House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Glenarthur Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Glenarthur (Con)]

My Lords, as I have listened to today’s debate, I have been wondering what I or anybody else can usefully add to what has been said, but after almost 48 years in your Lordships’ House, I feel compelled to speak briefly.

First, I echo those who have suggested that constitutional change must be brought about only if fully considered and if there is good reason for it. If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. This Bill attempts to fulfil an ambition of the Labour Party which it claims fulfils its ambitions laid out in the 1999 Act. As my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth said, it is not thought-through.

My next point, which was eloquently made by my noble friend a few minutes ago, relates to history. I greatly appreciate that inheritance provided my opportunity 48 years ago to play a part here—ultimately, with eight years on the Front Bench. To remove that opportunity from the remaining rump of the elected hereditary peerage currently here, or their successors who might wish to take it up if it were open to them, is another snapping of the threads, as my noble friend Lord Murray referred to, which have helped hold our constitution together for years. What good will this Bill do? Something will be lost should the hereditary element leave your Lordships’ House—something perhaps indefinable but, once lost, impossible or at least impracticable to replace.

Dwelling on the past is one aspect of this. The other point, as has been well made, is that the Government have no clue what they want to do to reform your Lordships’ House. They seem to appreciate neither the complexities of the relationship between another place and this House nor the delicate balance of the constitution, so well described by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. Great minds have worked on this for years; my noble friend Lord Wakeham’s royal commission was but one. Each attempt has failed, and I doubt that agreement will ever be reached.

This is a spiteful Bill which, in the great scheme of things, will achieve nothing to improve this House, as my noble friend Lord Eccles hinted a few minutes ago. Yet over the years, before and after 1999, the House of Lords has done its job, helped by its hereditary Members with great diligence and loyalty to whatever party they belonged or none, but particularly to the House as a whole and what it is here to try to achieve.

The noble Baroness the Leader of the House and others have paid a degree of commendation towards hereditary Peers over the years. I hope she will recall that, in various forms, their predecessors have been part of our legislature for about 1,000 years, going back as far as the Magnum Concilium in the early 11th century. These historical aspects have been well ventilated and thoroughly explained by my noble friend Lord Roberts of Belgravia. They may not be well known or even seem relevant, but they should not be glossed over.

If, as a Parliament, we throw away elements of our constitutional history on the whim of political expediency, without any agreed alternative, and all on the altar of so-called democratic opinion—which, in any case, cannot apply to your Lordships’ House, because it will be wholly appointed—and to which the Government have shown no alternative either to your Lordships or the country at large, we risk impoverishing the constitutional aspects that have helped bind together elements that the United Kingdom has stood for over many generations.