House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Desai Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

I was delighted to plan to stay overnight in Ipswich; what happened was that the abnormal load movement got cancelled, but I was still faced with the cost of the hotel, and I could not get the cost of the hotel from the heavy haulage company because of the risk of falling foul of the paid advocacy rules.

I did all this activity at my own expense and, save for one day, was not able to claim allowances. This is not unusual. Other noble Lords will be engaged in similar activity which would not be detectable as participation. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, that there could be some mechanism for measuring such activity; possibly at the end of the Session we might be required to say how much money we have claimed in allowances and what we have actually done.

We have already experimented with a participation test during Covid. Noble Lords will recall that we paid ourselves allowances only when we made a contribution. On one occasion we were debating an order that concerned vehicle testing and inspection. I thought that I was the House’s only subject matter expert. Imagine my surprise when I found that not only was the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, the country’s top psephologist but he had expertise on vehicle maintenance and inspection. Leg-pulling apart, we need to be careful to avoid creating perverse incentives to participate when it is unnecessary.

Finally, some Peers have quite low contribution rates but, nevertheless, I have found their private counsel to be invaluable. The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, talked about low-frequency, high-impact contributions. One has only to think of the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Owen.

[Lord Desai (CB)]

My Lords, there are many dimensions in which participation can be measured. We have two problems. As the noble Lord, Lord Swire, said, we do not know the quality of the participation but we know the quantity. These different dimensions are sort of related.

I was a statistician all my life—not a good one, but I was one. There are techniques to combine those dimensions in one single measure, and I urge the Government and the people in charge to use them. It is called principal component analysis—noble Lords can ask me, and I can find out more about it for them. That will give you a more or less objective way of measuring different people’s performance across a number of dimensions. This has been done many times; it is reliable. There is no doubt that quality is difficult to measure, but quantity can be measured, and I urge the decision-makers to use this to be able to sort out who is in and who is out. That would be helpful.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, given the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Swire, I will keep my comments short. Although I am reading from a piece of paper, I am reading from my scribbles, not a full text. I hope that is all right. I co-signed Amendment 26 from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I do not think he needed any real encouragement, but I think it is very sensible. In fact, Amendment 63 from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, has real value. If he took that to a vote, I would probably support it. I absolutely hate Amendment 28 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. It might as well say, in brackets afterwards, “Kick the Greens out”.

I suggest that we could have got around this debate—all these days, hours and repetitions. We could have just made all the hereditaries life Peers, which would have removed all this. I understand that there is an issue about kicking them out but, personally, I think we will miss them. Making them all life Peers would have just shut them up, and we would be free to go and have an early supper.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Desai Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

May I respond to the noble Lord briefly, as we are in Committee? If one looks at the average age at which people come into this House, it is at the end of their careers, just below or above 60. Therefore, 20 years takes most people who come into this House from mid-50s to mid-70s or early 60s to early 80s. Under the current arrangements, there are relatively few people who come into the House as a full-time occupation who are in their primary working years. I know that there are exceptions, and exceptions always prove the rule. However, if we wish to have some longstop, my amendment takes care of most of the points he has made. If people know in advance that they are being offered something for 20 years, they always have the choice of declining.

[Lord Desai (CB)]

My Lords, I have many things to declare. One is that I came here not as a hereditary Peer but was appointed by John Major, who conspired with Neil Kinnock—the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock—to get me here. Secondly, I have been here for 34 years, so I obviously do not qualify to be a sane, sensible person, because I am too old. I am 85, and after 34 years I am clearly not qualified to be here at all—so I have to fight for my life, because I actually like this place.

When I came here I did not swear an oath, not being a believer, but I affirmed one. I affirmed an oath to serve Her Majesty the Queen, her heirs and successors. I did not say “Till death do us part” but I definitely came on the promise that I was appointed for life. I was not appointed on whether I was qualified, whether I was sane, whether I was solvent, or anything like that. Okay—if I violate the rules of conduct, I may get thrown out. Apart from that, given the logic of your Lordships’ House, I do not see any reason whatever to have age limits and term limits retrospectively. Yes, have a Bill which is not to do with the hereditary Peers but with House of Lords reform. If you want to reform the House and reduce the number of people and so on, then say that normally at such and such an age you would qualify.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Desai Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Desai (CB)]

My Lords, as the 50th speaker in this debate, I have to say something different from everybody else—I will try.

There are two problems here. First, people think it is an anomalous thing that we are an appointed Chamber. I do not think it is anomalous at all because the entire British constitution is an anomaly. There is no reason why we should not be what we are. Other countries have followed our constitution and arrangement of Parliament but, obviously, they have not had an appointed Chamber. We have one because that is what we have always had. I do not see that there is necessarily any point in changing that.

The second problem is that whenever the Labour Party comes into power, it realises that it does not have enough people in the House of Lords. That is because it does not have enough hereditary Peers. That is the way it is. I have one simple way to solve the problem: on election, create 100 hereditary Peers. Problem solved. Then it will have the numbers here and it will get its things passed. I am sure there are eager people on the Labour Benches and in the Labour membership who would, much as they hate the hereditary system, love to be here. Really, the problem is a ruling Government not having the numbers and hereditary powers to be able to pass their legislation. We have discussed things around this, but those are the two problems.

Look at the history, as some people have done, of every time the Labour Party has come to power. I especially remember what Harold Wilson tried to do. He tried to find some way of, as it were, deactivating the hereditary element in the House of Lords. He said, “Let’s make a distinction between the right to come and discuss matters and the right to vote”. As a noble Lord said, it was sabotaged by Michael Foot and Enoch Powell. Michael Foot thought he wanted to abolish the House of Lords and Enoch Powell said, “Over my dead body”. Basically, that union frustrated that reform.

Then, of course, in the period between 1974 and 1979, the majority of the Labour Party was much too small to do any such thing. When we came back to power under new Labour, we made another attempt; I say “we” because, at that time, I was in the Labour Party. Obviously, that attempt was halted half way through, and 99 or 100 hereditary Peers were left behind.

I always thought that we would solve the problem of numbers—along with reforming the House of Lords in terms of hereditary peerages—but, somehow, a decision has been made that we cannot do that. It is a pity because one thing I thought we would do is an analysis of all the existing Members—who has been working, coming regularly and making contributions. It is simple: those who are inactive should be thrown out, not on the grounds of age but on the grounds that they were appointed here but did not do the work. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, gave some numbers. We could reduce the total number by quite a bit if we used rules like that, but a decision has been made not to do that.

Instead, a decision has been made to get rid of the hereditary Peers. It is class envy, and I do not like that. There is no other reason to get rid of hereditary Peers except that some people think they have no right to sit here. Once we abolish by-elections, they will be de facto life Peers anyway, so what is the problem? As I said before, if they work, let them be here; if they do not work, throw them out along with the other life Peers.