House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest: for five years, I was an unpaid Lords Minister and Whip in the coalition Government. When we have a coalition Government—we may very well find ourselves with a rather messy coalition after the next election—there may be an argument for having a larger number of Ministers, because we have to spend some of our time marking each other, so to speak.

My responsibilities were in the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office, and I did indeed spend quite a lot of time outside the country. That enabled the Foreign Office to send someone to a number of countries that would otherwise have been entirely neglected without the most junior Minister, as it were, being sent there. I was lucky enough—and still am—to have an academic pension and a wife who has an academic pension, which means that we are moderately comfortably off. Maybe if we were of the Conservative variety, we would find that we needed more to live on, but one can manage not too badly on an academic pension. I did not mind missing some of the days in the House.

We have heard a number of interesting speeches, which have ranged very widely, including on the relationship between the two Houses. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that I am reading a book on the House of Lords in the 17th and early 18th centuries, when we had conferences between the two Houses; maybe he would like to suggest that we move back towards that. Here we are on Report for a Bill that has been deliberately designed to be as narrow as possible, but we are talking about the relationship between the two Houses, the way in which government is structured and how many Ministers we need.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is absolutely correct that keeping the Back-Benchers in order has led to an expansion of government patronage. He did not make as much about the expansion of PPSs in the House, as well as trade envoys, which has meant that the House of Commons has ceased, in effect, to do a lot of its scrutiny job. Indeed, some weeks ago I met a Labour MP, elected last year, and she said that she wondered what the purpose of an MP is in the House of Commons now, as they are not expected to change legislation or to get at the mistakes that their own Government are making. There are some very broad issues here, but those issues are broader than this Bill.

We all know what the impact of this amendment, if passed, would be: the House of Lords would have fewer Ministers. That would damage this House very considerably, because the current Government are highly unlikely to shrink the number of Ministers in the Commons. If we want to shrink the number of Ministers, we should be agitating, but, of course, part of what has happened is that as local government has got weaker and central government has taken on more of what used to the role of local democracy, Ministers have expanded in all the things they do.

So, from these Benches, we will not support the amendment. Yes, we do favour much wider parliamentary reform. Yes, we favour much more thoroughgoing reform of this House. Yes, we are immensely disappointed at the timidity of this Government, with respect to this Bill as in so many other areas. But here we are, with a Bill that is concerned with a small change in the nature of this House, and unable to persuade the Government, without a much longer conversation, to change the 1975 Act, to change the way the Commons operates and, in that case, those of us on these Benches will vote against the amendment if a Division is called.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I was sitting here with unusual patience, but the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has encouraged me to intervene to make just one point. The Bill says it is to:

“Remove the remaining connection between hereditary peerage and membership of the House of Lords; to abolish the jurisdiction of the House of Lords in relation to claims to hereditary peerages; and for connected purposes”.


Whereas I agreed with almost everything that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said, it is nothing to do with this Bill, and I do not understand, with due respect to the clerks, how they agreed these amendments. I think it is a disgrace.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I was going to intervene briefly anyway, but, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, I do not think it is customary for any Member of this House to start to question the clerks, who do not have the ability to speak for themselves. As the noble Lords knows, if this amendment were not allowed, it would not have been possible to table it.

The only point I want to add was prompted by something my noble friend Lord Caine said. I do not think it has been reflected in this debate. Before we decide how to respond to my noble friend pushing his amendment, the noble Lord Caine made the point that, when a Member of this House becomes a Minister, even an unpaid Minister, they have to give up all their outside interests. There is another factor that it is worth us being aware of: the same Ministers are also subject to the ACOBA restrictions for two years after they stop being Ministers. So their employment prospects also have some constraints put on them, after they have not been paid for two years and they have had to give up any outside interests as well. That is something else we should take account of.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I really hope that would not be the case. One of the reasons why I said we wanted to see what could be done more quickly is that some things may be able to be done by the House itself. If the House comes to a conclusion on matters that need legislation then it is easier to put through legislation if the House has taken a view. So I am keen to have the House express a view—which noble Lords have asked for many times—and the Government will listen, but there may well be things that we can do without legislation. If that is the case, we can proceed. Where legislation is required, I will take that advice from the committee because we have a manifesto commitment for legislation, and we are determined to press ahead on these two issues.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I welcome the setting up of the Select Committee. It is a great step forward. As the noble Baroness knows, I have been particularly concerned about the question of retirement age. I must declare an interest, by the way.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

