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

Debate between Lord Cromwell and Earl of Caithness

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 9th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

I certainly apologise to the House for not grouping the amendment. I put the amendment down yesterday, which was rather later than I should have put it down. It came to my mind as a result of the debate we had on Monday.

As I said, my noble friend Lord Cormack is not the only one to have changed his mind about this House. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, when he was leader of the Liberal Party, carried the Asquith banner for the abolition of the House of Lords. When he came here, he had the chance to fulfil that, and we all hoped he would. The next leader, Mr Clegg, scuppered the next attempt to reform the House almost single-handedly. It was a great shame.

I warned the Lord Speaker—he is no longer my noble friend because he is the Lord Speaker—that I would refer to him. He quite rightly suggested when he took his position that the House of Lords was a little large. He was in favour of an elected House in 1999. He said so in the debate. He also voted for and against the amendment in the same year. It was at different times: one was February or March of 1999 and the other was in November. My noble friend Lord Hailsham voted against the amendment in 1999—but he stood for election as a hereditary Peer, so he obviously thought it was quite a good idea.

As my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said, the debate on Monday has brought a sort of consensus that all these areas need to be looked at. I remain of the opinion that keeping the hereditaries here will bring about a speedier and more radical reform of the House of Lords, which I firmly believe is needed.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I am the beneficiary of one of these by-elections, and that has made me very shy about participating in our debate today—even more shy than I normally am. I was in two minds right up to this morning as to whether I should do so. I know that a good number of others in my position are not here, partly because they are too anxious of being branded reactionary, whatever their actual position on House of Lords reform may be. Some of the barracking we are hearing probably means they were right. On balance, I have decided that, as a beneficiary of such a system, I ought to be able to stand here and debate it. There are certainly some points I would like to make, and we may get to those, but beyond that I would like to emphasise one thing: I am going to be guided by what emerges in the debate. That is how we should do things. I am not here as a wrecker; I am here to participate in a debate, as I hope we all are.