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

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Grocott]

That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.

Amendment to the Motion

Moved by

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[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may make a couple of points as someone who gave both written and oral evidence to the Burns committee. The Burns committee did not deal with this subject. It decided specifically not to do so because it felt that it would be outside its terms of reference. We hear that the resolutions of Burns have not been implemented, but then, parliamentary reform is an ongoing process. From the 1832 Reform Act through to votes at 16, which will inevitably come, we have reformed the way we run the country and how parliamentary systems work. I believe that we are passing up an historic opportunity if we do not back the noble Lord, Lord Grocott.

Many years ago, I remember having a conversation over dinner with the late John Smith, a man I greatly admired. I asked him, “What is the most difficult thing you face?”, expecting him to come up with some problem in the House of Commons. He replied, “The queue of people outside my door who think that they should be in the House of Lords”. It is inevitable that at some point there will be a change of government. At that point, there will be a big difference between the number of Peers on each side of the House. In the city of Cambridge where I live, there is not only seething anger at what is seen as a party that is somewhat out of touch with aspirations of home ownership and the like; there are a lot of people who think. Let me tell noble Lords what I think will happen. If the Labour Party has any sense, which it does occasionally, it will include in its manifesto a line saying, “We will remove the right of hereditary Peers to legislate”. This would then be covered by the Salisbury convention, and the measure could be passed. When there is a change of government, there will be a great demand for radical measures—and this is an easy radical measure. The balance of the House would change very quickly because there are more hereditaries on this side of the Chamber than on that side. That would get the Labour Party out of a difficult corner and reduce the number of people.

I urge my colleagues to think carefully before they reject what I stress is a very modest proposal. I would like to see it passed, to see Burns implemented and to see us demonstrate to the country that we are capable of reforming ourselves. We should not have this charade of pretending that somehow, this or that has not been completed. This is a challenge for the whole House: to show that we are not, as was described to me by students at a recent meeting in Cambridge, the “pensioners’ party”, but that we are actually a part of the living government of this country. We play a vital role in the governance of this nation and the House of Lords has a definite place in the running of this country. We should get on with it, take the reforms on board and settle down to some sensible work. I hope that the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, will be supported.

Finally, I appeal to the Government because it is the Government who can help. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, I believe that, in the 1960s, we had the greatest Home Secretary of the past 100 years—Roy Jenkins. He dealt with a lot of radical measures by the simple means of saying, “I will give government time to these Back Bench initiatives”. I ask the Government to seriously consider taking this Bill under their wing and enabling it to pass, because if they wanted to, they could. If the Bill falls it will be in part because of this House, but also because our Government have not willed it to pass. I hope they will look carefully at making time available for this Bill to go down the Corridor, where I do not detect any great opposition to it.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to everyone who has spoken, all of whom have spoken in favour of the Bill. We are simply debating an amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, that regrets the fact that the Bill will be considered in Committee. I need to remind the House, and maybe even the noble Lord, what he had to say about the timing of the consideration of my Bill when it had its Second Reading in September. He said that the Bill is “untimely”. The reason he gave was that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, was,

“chairing a Speaker’s Committee to examine the size of the House, which will … have a bearing”,—[Official Report, 8/9/17; col. 2155.]

on my Bill. He is now suggesting that we should not consider the Bill because not all the recommendations of the Burns committee have been met yet. I tend to get the feeling that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, would not be in favour of the Bill going into Committee whatever the circumstances of the Burns committee or any other. But he was absolutely right in one respect when he said that the Burns committee would have an effect on this Bill. It does indeed: it makes the case for it even more powerful.

I remind the House that the principal recommendation of the Burns committee, which has overwhelmingly found favour in all parts of this House, is that the House should reduce its size over time to 600 Members. One of the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne—I have to keep a straight face as I say this—suggests that we should delay any further consideration on the Bill until the House has been reduced to 600 Members. He is saying that the whole of the House can start reducing itself, apart from the 92 hereditary Peers. I hope, in the course of his response, he will explain the logic behind that argument, because it escapes me.

I am a chap of generally sunny disposition, but I am strained at the moment because I fear the tabled amendments do not try to improve the Bill, which is the point of Committee; they are designed to wreck the Bill and/or delay it indefinitely until some time in the future. Nothing has changed in the noble Lord’s approach, or that of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, come to that, since we last discussed the Bill, but lots of other things have changed, including the Burns report. The noble Lords have tabled a large number of amendments—I think they put their name to 57 on a two-clause Bill. There are 13 groups, so they have at least reduced the number of groups that were considered last time. Normally a two-clause Bill should be able to get through Committee in two and a half hours, which is roughly the time we will have to deal with it today. Their position will be tested on whether they agree to see the Bill through its Committee stage in the time left to it.

