House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Grocott Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd December 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Grocott]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, it is my pleasure to present to the House a simple, two-clause Bill that costs nothing and hurts no one, and which would scrap once and for all the ludicrous system of by-elections for hereditary Peers.

This is the fourth time in five years that I have introduced a Bill like this. It is barely believable to me still that we have a system in the 21st century whereby 90 places in our legislature are reserved for hereditary Peers—all men—who, when they die or retire, are replaced in a by-election system in which only hereditary Peers can stand and, for the most part, only hereditary Peers can vote.

My previous attempts to change the law were filibustered by a tiny minority of Peers, led by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. But, despite the setbacks, I relish the opportunity to bring this Bill forward again, buoyed as I am by the overwhelming support I continue to receive from Members in all parts of the House, not least among many of the 90 hereditaries themselves. Inevitably, the day will come when the tiny minority opposing the Bill, who insist still on playing King Canute, will lose the fight. Let us hope, for the reputation of this House, that it is sooner rather than later.

As the House knows, the by-elections were introduced as a temporary measure in the House of Lords Act 1999—so we are 22 years on and counting. Colleagues who have been good enough to attend these Second Reading debates in the past could be forgiven for thinking that they know my speech pretty well by heart. But I have good news: for those of us with a taste for satire, the by-elections are a gift that keeps on giving.

I need to bring the House up to date. Just 10 days after we discussed this issue in March last year, I was both surprised and delighted when no less a person than the Leader of the House herself presented a Motion to suspend all by-elections for hereditary Peers. The Motion carried in minutes without debate. The suspension lasted for just over a year, until April 2021. In truth, the Leader had no option, because virtually all elections were suspended during the lockdown. When we were suspending council elections, it would have been rather odd if the only elections going on through the pandemic were by-elections for hereditary Peers. But, from the point of view of those of us who want the by-elections scrapped, a wonderful precedent has been set: a 12-month experiment with no by-elections. I am able to report to the House that no adverse effects were reported. The House continued to function. There was no sense of loss, no petition for their resumption. The nation remained calm.

The 12-month suspension of the by-elections inevitably resulted in a number of them building up, so in the summer and autumn of this year we have been treated to no fewer than seven of them—let us call it a “glut” of by-elections, or perhaps a better collective noun would be an “absurdity”. They brought with them yet more rich material for those who want them scrapped. For example, the one on 16 June, following the retirement of the Countess of Mar, marked the departure of the last remaining woman hereditary Peer. When the system was established in 1999, there were five women among the 90. One by one they retired and were replaced in each case by a man. Need I say that in the by-election to replace Lady Mar, all 10 candidates were men? Steadily, over 22 years, this ridiculous system has not just remained ridiculous, it has actually become more ridiculous—and by the way, among the many hereditary Peers who supported my Bill was the Countess of Mar herself, and I was always grateful for her encouragement.

Then there was the splendid example on 1 June of the by-election for a new Labour Peer following the death of my noble friend Lord Rea. The electorate to replace him consisted of the three remaining Labour hereditary Peers. I will say that again. We had a by-election yesterday—but the one in June was a parliamentary by-election for a new Member of Parliament with an electorate of three. Needless to say, none of my three noble friends had any enthusiasm whatever for exercising this particular democratic right. But fate intervened and was kind to us. Of the 203 Peers on the register of hereditaries who had shown an interest in joining the Lords, only one came forward for the Labour vacancy: my new noble friend Lord Stansgate. So we were all spared the embarrassment of what would have been a truly farcical election.

Then, on 10 November, we had another by-election for a Labour vacancy. At this point, perhaps I should remind the House that this particular by-election, in which the whole House was the electorate, was one of 15 established under the 1999 Act to enable those hereditary Peers who were Deputy Speakers at the time to remain in the House. After 22 years, many of the original 15 are of course no longer Deputy Speakers and the person who wins the by-election is not expected to become a Deputy Speaker either. If noble Lords are still with me, let me summarise the position. In these Deputy Speaker by-elections, the departing Member does not have to be a Deputy Speaker and the person replacing him does not have to be one either—you know it makes sense.

Turning back to the most recent by-election for a Labour vacancy, three candidates put themselves forward. One declared himself to be a Conservative and announced in his 14-word candidate statement:

“Always happy to serve if requested”.


He said he had

“many happy memories of the House.”

At least it was a Labour candidate who won.

The two by-elections in June and October remind us, among other things, of the political balance among the hereditaries. There are echoes of the period before 1999 when there was such a colossal Conservative majority. Here we are in 2021, with two Labour vacancies to fill, and of the 203 names on the register, only two Labour candidates were available. In contrast, for the Conservative vacancy in June, there were 21 candidates.

So far, since 1999, there have been 43 lucky by-election winners. As the House knows, when the Lords Appointments Commission makes its recommendations for life Peers, it takes account of factors that might make new Peers more representative of the country that they are appointed to serve. So what of the elected 43? I am very grateful to the House of Lords Library for providing me with some useful information.