No, I used to be director of Age Concern Scotland, so I have a particular interest in this. Could my noble friend confirm that this Select Committee would be able to consider all aspects of a retirement age—for example, whether it should be different for current Members and new Members, and whether it should be on the edge of a particular birthday or at the end of the Parliament in which the birthday takes place? All these issues can be considered and recommendations made to this House, and the decision could be made by this House.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I would say to my noble friend that we all have an interest in the retirement age because we all hope to approach one at some point in our lives. He is right. I am not going to set any preconditions on that. The manifesto at the last election said that someone would retire at the end of the Parliament after their 80th birthday. I have said repeatedly that I think a cut-off would create problems for the House when lots of Members reach that age at the same time and retire. If there are better suggestions, I would be happy to consider them. I am not going to put any parameters on what can be discussed within those two areas. I wanted to give the House the opportunity, when we come to discuss these issues, to consider what I have said and see whether noble Lords think it is helpful when we get to those amendments.

Parliamentary Commercial Department

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Lords Chamber

The people who will be spending huge sums of money, hundreds of millions of pounds, need to have a good commercial understanding and to recognise the importance of bringing this House with us. A new phrase has entered our discussions: we hear that “the administration thinks” this, that and the other. This is a self-regulating House, and the administration needs to take account of its needs and anxieties. Although I could highlight other examples, I have highlighted the front door because it is a classic example. If people had listened to what Members on all sides of this House were saying, we would not have wasted so much public money—I hope the noble Baroness the Leader will tell us exactly how much we have wasted—or embarked on a system that was untried and untested, with catastrophic results for not just our security but our ability to bring people to this House in the way that we all wish.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

I am not going to continue on the saga of the front door, although I agree completely with what the noble Lord has just said. Even I am considered occasionally a bit more diplomatic than the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. He is right that there are now a number of areas for which there is joint responsibility, and one of them is security. I have been conscious of the fact that the House of Commons seems to dominate decision-making. Wherever it comes from, whether it is the Speaker, the House of Commons Commission, the Services Committee or whatever, they always get their own way and the interests of this House are not properly considered.

Neither I nor the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, are blaming the Leader of the House, who does everything she can, as do the Clerk of the Parliaments and the Lord Speaker, but we should back them up and say that where it is sensible to have Joint Committees, we should have them. There should be more joint working on catering, for example; it seems crazy that we have two completely separate catering departments. There are whole areas like that which could be brought more closely together, but, in doing so, the interests of this House must not be forgotten. I say that having been a Member of the other place and recognising its pre-eminence regarding legislation; but in terms of this Building, the use of it and our own interests, we are just as important as the House of Commons.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

Can the noble Baroness the Leader confirm that all those individuals—and I mean individuals rather than collective groups of people—who sign contracts on behalf of this House have professional indemnity insurance? Can she explain to the House what that level of cover is and what decisions were made in determining how much it should be?

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Given that we are removing with this legislation once and for all the feudal vestiges of the hereditary peerage, which is said to be indefensible, how can we not also remove the feudal and lordly pretensions of this Chamber and simply change its name? I do not presume to suggest what it might be changed to—it is not for a feudal Plantagenet Earl to suggest alternatives—but I am sure that your Lordships, with public-spirited, well-informed wisdom, can come up with something suitably catchy that does not venerate a paternalistic feudal power structure of which we apparently are so ashamed.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, there can be no doubt from the very witty speech by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, that he is a hereditary Peer—but it is not always clear. Did we know when the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, spoke? Do we know when others speak? I would have thought that every hereditary Peer would be obliged to declare that interest at the beginning of their speech. If I was in the other place, I could ask the Speaker to rule on that, but that does not apply here. I hope the Leader of the House might indicate in her reply that it would be helpful not just for the House but for the public outside to know whether the Member speaking has a vested interest.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, that is an interesting concept, but I do not think there is a vested interest of mine in this set of amendments. I very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said. I think this is a good direction to go down. Of course, I support the first two amendments from the noble Earl, Lord Devon. I was a supporter of Lord Diamond on those Benches in the days of John Major’s Government, when he tried twice to abolish the male exclusiveness of the hereditary peerage. I have promoted Bills to that effect, and it has never appealed to the Government of the day.