I feel very strongly that it is important that the House has an opportunity to express its view on the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, to the Bill. He is asking us to delay it. My feeling is that the overwhelming view of Members of this House, on all sides—including, my guess is, a majority of the hereditaries, many of whom have come to me and said that they support the Bill, notably including the noble Countess, Lady Mar, who cannot be here today, who is the only woman among the 92 hereditaries—is that they want us to get on with the Bill. It might be that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, is right that he has a lot of support here, but I think it is something he would want to test so that he and I can both judge the strength of feeling there is on this piece of legislation. I hope the noble Lord will stand up now and seek the opinion of the House.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I am grateful for the point of view of all noble Lords who have spoken, not many of whom have agreed with me, I fear. Be that as it may, I am clear that we now ought to proceed to Committee. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 1 and in doing so I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and his praetorian guard for appointing four tellers for the Division. I and a number of my noble friends did not take part in that Division because we would have been very happy to see the amendment withdrawn and not to waste 10 minutes going through a Division Lobby.

Amendment 1, standing in my name, is what is termed an overview clause. It aims to spell out what the consequence of the Bill is. Before I come to the amendment, I want to say very briefly where I stand on the Bill because I have been referred to—I will not use the personal abuse that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, used, but I think it is right that I set out exactly where I stand. I believe in the principle. I am very glad to see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, in his place. He said on this matter in this House on 30 March 1999,

“this Bill is about principle”.—[Official Report, 30/3/1999; col. 206.]


My opposition to the removal of the provision for the succession of hereditary Peers is also a matter of principle.

What was agreed in 1999 was that there would be hereditary Peers and successors pending further reform. I hope that we will get that reform through the Burns report. It is not the reform that I would like—I would prefer a smaller, elected House—but I will be very happy to support the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, when the Burns report is fully on its way to being implemented. I am also happy that the number of hereditary Peers should be reduced to the proportion that it is now, because as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, rightly points out, if the House comes down to 600, the proportion of hereditary Peers goes up. If it goes up a few per cent, I would be very happy that the number of hereditary Peers comes down from 92 to 82 when the Burns report comes in, because that would bring us back to the status quo.

My opposition is not to what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is arguing for, but to the principle of doing it now, because it disconnects what we all agreed to in 1999, which was binding on our honour. The noble and learned Lord the former Lord Chancellor, who is here, was very firm and made it perfectly clear that, if we did not agree to the compromise that had been negotiated on Privy Council terms, the Government would renege and use the Parliament Act. He spelled it out very clearly, saying:

“I wish no one to be left in any doubt”.—[Official Report, 30/03/1999; col. 208.]

[Lord Grocott]

The noble Earl said he did not want to waste time and that is why he did not take part in the Division. May I help him by saying that I am happy to accept his amendment? It does not do anything, but it seems to me that it does not do any harm either, so in order that we can move on to the next group of amendments he can rest assured that I accept his amendment. Therefore, I suggest that he concludes his remarks.

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[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, this group of amendments includes a number which would kill the Bill. Amendment 5 would leave out subsection (2) and Amendment 24 would leave out subsection (3), but if we leave out subsections (2) and (3) we would not have much of a Bill left. In truth, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, is confirming my suspicion that he is trying not to improve the Bill but to kill it, so I hope that he will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, this is the only opportunity I have to say that it is not often I would do anything which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, did not approve of. But I voted against the Motion and I want to make the point that it was the only way in which the House could send a message to the Government, and to people outside, that the House is greatly in favour of the Bill going forward.

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[Viscount Trenchard]

The noble Lord is quite correct that the original creations were due to prime ministerial patronage, but successive holders of the title who have sat in your Lordships’ House were not so obliged and did not owe their presence to the Prime Minister. In that sense, they were independent because they owed it to the random accident of birth. The by-election system is very competitive. It is a combination of random accident of birth, a bit of geographical coverage and competition.

The charge that the House as presently constituted gives these Benches an unfair political advantage—

[Lord Grocott]

The noble Viscount is speaking to Amendment 2. Will he remind the House of the wording of Amendment 2 and how his remarks relate to it?

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[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, very briefly, I am wholly opposed to this whole group of amendments for the very important reason given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern: these are wrecking amendments. If they were going to be pursued appropriately in your Lordships’ House, they should have been raised at Second Reading as an opportunity to vote against the Bill then. I am particularly opposed to Amendment 59, which has been given so much emphasis in the last few minutes and reads:

“Whereas it is no longer intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular basis”.