The House may be interested to know, for example, that, among the cohort elected in the by-elections, when compared with the original 90 there are now more dukes and fewer barons—so at least the by-elections are delivering a better class of Peer. I have often reminded the House that there are no women and no ethnic minorities among the by-election victors.

What about some other characteristics of the lucky winners? If we look for example at the geographic distribution of the 43, while there are none at all from Wales, the West Midlands or the north-east, there are 19 from London and the south-east—

[Noble Lords]

One from Wales.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Sorry, there is one from Wales; I will correct that. There is one Peer from Wales, the West Midlands and the north-east combined and there are 19 from London and the south-east.

If we look at occupational backgrounds, we find just one who is an engineer and 27 from business, industry and finance. If we look at educational background, we find that 21 of those Peers, or 45%, went to Eton. I hear much approval for that from some sections of the other Benches. I would be very interested to hear from the Minister when he winds up how all these facts assist the Government with their levelling-up agenda.

The truth is that the few Members of this House who still support the by-elections are bereft of any credible case. The one argument they have kept repeating for 22 years is that a deal was done in 1999 which promised to keep the remaining hereditaries until such a time as there was a fully reformed House of Lords. I can see the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, in his place, and no doubt he is itching to make the same point in today’s debate.

Well, I really am delighted to tell the House that that argument has been blown completely out of the water by no less a figure than the Marquess of Salisbury. I remind the House that he was the Leader of the Opposition in the run-up to 1999 and led the negotiations to protect the 90 hereditaries. I will quote from an interview he gave to the Financial Times on 11 November this year.

He told the FT he had warned Tony Blair—who was, let us not forget, a Prime Minister with a majority of over 150 in the Commons—that, unless some hereditaries were retained, there would be carnage in the Lords which would wreck the Labour Government’s whole legislative programme. He said:

“My whole tactic was to make their flesh creep … I threatened them with the Somme and Passchendaele.”


He offered to call off the threat, but only if some hereditaries were retained. How many? He demanded 100. He went on to say:

“I thought we might need some kind of rationale for this. So I said that 75 would be about 10 per cent of the existing hereditaries, then we’d need a few more—perhaps 15—with experience of running committees, that sort of thing, to help with the transition”.


He concluded:

“It was frightful bullshit really.”


That is the Marquess of Salisbury. I will be interested to hear from those Members who speak against my Bill later today how he got that wrong. So there we have from the horse’s mouth the whole outrageous detail of what happened in 1999, from the Marquess of Salisbury, which some in this House have used for 22 years to defend the indefensible.

We can all understand those few hereditaries who want the by-elections to continue; they have a clear personal interest. I have to confess to the House that my own parliamentary life might have been a lot easier if there were 90 places reserved for the eldest sons of railwaymen. The idea is of course a joke, but the persistence of these by-elections is not. By continuing with them, we make ourselves not just indefensible but plain silly—the worst criticism in any argument that I can think of. It is silly. Scrapping them would, albeit in a small way, show everyone that we can make improvements and reform ourselves.

We have had seven of these wretched by-elections this year, which is more than in any previous year. So let us make our own little bit of history by putting this Bill on the statute book and making the by-election held last month the very last one of all. I commend the Bill to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish that people did not have trains to go to, because I have about five hours of rebuttal here—and, my word, some of it does need rebutting.

I probably need to apologise to the House, because clearly four or five Peers must have dropped off during the latter part of my speech. It is not unheard of that people go to sleep while I am speaking, but they missed the chunk where I explained conclusively—there is no argument with this whatever—that the deal referred to by four or five noble Lords was one made under duress. That is precisely how it happened. Noble Lords do not need to take my word for it—as they clearly have not over the years, because I have made this point frequently. It was a joy to hear that, at long last, the Marquess of Salisbury, Leader of the Conservative group in the House of Lords at the time, has told us that that deal was made under the threat to the Labour Government of destroying our legislative programme. Think of the outrage of that: a Labour Government, with a majority of over 150—around double the majority of the current Government—being told by around 800 hereditary Peers, as there then were, “We’re going to wreck your legislative programme unless you make major concessions.”

I am being asked to give way, and I will—but it had better be good.

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. Does he recall the passage in Alastair Campbell’s memoirs when he said that he could not believe that Viscount Cranborne was going to go along with this deal, as it was only going to end in tears for him?

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I am not sure that I understood that intervention. I have read most of Alastair Campbell’s memoirs—but I can tell the noble Lord what was going on in Downing Street in 1999, because I was working there. We were certainly worried to death about the whole of that legislative programme. Our clear manifesto commitment was to remove all the hereditaries, and we were prevented from doing that because we were told that the rest of the programme would be wrecked. If there are any noble Lords who have not picked up on that and understood it, will they please read it again in Hansard, or read the comments that the Marquess of Salisbury has made? Do us all a favour, please, and when or if we have this debate next year—if it fails this year, I shall bring it back, and that is not a threat but a promise—let us end the discussion about that. It is simply false, incorrect, wrong and absurd. I hope that I have made myself clear.

