House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, the Bill ends the so-called hereditary aspect of this House. Christmas is approaching, and while, as one of the so-called turkeys directly affected by the Bill, I might abstain on it, I certainly do not propose to obstruct or delay it. However, I note the suggestion of quite a number in this House, including life Peers, that, in ending the hereditary aspect of the House, useful so-called hereditary contributors should be converted to life Peers. We shall see.

I turn to wider reforms, some of which were trailed in the Government’s manifesto. The Minister has had many informal representations, and I think we all admire her for her openness to those. Nevertheless, there comes a point when discussion ends and action follows. I realise that asking “When?” in a Parliament is typically an exercise in futility. However, the hereditaries shortly departing this House in the good faith expectation of wider reform without delay deserve a specific assurance that the Government have a timeframe in mind that they can share with the House. [Interruption.] If the noble Lord could stop gesturing in front of me, that would be very helpful. I therefore ask the Minister to indicate in summing up how and when any formal structured consultations will be organised, over what period they will occur and when legislation for further reform will be brought forward.

Many speeches today include suggestions to the Government, and I shall make two that I believe will be fundamental to successful reform. First, the unrestrained ability of party leaders to dangle peerages as rewards before, and then to appoint, their mates, their loyalists and their donors is both a numerical disaster and a reputational cancer at the heart of this place. I welcome the recent announcement that party leaders must explain their nominations, but that is a long way short of a proper selection and appointment process. Crucially, such appointments must be subject to a tight numerical limit that cannot be exceeded. That would at least put a lid on the inflows from that source.

Secondly, on participation, this is a place of work—of public service. If we can produce legislation to discard some of the most engaged and hard-working Members of this House, surely we can summon up the courage to send on their way those who do not engage or put the work in. I do not take the “everything or nothing” line—I agree with the Government on that—but the participation element should have been part of this Bill, and it would have accelerated progress towards a resized House with active Members. Failure to include that is not only unjust to those who do engage but also has two ongoing negative consequences: first, it tells new, and current, Peers that non-engagement is perfectly acceptable; secondly, it ducks the only meaningful way to reduce the membership both at scale and on a logical basis.

I hear some say that it is too difficult to construct a metric or criterion for that. It is not difficult: we already collect the data; we just need to have the guts to use them. I am talking not about an automated process but about a factual basis for discussions, giving ample opportunity to understand an individual Member’s situation. But Members unable or unwilling to engage sufficiently should resign or, failing that, have their membership ended—courteously but firmly.

No system is without its challenges, but the current lack of any real system to remove non-contributors is exactly why we are where we are today, in terms of both size and engagement. Some others say that this might lead to performative participation, for the sake of it. But engagement with the work of the House, in debates, speeches, committees and so on, requires time, effort and turning up regularly, so I believe that such performative behaviours would die back pretty quickly.

If we are genuinely serious about reducing numbers, and if a peerage does mean turning up and participating, we need to get on with making that the case. The alternative is the continuation of the current culture—something that the removal of the so-called hereditaries by the Bill does nothing to address. Indeed, ejecting engaged Members while leaving untouched the disengaged is an insult to the former and would simply ingrain the behaviours of the latter.

To conclude, I take on trust the manifesto promises of further reform, but I hope that the Government will do four things. First, look again at the “babies and bath-water” aspect of removing useful so-called hereditary Members of this House. Secondly, limit numerically the patronage of party leaders in appointing new Members. Thirdly, commit themselves, within a given timeframe, to implementing an effective participation requirement as a condition of a peerage for both new and existing Peers. Finally, look seriously at limited terms and at enforcing the “two out, one in” principle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I believe the noble Baroness just quoted me as saying something about the number of Cross-Benchers. I did not say any such thing; I just said that I hope that some useful hereditary Members would be retained as life Peers. That is all I said.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord. I said that I understood the noble Lord’s understanding to be that there would be some Cross-Bench Peers who could be converted to life Peers.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I hope that there will be some; I did not give any number, I believe.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord. If the Government accept that some excepted Peers deserve to stay, why not extend that principle to all those who have contributed so much to the work of this House? Does the Lord Privy Seal accept that an unwillingness on the part of the Government to make such a concession gives rise to the impression that the motivations for presenting the Bill are not as principled as the Government would wish us to accept?

If the Bill passes in its current form, the result will be a disproportionate reduction in the number of Cross-Bench and Opposition Peers. We will say goodbye to over 80 noble Lords who come here to scrutinise the Government’s legislation, while the Executive will lose just four of their Peers in this House. If the Bill were seeking to remove any other group of Peers, everyone would see it for what it is. So does the Lord Privy Seal accept that it would be altogether better for the Government to offer life peerages to all those excepted Peers who wish to continue to serve, as my noble friend Lady Goldie has suggested, rather than cherry-pick excepted Peers who may receive life Peerages after the passage of the Bill?

Such an approach would, at the very least, help assuage concerns that many of us have about the Government’s motivations for presenting the Bill. Let us not pretend otherwise: this is not neutral reform. This is about neutering the ability of this House to hold the Government to account, a concern raised by my noble friend Lord Parkinson in relation to the passage of the Football Governance Bill.