That is a subjective supposition. It may be true; I do not know whether it is true. What sort of timescale is envisaged? It is not a fact and, therefore, for us to put it into the Bill would be absurd.

If I may take this opportunity, the first person who I think would have reacted to that particular suggestion would be our former colleague Lord Richard. I served with him in a number of capacities but, in particular, through a whole year on the Joint Committee on the then draft Bill brought forward by the coalition. He would not have accepted that as a statement of fact, because it is not a statement of fact. It is a supposition. I therefore hope we will dispose of this whole group of amendments and, in particular, dispose absolutely clearly and without any doubt of Amendment 59, if only to make sure that Lord Richard’s view on this issue remains with us. He was always clear and consistent and argued his case with such conviction; we should at least respect that in this case.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I intervene very briefly on this group in the hope that I can speed things up, because these amendments are clearly designed to wreck the Bill. The vote should have taken place at Second Reading; the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and others decided not to vote against Second Reading. We are now nearly two hours into this debate and we are on the second group of amendments. I conceded the first group entirely to the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and said that I would accept his amendment. What is taking place now—I know there have been interventions—is an abuse of this House. To be crystal clear about this, virtually none of the contributions has been about this group of amendments—or very few; there have been one or two exceptions. They have been Second Reading speeches, repeating time after time tired old arguments that are long out of date and have been long refuted.

I very rarely disagree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay; I can think of no other way in which the House could express its opinion as to the overwhelming majority who support this Bill and are concerned about the reputation of the House and this very small part of our constitution. It is part of our constitution that we have elections in which there are 11 candidates and three people entitled to vote—try to defend that. Do not go into the history books and explain precisely why the original 1999 Act was passed in the way that it was. I could wax lyrical on that—I was working in Downing Street at the time. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and others, made it pretty plain—by whatever right they must explain for themselves—that the Labour Government, with our majority of 170-odd and with a precise and unarguable commitment in our manifesto to end the hereditary peerage, would be prevented from doing so. It was made perfectly plain to us that many of the 750 hereditary Peers who were here at the time would not just block the Bill—they were intent on doing that—but wreck the Labour Government’s democratically elected manifesto and programme.

It seems to me that the same thing is happening now, but by different means. A tiny minority in this House are trying to block the overwhelming view of the majority. I greatly respect the procedures of this House. They are terrific in the way that they enable people to make contributions, to table amendments and to speak frequently. It is a great privilege to which we are all party. But to deal with, effectively, just one group in the best part of two hours—after an attempt was made to delay Committee stage—is a clear abuse of this House. If the people who persist in opposing the Bill do not do it by the proper mechanism, which is to vote against Third Reading—Report and Third Reading are to come, quite apart from it going to the Commons thereafter—then their proper course of action is to let the Bill proceed and let it be amended in a way that improves it, not that wrecks it. Then, if they are still not happy—which many of them will not be, I know—it is their right to get rid of it at Third Reading. I think we should expedite this, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, will quickly withdraw his amendment and others will not move substantial amendments. I can see that they make the House look ridiculous and, in some cases, make themselves look ridiculous.

[Viscount Astor]

Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord that, in the previous Parliament, when he was Chief Whip, on the boundary changes Bill, his party kept your Lordships up all night, filibustering with what were, in effect, Second Reading speeches, to frustrate that Bill. He cannot have it both ways.

[Lord Grocott]

May I just remind the House of whether the Bill became law?

[Viscount Astor]

The noble Lord’s party blocked the Bill; that is my point.

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[Lord Grocott]

I am afraid the noble Lord needs to attend rather more frequently before he makes interventions on what happened when. The Bill was passed. There were long discussions and long debates; I do not object to that. However, what is happening here is a deliberate attempt to do in Committee what should have been done at Second Reading. These are age-old procedures and I respect them enormously: First Reading, Second Reading, Committee, Report and Third Reading. To do what is being done now in Committee is an abuse and it should stop.

[Lord True]

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, he has spoken of abuse—we are in Committee, so I may come back—I believe that I tried to make a reasonable speech and I asked the noble Lord a specific question on Amendment 33A. He has not had the courtesy to respond. I am disappointed by that; it was meant as a constructive amendment to enable progress to be made, I do not accept widespread, scatter-gun accusations of abuse against those of us who seek to make a contribution on this matter.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the noble Lord, of all people, should know that we will debate Amendment 33A when we reach it. If I start responding to amendments we have not even reached, we will go on even longer.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, when I moved Amendment 2 a little while ago, I should have said that I was speaking at the same time to Amendments 5, 24, 31, 35, 52, 53 and 59. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 2.