The other point that needs repeating, even though several—

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. My understanding was that at the time, if he wished to, the Prime Minister could have created enough Peers to get his legislation through.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I can only assume from that that the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, would have been in favour of a Prime Minister, with a clear manifesto promise and a huge majority in the Commons, creating 700 or 800 Peers in order to get his legislation through the Lords. He talks about respecting tradition and not upsetting the apple cart too much, but that is an outrageous suggestion and I think he knows it.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister at the time did have another option of course, which was to have a general election. Peers versus the people—we know what the result would have been. We took full account of that, because I was there at the time.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Is the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, suggesting that a week or so after winning a majority of 150 in the House of Commons, on a manifesto commitment to get rid of all the hereditaries, it would have been a good idea to hold another election so quickly?

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, we knew that we had to comply with that manifesto commitment. The party opposite and the Prime Minister were out-negotiated by Lord Cranborne.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

It was not complied with, as he perfectly well knows. You do not need a second general election in order to validate the promises made at the first one a few weeks before. We are getting into the ludicrous weeds at the moment, I have to say.

The other thing that people simply have not given an answer to is the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and my noble friend Lord Anderson that Governments cannot bind their successors. This is line one, rule one of any course on the British constitution, which everyone seems to understand. I never thought I would need to explain that to Members of the House of Lords. Of course you cannot bind your successor. As the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said, why would you bother having elections if that applied?

I thought I would check the figures. If we look at the people who were actually in either House in 1999 when this binding—we are told—agreement was made, which all of us must abide by, most people were not in the House of Commons or the House of Lords at that time. Some 75% of this House—590 of us, including me—arrived after the 1999 deal, or so-called deal, was struck. In the Commons, the figures are even greater: 90% of MPs in the Commons have come here since 1999; only 62 of the 650 Members of the House of Commons were here in 1999. Do eight or nine people in this Chamber today have the affront to say that those Members of the House of Commons and of this House must absolutely deliver to the letter the deal that was made, which in some cases was before they were born? It is an absurd argument. I feel as though I am dealing with a new class on the British constitution sometimes, when I am winding up these debates. Those are the figures.

I am obviously grateful to so many of my colleagues and Members on the other side; the strength of feeling on this is reflected right across the Chamber. I have to mention the noble Lord, Lord Young—I was not born yesterday; I knew that, when he was giving the answers from that Front Bench, he basically did not believe a word of it. I am not one to talk, because I have whipped a few Bills through that I did not believe a word of, but that is life.

[Viscount Waverley (CB)]

I apologise for intervening, but hope that the noble Lord considers what I say sensible, and I give him an opportunity to reflect as he now winds down, regarding moving this Second Reading Motion. I certainly recognise his frustration. He has given this subject, yet again, a very good airing. However, in the circumstances, and given that the Government seemingly will not give their support to this Private Member’s Bill, I wonder, with regret, whether frankly this time around it is yet again a lost cause and whether the nob le Lord might wish to consider not moving it through the process.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a lifelong season ticket holder at Stoke City, so I am used to lost causes—but you do win occasionally. Sooner or later, I will win with this, I am quite sure about that.

[Viscount Waverley (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not think that I will give way again, much as I enjoy the interventions, but “holes” and “stop digging” occur to me every time someone intervenes. People will expect me to move on.

I noted what the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, said about principle. I think he was basically saying that the Labour Party is driven by principle irrespective of whether it works, whereas the Conservative Party is more pragmatic. I certainly am not ashamed of the principles that I have stuck to during my career. I have noticed, in talking to one or two opponents of this Bill—and there are only one or two opponents—that I learn more about the Tory party the older I get; they have a deep underlying principle at stake. It is only for a small proportion, but a good few of them in here: their principle is taking the word “conservative” literally to mean “do not change anything”. I had a word with them—it was a private conversation so I will not reveal any names. A Tory came to me to say he was sorry but he was not able to support the Bill. I asked why not, and he said “Well, I am a proper conservative: I am not even that keen on the 1832 Reform Act.” That is, I have to acknowledge, a proper Conservative. Of course, it is at complete variance with the Tory party—I am in awe of its skills in that it manages to do somersaults on leaderships, policies and anything else as long as it keeps itself in office; I have noticed that over the years.

A number of people also mentioned the possibility of more time for this Bill. I am very grateful for the suggestion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, which is one that has crossed my mind from time to time. She was completely misrepresented by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan—I think, I am sorry if I am wrong—who said that she was recommending breaking the law. She was not recommending doing that at all; if she was, then so was the Leader of the House when she proposed a suspension of the by-elections, which I referred to and which was carried. That was precisely what the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, was saying: there is maybe a case for the House deciding to suspend the by-elections while this Bill, or maybe its successor, is being considered. That seems to be a perfectly proper, sensible and quite persuasive argument as far as I am concerned. I hope that the House might be asked to make a decision of that sort and that it would be desirable.