The constitutional role of this House can be justified only by the quality of the contribution that we, collectively, are able to make to public life. In the absence of any electoral mandate, we must justify our work through the care with which assist, oppose, scrutinise and amend. Excluding an entire category of Members is profound and fundamentally alters the balance and collective experience of the House. The Bill proposes the removal of many dedicated noble Lords based not on the quality of their contributions but on their collective legal status. It places far greater power for the Prime Minister alone to determine the legislature, a point made by my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie, my noble friend Lord Murray, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Lord, Lord Burns. Judged by legal status alone, none of us can be secure that our future in this place will not be cut short at the whim of the Executive.

This Bill does not honour the past, nor does it secure the future. It weakens this House, betrays constitutional commitments and serves no public good. Reform is necessary, but it must be principled and founded in consultation and consensus. Reform must strengthen Parliament, not diminish it. A Government who fear scrutiny are not strong; they are insecure. A House that loses its independence is not modern; it is diminished. I urge this House and this Government to reflect on the path we are taking. Let us find a better way forward that respects our history, honours our promises and secures the integrity of this Chamber for generations to come.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, we are promised a substantial reform of the House of Lords. It is most certainly needed, but I wonder whether we will get it. The age cap may end up in the long grass but, as a mere youth compared with the average age of the House, much less the possible cap at 80 years old, I leave it to others to suggest solutions—indeed, a number already have.

The participation basis may suffer the same fate, which I think would be very regrettable. It is easy to complicate this discussion—choosing what metric, triggering overparticipation for the sake of it and so on—but it is too easy to say that it is too difficult. This is a place of work, and I can think of no other line of work where it would be considered acceptable not to turn up or to turn up occasionally—in some cases just once per parliamentary Session, for lunch, and going away again, or turning up but not participating in the work of the Chamber, in committees or in other ways. Such Peers boost the apparent size of the House to levels that give a wholly false impression of the numbers engaged in the work here.

We claim to be a House of experts, yet we balk at the idea of developing a system that uses the data already collected on participation and following through by, courteously but firmly, saying goodbye to non-contributors. Removing Members across the House of any type who turn up and participate no more than 10% of the time—which I believe the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, referred to earlier—would reduce our numbers by more than 100. I hope that this Government will tackle the participation issue rather than it languishing in the “too difficult” box. If it does, we will drift into a membership of more than 1,000.

The way people get to this House is crying out for reform, as many have already expressed and as has been expressed on all sides of the House at one time or another. A great amount of the good work that this House delivers is getting lost in the drift to an ever-larger House packed by party leaders who appoint their mates. This has brought the House into disrepute and makes the often-mocked hereditary by-elections look like models of transparency. If the time has come to end the hereditary by-elections—and it has—it most certainly has also come to end the ability of leaders, like feudal kings, simply to appoint a list of their pals, donors and loyalists.

An elected House has its supporters but, on balance, I support an appointed House for all the usual reasons. But that brings the challenge of who does the appointing and the danger of the establishment simply appointing itself from among its own social and professional circles, and mainly in London. As a first step towards a thought-out appointments process, HOLAC should go on to a statutory footing and play a role beyond that of its currently advisory status, including nurturing a House that is socially and geographically inclusive, clear in its demands and made up of committed participants.

I also support the idea of 15-year terms and the two-out, one-in principle suggested in the report by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. This would enable better forward planning for representation, numbers and specialist knowledge. I would be very interested to hear from the Leader of the House whether and when any of this is anticipated from the Government.

Finally, we know—and seem to have spent a lot of time today discussing—that the hereditary elections, which are already suspended, are over, and that the remaining so-called hereditary Members are on the cusp of being ejected. I have spoken on this before and will not tire the House with a detailed repetition. In short, it is a matter of babies and bath-water. Simply throwing the supposed toffs to the populist lions would ignore, at least on the Cross Benches, the fact that the so-called hereditaries are some of the most active and diligent Members giving service to the House. There are, of course, Peers of all types who are diligent and hard-working but, on the Cross Benches in particular, there is a strong service ethos, as we do not have any party position to advance, nor any prospect of, for example, ministerial positions.

While I believe most Members, and probably most people, agree that the hereditary tag, which is often forgotten in our day-to-day work, is well past its use- by date, I have been struck by the number of life Peers I speak to who think that the so-called hereditaries will simply be converted into life Peers. I have not seen any indication of that from the Government. My view —and I declare my obvious interest here—is that Peers who have a track record of contribution, have experience, expertise and energy to offer, and are committed to further public service in this House should be converted. That would end the hereditary issue once and for all, meeting the Government’s manifesto commitment—job done. Then we can get on to fuller reform and the other pressing matters before us.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, nothing is more important than feeling safe and secure in your own home. My noble friend Lady Taylor, who is sitting with me, is well aware of this as a former council leader. The department is aware of the issue and is looking into it.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I add my thanks to the Leader of the House for the very moving and, in a true sense, infuriating sharing of that Statement. I think we would all agree that dealing with the issues has been far too slow. As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and others have pointed out, it is now seven years since Grenfell. Is it to be reasonably expected, given the size of the challenge, that, when we reach the grim 10th anniversary—or even the 15th—there are still going to be buildings with flammable cladding on them?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I very sincerely hope not. It is our intention to accelerate this as quickly as possible. It would be a failure if, in 15 years, we still had cladding on those buildings. We would not be fulfilling our obligations as a Parliament, a Government and a country.