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[Lord Grocott]

The noble Earl really must acknowledge what he is doing. It is not a question of amending the by-elections; the clue is in the Title of the Bill, which includes the words, “Abolition of By-Elections”, so all the amendments in this group are clearly trying to reverse or block the fundamental purpose of the Bill. They are all about changing bits and pieces in the mechanism by which the by-elections take place. These by-elections are unimprovable, and the noble Earl ought to acknowledge that this whole group of amendments would wreck the Bill. I hope that he will draw his comments to a conclusion.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, if that is the noble Lord’s sole argument he should not have said what he did at Second Reading and he should not have used those arguments in his recent articles. He argued very firmly that the present basis of election was unfair in some aspects and rather stupid in others. We are seeking to correct that. If the noble Lord is going to absolutely set his mind against that, he should not have said what he did at Second Reading or written what he did; that is the equivalent of claptrap, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the fundamental point.

I support my argument with a few quotes from when this issue was debated in another place. I refer particularly to the comments of the then Sir Patrick Cormack, now my noble friend Lord Cormack, who said:

“I believe without equivocation … that the House of Lords will be better for the 92”.


I understand that he has changed his mind but I think he ought to explain that to the House.

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[The Earl of Erroll]

Thank you for that but in the same way that we have to declare interests, the noble Lord should also have to. I am sure that he has served with great distinction but does that, towards the end of the career, qualify him for going automatically into the House of Lords?

Leaving that aside, I go back to the nub of what I want to talk about, which is the by-elections. I have been reading the 1999 Act. As far as I can make out, the whole thing, including the party proportions, is set in our Standing Orders; it is not in the primary legislation. So, actually, as an interim measure, I would have thought the first thing we should do is amend our Standing Orders to make them more sensible. I know that there will be changes in the party balance but I think that is right. Having done that, we can then deal with the democratic issue of whether or not we slowly become an appointed House. I realise that for some people that will not be acceptable, because it might result in there being less pressure to change to an appointed House more quickly. I personally think that we should look first at our Standing Orders. That is what this series of amendments is about. However, I do not think they need to be in primary legislation to achieve that.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, unfortunately, the contributions that have been made have to be dealt with even though they clearly do not address this group of amendments. Changing the Standing Orders does not alter the fundamental reason why these by-elections must end. A key argument, which has already been made, is that changing the Standing Orders will not alter the gender balance of the people who sit in the Lords currently as hereditary Peers. As my noble friend rightly reminded us, people are watching this debate and, I guess, wondering what on earth is going on, so we need to remind them of the facts. Of the 92 hereditary Peers in the House at the moment, one is a woman and she supports my Bill. It is worth remembering as well that in the 19 years since the original Act was passed, the situation has got worse. There were four women among the original 92, so the whole operation has got worse during the 19 years of this temporary measure. It has no prospect of getting better under the present system, and Standing Orders do not touch this because, of the 198 people who are currently on the register of hereditary Peers, just one, coincidentally, is a woman. None of these amendments addresses that. Do we really say that in 2018 we should continue with a system, even when the size of the House is diminishing overall, in which 92 protected places are virtually exclusively male? I hope that before anyone speaks on any of these amendments to try to improve the unimprovable, which is the current system of by-elections, they will address that problem and why they continue to support an effectively men-only 92 bloc that cannot be reduced, and which will not be reformed unless my Bill goes forward.

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[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I would like to move Amendment 10, and I am emboldened to do so by what my noble friend Lord Shinkwin just said. It is worth reminding the House that at the moment, there are 214 ex-politicians in this House. Add to that—

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I remember distinctly, because it was only 20 minutes or so ago, that when we began discussing this group, the lead amendment of which is Amendment 6, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, devoted most of his speech to Amendment 10, which is in this group. He has been in this House for 40 years or something of that nature, though not as long as the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, so he knows we have dealt with this group of amendments. Of course he may want to speak to his point at a later stage of the consideration of the Bill, but he has already addressed the specific point of this amendment within the group that we have now disposed of. I respectfully suggest to him that we should move on to the next group, which begins with Amendment 11.

[The Earl of Caithness]

I do not think the noble Lord is right. Although the amendments are grouped for the convenience of the House, you can still speak to an amendment individually whether or not it has been in a group. I am speaking to Amendment 10. I just wanted to add a few words because I wish to test the opinion of the House on this, as I think it is important. There are at the moment 214 ex-politicians in this House, added to which there are another 101 ex-councillors, and I have excluded councillors who became politicians in later life. That is about 40% of the House. If one removes the hereditaries, the balance of the House shifts yet further. It is for that reason that I think we ought to have an electoral system that is different from the one that we have at the moment, and I beg to move.