I noted another couple of points that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, made. One of them, which I have to say I do not think was very persuasive, was that because we have a hereditary monarchy, we need to keep hereditary people in the House of Lords. The reason we have a constitutional monarchy, as much as anything else, is because the monarch absolutely eschews any kind of legislative power. When was the last time a monarch said no to a Bill? I think it was Queen Anne; I seem to have been told about that once. We debated all this on Tuesday with the dissolution Bill. At all costs, the monarch must not be involved in political and law-making matters, but the 90 hereditary Peers in this House are intimately involved in passing laws which the rest of us have to abide by. So I found that a pretty weak argument.

One argument made by the noble Lord, Lord True, was not so much weak as inconsistent. He has said several times, from the Front Bench but also from the Back Benches, that, as far as the House of Lords was concerned, he did not agree with piecemeal change. He argued that we needed major changes and major comprehensive reforming proposals. But I noticed that he said in winding up that this Bill was not a trivial Bill—that it was a very fundamental Bill about the nature of the House of Lords. So I can only say to the noble Lord, Lord True: which is it? If it is a major constitutional Bill, which is what he is rather suggesting, it is something he might at least want the House to debate, consider and determine.

He was also wrong to say that the Government’s position over these past five years and four Bills was unchanged. The Government’s position was not unchanged; they kept moving the goalposts or changing the excuses. I was told, first, that the Government did not have time for the Bill because of the Brexit debate that was going on and because everything was very busy. The next time, I was told that it could not go on because of the Burns report on the size of the House—I think that was one of the arguments deployed by the noble Lord, Lord Young—so it was premature to discuss it at that time. Now we are being told that we do not have time to discuss it because it is a major change—despite the fact that the Minister has said that he is in favour of major changes, not piecemeal ones. So, I have had difficulty in following some of the arguments.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, also argued that on the doorstep in north Shropshire, or wherever, he did not see people demanding a change to the hereditary by-election system in the House of Lords. Hold the front page—of course he would not have seen that. I have been canvassing longer than him, because I am older than him, but let me tell him that on the doorstep in most of the by-elections I have been involved in, the Government never mention any of the legislation going through Parliament at the time. Indeed, many people—including, I am sure, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan—voted on Tuesday for Second Reading of the dissolution Bill. It is a very important Bill in my book, but I very much doubt whether the people of north Shropshire are lying awake at night worrying about the dissolution Bill. It is a most absurd basis on which to reject a piece of legislation: to say that we should not do anything about it in this House because, at 8 pm, when “Coronation Street” has just finished and someone comes to the door, people do not start talking about the House of Lords hereditary Peers Bill. I am at a loss with some of these arguments.

People will be missing their trains. All I can say is, let us respect the overwhelming view of the people in this House and get this Bill on the statute book.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 30th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, the House might allow me to mention that, in June 2014, a Labour Back-Bencher introduced the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (Repeal) Bill. I happen to have a copy of it with me here. Modesty prevents me mentioning the name of the person who introduced the Bill, but it got nowhere; the Government ignored it. Had they not, we would have saved ourselves an awful lot of time and trouble. At least this allows me to deploy my favourite parliamentary phrase: “I told you so”. The intentions of the Bill before us are clear: first, to scrap the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 and, secondly, to return to the system of dissolving Parliament which existed prior to the Act. I very much agree with the first objective, but some significant improvement is needed to the second.

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 was a bad piece of legislation. It was a major constitutional Bill presented in haste, with no attempt at reaching consensus and no pre-legislative scrutiny. Perhaps most damning of all, the Bill was drafted in cynicism between two political parties, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats, that did not trust each other and wanted a mechanism that would keep them in office for a full five-year term. David Laws, in his book 22 Days in May, says it all:

“William Hague and George Osborne indicated that we needed a mechanism to build confidence in each other … That pointed to fixed-term parliaments”.


So much for David Cameron’s quote that it was a major transfer of power from the Government to the legislature. I was amazed that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, quoted that approvingly when, quite clearly and unarguably, the whole purpose of the Bill was to guarantee the Executive a five-year term. That is no way to make constitutional change. I would like to hear from the Minister on this; perhaps he could apologise on behalf of the Conservative Government at the time that this Bill was ever introduced, and say that no major constitutional change will be introduced without full cross-party debate and pre-legislative scrutiny as long as this Government are in office.

The 2011 Act led to serious damage to the way in which our democracy works. This was particularly evident during what I can describe only as the poisonous Parliament between 2017 and 2019. There were at least two deeply damaging episodes for which the Act was directly responsible. The first was in January 2019 when we had the first of the so-called meaningful votes on Brexit. The Government lost that vote by 432 votes to 203, with a majority against them of over 220. Prior to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act and the conventions that existed at the time, there is no conceivable way that a Government could have survived a defeat like that without either an immediate vote of confidence or by calling a general election.