However, I rather like the noble Earl’s formulation, which puts a duty on the Privy Council to sort things out. I think leaving bits of sex discrimination lying around in prominent places matters. It is only a label, but I do not think it should be allowed to continue. It is not that hard to make a change, as the noble Earl shows, and I very much hope that the Government will feel inclined to consign one of the last bits of formal sex discrimination in our constitutional arrangements to the dustbin.

Amendment 62, like the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, is a device to get my proposed new subsections (2)(a) and (2)(b) discussed. My interest in participating in the Bill is to make sure that, if we can, we use it to make sure that, going forward, the House without us will be in a better place and able to function better than it does now.

The first barrier that needs to be removed is that the Government should not only let us but positively encourage us to innovate and improve. We ought to have that motivation too. Things stay the same and change only slowly in this place, but we need to do better. We are sure of the effectiveness of our scrutiny when it comes to legislation, but I have never seen it really examined. Where are the research reports and the independent investigations? Where are the committees looking into this and proposing how things might be done better? We ought to be in a condition of constant improvement.

To my mind, the same applies to our interface with the public. For a long time, we have been limited by the fact that it is only us and that there are no staff. What we can do is throttled by that and by the need to work in this Chamber, but artificial intelligence is in the process of changing that and making it possible for someone in our position to engage with a great deal more information and conversation than was ever possible in the past. It also makes it much easier for people outside this Chamber to have a connection with and understanding of us and what we are doing, in a way we can join in with, without overwhelming ourselves. We ought as a House to be determined to give the public the benefit of these technological changes.

I am not particularly attached to the mechanism in my proposed new clause. It will take some rethinking before Report to produce something that gives the House the initiative, but also the duty, to improve, that allows it to push forward and that encourages the Government to support that. Obviously, big changes need a Commons veto, but we can move so that most of this goes via Standing Orders, while the bits that cannot should go via secondary legislation. We would need the approval of the Commons but would not need to go through the rigmarole of a Bill. House of Lords Bills happen very occasionally, but our process of improvement ought to be constant.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, let me carry on on the groupings that we have and on the speech in introducing his amendment of my noble friend—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

We are on the second amendment of the day and this is the sixth speech from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I think we can all draw our own conclusions.

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, I fancy that, if this Bill dealt with the expulsion of all Peers over 80, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, would be a leading light in opposition to that legislation. I am simply carrying out my duty as a Member of this House to hold the Government to account and ask the questions that need to be asked. If the Labour Party choose not to turn up to this debate, that is entirely up to them.

I also point out that this Bill excludes by law 45 members of the Conservative Party. It excludes four members of the Labour Party, who almost certainly will be given life peerages, as precedent has demonstrated in the past. So it is hardly surprising that, as a group and a party in the House of Lords, we take a great deal of interest in what this Bill says and what it is attempting to achieve.

My noble friend Lord Caithness made a good point about what this Bill does. It does not just remove the hereditary Peers but creates a wholly appointed House. Some noble Lords will take exception to that fact. I know that the noble Lords on my left, the Liberal Democrats, would rather see a democratic House, and I have a great deal of sympathy with that, and there are other noble Lords who are very happy to see a wholly appointed House—but that appointment is almost entirely in the hands of the Prime Minister.

