reform Bill 2012, which sought wide-scale reform. Like the Bill introduced today by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, the Bill made provision to remove hereditary Peers and introduce an elected element into the upper House. As we all remember, that Bill was withdrawn when it became clear that its timetabling Motions could not be agreed to in the other place, not, I emphasise, from a lack of commitment from the Government, but from a lack of overall agreement as to what shape reform should take. It is with that experience in mind that we have focused our efforts on looking for incremental steps for change, and have made clear that comprehensive reform of this House is not a priority in this Parliament.

Turning back to the Bill, the role of hereditary Peers goes to the heart of questions about our composition. Any change to their status would fundamentally change the nature of your Lordships’ House, and so as a Government we would consider any change to be bound up in those broader discussions about comprehensive reform. As my noble friend Lord Bowness mentioned, at this juncture, with the Government’s focus on delivering prosperity across the UK, I submit that there are therefore other, more pressing constitutional reforms currently under way on which we should focus our attention. These include delivering on the promise to devolve more powers to Wales and, importantly, implementing the result of the EU referendum on 23 June.

However, that does not mean we should not continue to work to make sure your Lordships’ House continues to work well, or to look for ways in which we might do our work more effectively. As our manifesto makes clear, we agree that we cannot grow indefinitely. So where there are ideas for incremental change that can improve how we work, and which can command consensus, we would welcome working with noble Lords to take them forward.

As a House, we have a good story to tell in this regard. With government support, as has been mentioned, Bills were taken through by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, to enable Peers to retire for the first time and to enable the House to expel Members where their conduct falls well below the standards that the public have a right to expect. While I am glad to say we have not had to use the latter power, we have seen a remarkable cultural change on retirement, with 52 Peers having permanently retired from this House. As the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, mentioned, this has enabled life Peers not to go on into their dotage.

The House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill before the House today makes provision to remove the by-election system that currently allows hereditary Peers to be elected to this place. While those existing hereditary Peers would remain Members of this House, the Bill makes provision to prevent any future hereditary Peers taking a seat, though it makes no provision to exclude from its scope holders of two of the great offices of state, who currently sit as Members of this House: the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain.

The nub of the debate today is that by removing hereditaries from this House over time, many of whom play an important role in our work, we would become de facto an appointed Chamber. That would be a very significant step and would clearly need to form part of a broader consideration of the role of the House, as was mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne, Lord Elton, Lord Norton and Lord Mancroft. As I have noted, I do not feel that now is the time to embark on that particular journey, given the many challenges that we presently face.

In summing up my remarks, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for pursuing this important constitutional matter, and to those here today for their insightful contributions to this debate. While we see a strong case for introducing an elected element into our second Chamber, it is not a priority for this Parliament. As he may have gathered from my remarks, I must express reservations about the Bill. As I have mentioned, and perhaps this answers the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, the Government do not believe that now is the time for comprehensive reform, given the priorities elsewhere—not least, implementing the result of the EU referendum.

[Lord Crickhowell (Con)]

My Lords, I have been listening to the whole of this debate with interest. My noble friend talks about incremental changes but then says, “Oh gosh, we’ve got a lot of other important things to deal with, such as Brexit”. I cannot understand why this modest Bill, which would take very little of Parliament’s time, should in any way compromise the other major changes. I do not understand why the Government should resist this tiny but important and sensible Bill.