An even more damaging consequence of the Act was in autumn 2019. This was when the Government had unarguably lost the confidence of the Commons, again on their European policy. Three times they tried to call an election to settle the matter and three times failed to achieve the two-thirds majority required by the Act. This meant that in our cherished parliamentary democracy, whose foundational building block is that Governments govern on the basis of the confidence of Parliament, we faced a situation in which a Government remained in office despite clearly having lost Parliament’s confidence. They could not pass their legislation nor enable the British people to vote in a general election. No wonder it is such a discredited Parliament.

What should we put in the Act’s place? I was privileged to be a member of the Joint Committee that examined the current Bill. There were two related issues that we must have spent half our time discussing. The first concerned the role of the monarch and the need to keep the Queen out of politics. The second was about the so-called Dissolution principles. These issues are fundamental to our democracy. They are, after all, questions about the circumstances in which the British people can exercise their most fundamental democratic right—the right to vote.

The Government’s answer to these questions is, on the surface, a very simple one. It is to return to the system exactly as it was before the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. This meant that, apart from in a very restricted number of conventions, a general election could take place whenever a Prime Minister requested that the monarch dissolve Parliament. But herein lies the rub: as we know, a request, as opposed to advice, from a Prime Minister means that the monarch still has discretion about whether to accept the request. Then inevitably you hit a serious problem. If you consider it essential to keep the monarch out of politics—I do—how on earth can you allow even the possibility of her deciding whether she can refuse a request from a Prime Minister for a general election? Such a decision would be a major constitutional crisis. There could hardly be a more politically charged subject.

There is a solution, which has been touched on by previous speakers. In my view it is a very simple one, and it is that a general election should be held not just when a Prime Minister goes to the monarch and requests one, but when a Prime Minister goes to the monarch armed with a House of Commons resolution and advises her to hold one. Remember that, in our constitution, advice from the Prime Minister is something that the monarch would accept. This simple requirement of a majority in the Commons solves every problem at a stroke. The Government get what they want because a Prime Minister—who of course would not be Prime Minister unless he or she enjoyed the confidence of the Commons—would get the necessary majority on such a fundamental issue. There would be no need for endless debates about Dissolution principles as the authority of Parliament is the only principle that you need. The Queen is kept completely out of politics; she is simply abiding by the supreme authority of a parliamentary majority.

There are other advantages. First, a resolution of Parliament would not be challenged by the courts, so the judiciary would be kept out of politics. Secondly, we would avoid the bizarre embarrassment of the Bill as drafted, which hands back power from Parliament to the monarch. The whole history of our democracy involves the steady transfer of prerogative powers from the monarch to Parliament. This Bill effectively says, “No, we don’t want these powers so please can the hereditary monarch take them back?” By the way, if the Minister when replying says that the whole purpose of the Bill is to give the power of Dissolution back to the Prime Minister to avoid the chaos of the last Parliament, the answer is simply this: on the three occasions when Boris Johnson wanted a general election, he would have got one under my proposal because a majority of MPs said yes. It was simply the requirement of a two-thirds majority that caused the chaos.

I also say to those who object to the idea of a simple majority of government-supporting MPs being able to call an election when it suits them, they can do that already. The Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 did just that with a simple majority. I am suggesting a solution that keeps both the monarch and the courts out of politics. It enables a Prime Minister with a majority in the Commons to secure a general election, just as Prime Ministers have been able to do in the past. It solves at a stroke all the problems of having to define Dissolution principles. All that is needed is to include in the Bill a provision that a Dissolution will take place when the Prime Minister arrives at the palace armed with a House of Commons resolution, which would then be granted automatically. I very much hope that the Minister can see that case when he winds up, and I look forward to his reply.

House of Lords: Appointments Process

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I will not even try to follow that. In two minutes, there is virtually nothing one can say; no great points can be made and I am certainly not going to enter a discussion of wholesale reform of the Lords, although we should by all means have a proper debate on that.

I want to restrict myself to just three conditions that would be required for any new statutory appointments commission to function in an acceptable way. The first has already been mentioned several times, and is the size of the House. An appointments commission must have a structure in terms of how many appointments it can make, and 600 should be the maximum.

The second condition addresses itself to the question of this being a working Chamber. For people appointed to the House, we still have not resolved the issue of whether getting a peerage is an honour or a job. To me, it has always been a job. It is, of course, an honour as well, but the prime function is to come here and work.

We talk about ourselves being a working House. We are a very effective working House in the scrutiny of legislation, which is detailed and hard work, but a working House needs workers. It is difficult to find an easy solution, but any Appointments Commission would need at the very least to have a written public undertaking from anyone appointed that they would give the time and energy required to being a proper Member of a working second Chamber. There also needs to be a mechanism whereby, for those not fulfilling that responsibility, the commission would have the power to state that that was the case, and some action could be taken.

Finally, I want to thank the three Peers, the noble Lords, Lord Fowler and Lord Dubs, and the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, who have mentioned the absurdity of the hereditary by-election. Hereditary Peers are not vetted by the House; they are not vetted for propriety and at the very least that should happen. Of course, the best thing would be to get rid of it completely. Sooner or later, the noble Lord, Lord True, despite the long history of his position on this, must realise that he is playing King Canute by refusing to move on the absurd system of hereditary by-elections.