It is worth mentioning HOLAC. I know there will be amendments on HOLAC later on, but they are not directly relevant to the amendment before us. HOLAC is itself a creature of the Executive. There is no statute that has created HOLAC. It is there because the Prime Minister has decreed that it should be so. It could be snuffed out immediately. Therefore, it is right when we say that the appointment system is entirely in the hands of the Prime Minister. HOLAC reserves for itself a small number of independent Cross-Benchers. They are a delightful addition to this House. I very much agree with what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, particularly in respect of the hereditary Peers.

I therefore support my noble friend’s amendment. I have no idea why the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, accepted this amendment some years ago during a debate on his Bill. It may well have been that he got so bored of the debate that he thought he should just accept an amendment to make a difference. I think the noble Lord is trying to get in. I have come to the end of my remarks, so I am happy for him to speak if he wishes to do so.

Georgia

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

We will hear from the Lib Dem Benches next.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The noble Lord has made the point precisely—of course it would prejudice any future designations. I will not be tempted into doing that, because it would harm the impact. I repeat what my honourable friend said yesterday: we

“will consider all options to ensure those responsible are held accountable”.

I repeat that we are absolutely working in collaboration with the United States and the EU to ensure that whatever we decide in the future has maximum impact.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, asked an excellent question. With no disrespect to the European Union, does my noble friend the Minister not agree that it is the Council of Europe, of which Georgia is a member, that is important in dealing with this matter? Surely the Minister should work with the UK delegation to the Council of Europe, which is now headed by my noble friend Lord Touhig, and the Secretary-General, to see what pressure can be brought through that organisation.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. As I said in an earlier response, we have supported the joint statements through the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the United Nations, where we have consistently called for human rights to be respected. I am certainly prepared to sit down with our noble friend to talk about how we can take this matter further.

Intelligence and Security Committee

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

That the House approves the nominations of Lord Beamish, Lord West of Spithead, and Baroness Brown of Cambridge as members of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I fully support the Motion in the name of the Lord Privy Seal. Would it be appropriate at this time to ask if it would be possible for the Intelligence and Security Committee to conduct an investigation into H6 and all the allegations of spying by China?

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not think it is for the Lord Privy Seal to instruct the Intelligence and Security Committee on its business or how to conduct it. I am sure it will take note of the report, is fully aware of the situation and will do whatever is appropriate.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, it is a real privilege to follow my noble friend Lady Quin, although it is tinged with sadness that this is the last time we will share her wisdom in this Chamber. We are really grateful for what she has said today, but also for what she has done over the years.

I have known my friend, Joyce—if I can use her name for once in this Chamber—for many years. I have followed her stellar career with awe and great admiration. She spent 10 years in the European Parliament, which is a life sentence for some people. She did a wonderful job there. Then, as she said, she had 18 years in the other place and was a Minister of State in three separate departments: the Home Office, which sounded an interesting job; Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, which was even more interesting; and, above all, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where she was Minister for Europe—and a really great one. She has also had 18 years in this place, and we have all benefited from her wisdom and enjoyed her company. We are really sorry that she is leaving us. We look forward to taking up her invitation to be shown around the north-east. If we had had a north-east assembly, as we should have, my noble friend would have stood for that and would have done a really great job as a member of such an assembly. Sadly, we did not have it. We wish her well, we thank her greatly for her service and wish her a very long and happy retirement.

I turn now to the Bill, in fact to Lords’ reform more generally, on which my noble friend Baroness Quin and I agree. With no disrespect to the great work that this House has done, which I acknowledge, it is unacceptable that the second Chamber in a 21st-century legislature is not in some way accountable to the people. My long-term preference, and that of my noble friend Baroness Quin, is for a senate of the nations and region, indirectly elected and so accountable, but not a challenge to the primacy of the House of Commons. Meanwhile, we need to sort out, as others have said earlier, some of the worst aspects of our current system.

The first, and most outrageous, one that needs to be dealt with is the fact that 92 men are here solely by an accident of birth. This is why I wholeheartedly support this Bill, which is long overdue. I nevertheless join in the plea that others have made to the Leader of the House—the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, made it very effectively in his outstanding speech earlier —that we should look at some of the other aspects that need to be dealt with.