Hereditary Peers: By-elections

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Grocott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the operation of section 2 of the House of Lords Act 1999; and what plans they have, if any, to amend section 2(4) which has so far resulted in 43 by-elections to replace hereditary peers.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government currently have no plans to amend Section 2(4) of the House of Lords Act 1999 to end by-elections for replacing excepted hereditary Peers.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not in the least surprised by that reply. As the noble Lord knows, a by-election is taking place as we speak—the drama of it is among all of us. It is the seventh this year and, as the Minister knows, following the retirement of the Countess of Mar, there are now no women at all among the 92 hereditary places. Is it not obvious to the Minister, as it is to pretty well everyone else—apart from maybe half a dozen in this House—that a system of by-elections in which only hereditary Peers can stand and, in most cases, only hereditary Peers can vote, and which in practice is for men only, is not just indefensible but risible?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, if the noble Lord was not surprised by my Answer, I was not surprised by his question. The Act was part of an understanding and agreement that was enacted in statute and then as required in Standing Orders in 1999. The noble Lord was PPS to the Prime Minister at the time and assented to that. Yes, there is a by-election today. I have voted in it and, in accordance with the Carter convention, I voted for a Labour Peer. I have kept to the agreements made in 1999.

Brexit Opportunities

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome a number of the advantages that the noble Lord has identified of us being able to make our own laws again, but it might have been interesting or even entertaining if he had also listed the things that have not happened as a result of us leaving the European Union, which I have certainly listened to interminably over the last four years. At random, I say that we do not have the half a million unemployed that George Osborne said would occur; I seem to remember that it was said somewhere that the M20 would be a car park; and essential medicines were not going to be able to get into the country as a result of it all. It might be quite useful to have a list of that sort. However, the exhilarating thing in the Minister’s essential remarks is that if the Government make a mess of this, in two or three or maybe fewer years the British people will throw the Government out—they will have the capacity to do that. In contrast, when the EU has made laws via the Commission over so many years, many of them very bad, no one has been able to do that. That is at the heart of what has happened, and it is still exhilarating.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his comments. That is a very good suggestion; indeed, a lot of things have not happened that the gloom-mongers said would happen, and they are not going to happen. He is right that this is about bringing back democracy; if you do not like what we are doing, there are ways of dealing with that. We believe we are doing the right thing for the country and that it will prosper under the agenda we are setting out.

House of Lords Appointments Commission

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, in my priceless two minutes I will raise a couple of issues that I believe any statutory appointments commission would need to address. The first is the question of political balance. Since the House of Lords Act 1999, which removed most of the hereditaries, it has always been assumed that the governing party should never have an overall majority of those taking a party Whip. There was never any possibility of the last Labour Government dominating politics in the Lords. Indeed, for eight of Labour’s 13 years in office, the Conservative Opposition had more Members than the Labour Government. Even at its highest point in 2010, the number of Labour Peers was 235 and the number of Tories was 214. How different things are today, after 11 years of Tory Government. There are now 263 Tories and just 173 Members of the Labour Opposition.

Perhaps even more significant is the balance between the Government’s supporters on the one hand and the main opposition parties on the other. Today, for the first time since the 1999 Act, the Conservative Party in the Lords has a majority over Labour and the Liberal Democrats combined—something no one thought was ever likely to happen under any Government. That is why I believe that any appointments commission should have a remit to report on the effects of its decisions on the political balance in the House—not to make those decisions, but to report on their effect.

Very briefly, I cannot make reference to a possible statutory appointments commission without mentioning its impact on the system of by-elections for hereditary Peers. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, in his excellent Bill says that

“the Commission must have regard to the diversity of the United Kingdom population.”

I, of course, want the by-elections to end, but any statutory appointments commission must surely apply that principle of diversity to the hereditaries as well as to the life Peers. I remind the House that the 92 hereditaries include no women and no ethnic minorities—and that, to put the icing on the cake, 50% of the hereditaries elected under the by-election system went to Eton. So I would require the Appointments Commission to report on the extent to which the register of hereditary Peers meets the requirement of having regard to the diversity of the United Kingdom—and all I can say is good luck in doing that.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Grocott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, for reform of the House of Lords.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, the Conservative manifesto committed to looking at the role of the House of Lords. That is the manifesto position. We are keeping these issues under consideration but have been clear that we do not want piecemeal reform.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, with respect to the Minister, I do not think that was much of an Answer. It was a pretty simple Question; a yes or no would probably have been acceptable. The Minister has been involved in these issues for a long time and will be aware of two proposals for reform that are strongly supported in all parts of the House. The first is to reduce the size of the House to around 600 Members. The second is to end these ridiculous by-elections for hereditary Peers. Given that these two reforms are simple and popular and would cost nothing and hurt no one, will he tell us whether the Government are prepared to support them and, if not, why not?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, on a cap on the size of the House, which we have frequently discussed, both the previous Prime Minister and the current Prime Minister have made it clear that it would require further consideration and wider engagement and have not accepted that proposal. As for the noble Lord’s repeated efforts to put forward his Bill, we look forward to discussing his Bill. I will ask him to explain, when he introduces it at Second Reading, why he supported the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, which reinforced and entrenched the position of hereditary Peer elections in this House.

Constitution Inquiry

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I certainly agree that striving for commonalities is wise advice to us all.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, on constitutional reform, can the Minister confirm that, following the retirement of the Countess of Mar, all Peers among the 92 places reserved for hereditaries are men; that all 21 candidates in today’s by-election for three Conservative hereditaries are men; and that all 10 candidates for the Cross-Bench vacancy are men? Is this not utterly unacceptable? What are the Government going to do about it?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the Government will continue to apply the law of the land until the law of the land is changed.

House of Lords: Size

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Grocott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to limit the size of the House of Lords.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, given retirements and other departures, some new Members are essential to keep the expertise and the outlook of the Lords fresh. This will ensure that the Lords continues to fulfil its role in scrutinising and revising legislation while respecting the primacy of the Commons.

[Lord Grocott (Lab) [V]]

Can the Minister confirm that in the past 12 months the Prime Minister has appointed 59 new Peers, bringing our total membership to 833, and that, if we continue at anything like this rate, by the end of a five-year Parliament there could be close to 1,000 Peers? Given that this House has suggested practical ways to reduce our numbers, will the Government work with us to achieve this or, if not, is it really government policy to increase our size with no upper limit whatever?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s concern is that the House of Lords operates effectively, as I believe it does. The noble Lord who asked the question was a private secretary to a previous Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, between 1997 and 2001, when more than 200 Peers were sent to your Lordships’ House. Perhaps it was that painful experience that makes him so militant on this subject.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 8th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to welcome this amendment and to add my name to it. I can also be brief because of the excellent speech by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. I strongly supported the three-month provision in Committee, and I welcome this amendment, because it keeps the Conservative Party’s hands absolutely clean and above board. I make no apologies for reminding the House, as I did in Committee, that there have been only two occasions when Boundary Commission reports were abandoned: one was the disgraceful episode involving Jim Callaghan’s Government, who scuppered the report; and the other was a rather grubby move by the Lib Dems in 2011 to scupper the Boundary Commission report then. That was done purely out of spite because they had lost the PR referendum.

Enough of going over old bones: this now means that this Conservative Government will deliver on the commitment to make sure that Boundary Commission reports are presented automatically within four months unless there are these exceptional circumstances. My noble friend Lord Young cited a couple; they do seem to be rather serious and very exceptional circumstances. I will be grateful if my noble friend the Minister has got any more examples, but they do seem to set a standard that it would be very exceptional circumstances indeed before a Boundary Commission report did not proceed. Therefore, I welcome this compromise and I commend it to the House.

[Lord Grocott (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I certainly support this amendment; without it the Bill would have been based on a false prescription

Repeatedly during the passage of the Bill, we heard from Ministers that through it, Boundary Commission proposals can be brought forward without political interference. The dreadful word “automaticity” entered our vocabulary —or was refreshed—repeatedly. Under the system prior to this amendment, which I hope will pass, there certainly was not automaticity; there was automaticity “up to a point, Lord Copper”. An automatic car goes up through the gears without any interference from the driver. In the case of this Bill, the Boundary Commission proposals could move forward seamlessly over the first few hurdles, but at the point where the Order in Council had to be presented, that involved the driver, who, in this case, of course, is the Minister. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young, deals with that problem to a considerable extent—not quite as far as far as I would have liked, but there we are.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Young. I reread his Committee stage speech and it really was masterly. The Minister, in fairness, realised this and all but said, “game, set, match and tournament” when he was winding up. Of course, we still do not quite have automaticity, and the part of the amendment that maybe I should have put down an amendment to and do not feel too happy about is that the four-month requirement for the laying of the Order shall proceed

“unless there are exceptional circumstances.”

In his speech today, the noble Lord, Lord Young, was all too aware that the validity and strength of this amendment depends to a degree on what is meant precisely by “unless there are exceptional circumstances”. The Minister said that they would be things like the Covid crisis. No one would deny that that is an exceptional circumstance but of course, as far as I can remember in my political life, whenever there are exceptional circumstances of anything approaching that level, emergency legislation is immediately introduced. Among other things, as with the Covid legislation, this sets asides all sorts of aspects of normal political behaviour. It postpones local elections. You cannot get anything quite as interfering in the normal processes of democracy as postponing local elections.

I am quite certain that if exceptional circumstances of the sort the Minister is envisaging were ever to take place and emergency legislation were required, it would be easy to insert a provision stating that the four-month rule must be overruled. I really see no need to put in the Bill the phrase “unless there are exceptional circumstances”. It may have been one of the compromises that the noble Lord, Lord Young, acknowledged are necessary when parties are involved in discussions, but the Minister really does need to address this point when he winds up. Can he please list the exceptional circumstances the Government have in mind and are worried about? In each case, can he give me an example of when it would not be necessary to introduce emergency legislation? Any emergency legislation could easily deal with this issue—I do not think it is a problem, but it is addressed in the Bill—by allowing this “exceptional circumstances” exemption. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about this, because I think it is a weakness in the amendment.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, not for the first time I find myself very much in sympathy with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who always contributes sage and sensible comments to debates on constitutional affairs.