First, the House of Lords Appointments Commission needs to be reformed and, as others have said, given more powers. Secondly, we need to deal—again, as others have said—with the geographical imbalance. It is unacceptable that more than half the Members of this House are resident in London and the south-east of England. That is not a representation of the nation as a whole. Thirdly, we need to consider whether an age limit is needed, particularly, as some have said, on new appointments.

Fourthly, as I have argued on two previous occasions, we need to separate seeing the peerage as an honour, on one hand, and as a working peerage on the other. That confuses everything. As I said the other day, when I attacked the noble Lord, Lord Botham, for not turning up, I was attacked in return by his daughter, but we need to understand the difference between an honour and a working peerage. Then, fifthly, as others have said, we should set participation criteria for working peers. It is in our manifesto, and we should take that up. Sixthly, if we have working Peers and we accept that they are working, then there should be proper support to enable them to do their job properly. We do not have that at the moment. Finally, I say with a great deal of trepidation that we need to consider whether it is right that members from one Church—as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said, from one country—should have an automatic right to membership of this Chamber.

We must plan ahead for the long term as well, including, I would suggest, looking at the senates in western democracies such as France, Italy and Spain and the German Bundestag, so that we can at last move to a second Chamber that is fit for a 21st-century democracy. That also is long overdue.

House of Lords: Numbers and Eligibility

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, that was not the commitment in the Labour Party manifesto, but it has been raised with me by several noble Lords. There are different views across the House on that. I think the Burns report recommended 15 years, and another suggestion was 20 years. There is a choice for the House to make. I have not detected overall support for that. Partly, it has come about because much younger Peers have been appointed, and an appointment for life means that they are here for a very long time. The contrary to that is that hopefully, they will build up great expertise during their time here.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I am over here on the right wing, for reasons I shall not go into. It is astonishing to hear the Opposition spokesman calling for retirement at 80: that means a whole swathe of the people opposite, as well as on this side, will go. Further to the point raised by the noble Lords, Lord Fowler and Lord Forsyth, whom I agree with, when I raised the question of participation in the debate last time, I mentioned the noble Lord, Lord Botham, whom we never see. I was then immediately attacked in the press by his daughter, who said that it is difficult for him to come down from the north-east of England. Well, if it is difficult from the north-east of England, it is a lot more difficult from Scotland, I can tell you that. We have Members from Orkney, and that is even more difficult. Can the Minister confirm that once we get rid of the hereditaries—and that needs to be done quickly—she will convene all-party discussions to look at all these questions, including that of participation?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, and I remain grateful to him. He talks about a retirement age of 80. He knows—he was one of the first to mention it—that it is not 80 but the end of the Parliament in which somebody turns 80. We have been having discussions around the House, and I am grateful to noble Lords who have given me suggestions already. I do not want to dwell on individual Peers’ attendance, but we all want every Member to play a full role and be committed to the work of your Lordships’ House.

G20 and COP 29 Summits

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My apologies: I did not address that point in the time I had. Yes, there are ongoing discussions with others to make further progress on that.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, will the Leader of the House confirm that the Prime Minister will ignore the bleatings from those opposite and continue to attend all these important meetings with world leaders? That is far more useful than, for example, Boris Johnson going to Italy to be entertained by Russian oligarchs. Given the record of the Tory Government over the last 14 years, does my noble friend not agree that the statement by the shadow Leader of the House shows a brass neck of which a kettle would be proud?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I always love my noble friend’s mixed metaphors, but I am not sure that a kettle has a brass neck. If it does, he has found it. One of the things that I find most useful, and I am sure everyone in the House agrees, is that whenever you attend a conference or meeting you make contacts and get to know people. In the few months that he has been Prime Minister, my right honourable friend has had to attend various conferences and summits. When you make good relations with people in the good times and have easy discussions, it makes those difficult discussions and harder negotiations easier in the longer term. There is no way that a bad or absent relationship helps this country. I hear the noise around the House, but I am grateful that we have a Prime Minister who recognises that good relationships with leaders of other countries are useful to this country, in good times and in bad. They promote the national interest, which is extraordinarily important.