I would like to begin by congratulating and thanking my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. By accident, my amendment went ahead of his in the debate in Committee, but he was the one who did all of the work and he made a most impressive speech, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, said a few minutes ago; he has also been foremost in the negotiations following the debate. It would be churlish—because my noble friend Lord True was effectively replying to my amendment— not to thank him for what he said and what he has subsequently done.

I do not want to enter a discordant note, but I was tempted, as I said to my noble friend Lord Young the other day, to put down an amendment on the timing. I am very disappointed that it is four months. My noble friend Lord Young suggested “three months”, I suggested “six weeks”. I would happily have compromised, but I think four months is a shade long and I would like a brief explanation from my noble friend Lord True as to why he felt he had to go to that far.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, talked about exceptional circumstances. Of course, I accept that there are certain very sad and exceptional circumstances—one of which my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham referred to—but “exceptional” really has to be exceptional. I remain, always, suspicious of the Executive, from whichever political party they come, and I am always, first and foremost, a Parliament man. We have at least got a better outcome that we had in the original Bill. I am grateful for that, and I very much echo the words of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, who said there is great virtue in compromise. Of course there is, and may this indeed be a lesson to those who are currently conducting the most important negotiations in which our country has been involved for a very long time.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Hain, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, have withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Grocott.

[Lord Grocott (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to my noble friend’s amendment and I agree with every word she said. I do not have a great deal to add. I also agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said. That emphasises that we are not talking about an issue of principle in any of the amendments in the group but one of degree. It is worth reminding ourselves that there is widespread agreement across the House on most of contents of the Bill. That has been recognised even on a day like today when there have inevitably been Divisions, as there always will be. We are all agreed in our opposition to huge variations in the size of constituencies and that we should aim for equality—not precise arithmetic equality but much greater equality.

As regards my background in fighting elections, if anyone is qualified to speak on the issue of huge variations in constituency size, I can probably, without too much vanity, claim that qualification. At one stage, I represented a seat with an electorate of 57,000 and at another represented a seat with an electorate of 100,000. I therefore bow to no one in my belief that there should be far greater equality in constituency size, and that is agreed across the House.

We also all agree across the House—I include the Government in this—that there is much more to it than the simple question of arithmetic when determining constituency boundaries. We know all the guidance given to the Boundary Commission but in the Bill the Government acknowledge this issue by exempting certain constituencies from the general framework in which boundaries must be drawn. There are five such constituencies, whose inclusion I support but not for the flimsy reason that the Government claim—that they are all in one category. That is true to the extent that they are all islands or groups of islands but there also is a great deal of difference between them. No obvious similarities spring to mind between Anglesey and the Shetlands, or between the Isle of Wight and the Western Isles. Many more geographic issues need to be taken into account than the category of being islands, which is the only one that the Government seem to acknowledge, with all the frailties of that argument.

I agree with my noble friend’s amendment, which seeks greater flexibility and, in particular, has the important characteristic regarding Wales mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and my noble friend Lady Hayter. I do not hesitate to repeat what I said in Committee. I was shocked at the impact of the boundary review proposals that we are considering in the Bill on representation in Wales. The House should walk on the other side on that issue with great care.

In conclusion, there is no great issue of principle that divides the Government from those of us who feel that there should be greater flexibility. All that we are asking is that they should change the rules in the Bill to allow a little more flexibility for the Boundary Commission, and Minister should offer more flexibility when he responds.

[Lord Wigley (PC) [V]]

My Lords, I very much agree with previous speakers on this group of amendments and support Amendment 18, to which I have added my name and, in the absence of my good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, would be happy to move it, were that to be appropriate, if the Government were unwilling to move in that direction or to adopt an amendment moving in that direction.

Amendment 18 might be seen by some colleagues as being the more extreme option within this group, which seeks greater tolerance around the mean number of electors per constituency. That amendment applies only to Wales, and I appreciate the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Grocott. All referred to the challenging situation in rural Wales. It is therefore perfectly in order for noble Lords to support the smaller variations around the mean in England or Scotland, if they so choose, and I support their amendments seeking greater flexibility there. However, the imposition of still further flexibility in Wales can be taken on board because it does not change the number of seats allocated to Wales, merely the distribution within it. As has been stated, this would allow greater flexibility in respecting natural communities, geographic sparsity and ease of travel.

Wales should have at least 36 parliamentary seats but that is not the issue at stake in Amendment 18. It gives the Boundary Commission for Wales greater flexibility, if it chooses to use it, to respond to the topography and communities of Wales. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, suggested, constraining them into a straitjacket imposed by Westminster is not helpful. I urge the Government to accept this amendment or at least table an amendment of their own to meet these pressing arguments.