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[Lord Winston (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Although I personally have every sympathy for the Bill of my noble friend Lord Grocott, and I would like to hear whether he feels that there is a way of getting it through the House, the second Bill raises some very significant ethical issues which it is important to discuss. The conscientious objection Bill is not a trivial measure and it is right and proper that we discuss it in Committee, as arranged by the usual channels.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, although I am no longer a proper member of the usual channels, I can tell the Committee that, in discussions with those channels, it was decided that the fair thing to do was to split today between the two Bills. In answer to the question from my noble friend Lady McIntosh and without betraying any private discussions, I have every reason to believe that further time will be made available for the Committee stage of my Bill, which has the overwhelming support of the House.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

I support that. I had hoped that we would have finished the Committee stage of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, by now, and it is unfortunate that we have not done so. The amount of time that we had for it seemed reasonable. I support what has obviously already been agreed, as I have some interest in the next Bill as well. However, I invite the usual channels to do their best to get more time for this Bill as soon as possible.

House of Lords: Register of Hereditary Peers

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Grocott]

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the legislative arrangements giving rise to the Register of Hereditary Peers who wish to stand for election to the House of Lords.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the House of Lords Act 1999 provides for Standing Orders of the House to make arrangements for the replacement, by elections, of hereditary Peers who are Members of this House. The Standing Orders provide for the register of hereditary Peers. Therefore, these arrangements are a matter for this House.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

That was not really an Answer to the Question. I just ask the Minister to confirm that, of the 198 names on the register of those who are eligible to stand for by-elections for vacancies among hereditary Peers, just one is a woman and none is from any of the ethnic minorities. Should not those two facts alone convince us all that this system is not just ludicrous but totally indefensible? I have a very simple question for the Minister and, if he could just answer with a yes, we could move on to the next Question. Will the Government do something that will hurt no one and cost nothing—that is, back my Bill, which would scrap this whole ludicrous system?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that question. Moving on to the next Question would not help me at all, as I have to answer that one as well. As he will know, when I replied to the Second Reading debate on his Bill, I said, referring to the specific anomaly that he referred to, that as a consequence of the current arrangements we have a system that is very difficult to defend in equality terms, and that reflected the views expressed. However, I went on to say that there is an exemption from the Equality Act for this arrangement. The Equality Act 2010 provides that neither a life peerage nor a hereditary peerage, as a dignity or honour conferred by the Crown, is a public or personal office for the purposes of the Act. So Parliament specifically exempted these provisions when it passed that piece of legislation.

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

Lord Grocott Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Grocott]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, just a year ago I introduced a Bill with exactly the same objective as the one I am proposing today. Regrettably, despite very strong support from all parts of the House, the Bill was blocked in Committee by a small number of Peers. My motive in reintroducing the Bill is unchanged: the by-election system, which provides for the continuation—effectively in perpetuity—of a block of 90 hereditary Peers is absurd and indefensible. In the 12 months since the last Bill, there have been significant developments that make the case for scrapping the by-elections even more compelling.

Let us remind ourselves briefly how the system works. There are 90 elected places. If a vacancy occurs among the 15 hereditary Peers who were originally officeholders—that is, Deputy Speakers—the electorate consist of all 803 Members of the House. The remaining 75 hereditaries are distributed among three party groups and the Cross-Benchers. The electorate for each by-election then consist of the hereditary Peers who are members of the group where the vacancy has arisen. As a reminder, the numbers are as follows: for a Conservative vacancy, 48 hereditary Peers can vote; for a Cross-Bencher, it is 30; for a Lib Dem, three; and for Labour, three.

Try explaining that nonsense to members of the public as a mechanism for recruiting people to serve in Parliament; I guarantee their jaws will hit the floor. It makes the d’Hondt system look simple, and given that the system is so manifestly absurd, is it any wonder that it results in the most absurd by-elections? I cannot resist repeating the example I gave last year of a Lib Dem by-election following the death of Eric Lubbock—the first person, I might add, who raised the issue of trying to scrap these by-elections. It was held in April 2016, when the number of candidates was 11 and the electorate was three. By way of comparison, before the Great Reform Act 1832, even Old Sarum had an electorate of seven. In comparison with the Lib Dem by-election, that is a metropolis.

I can hear Members asking: “But your Bill failed last year, so why waste parliamentary time again?”.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Grocott]

Well, I will give the answer—and I hope that Members will give their answers during their speeches as well. Even in the 12 months since the last Bill, there have been a number of developments, all of which make the case for ending the by-elections stronger, and the case for retaining them inexorably weaker—so much so that any neutral observer would surely conclude that it is not so much a matter of whether the by-elections will cease, but when.

The debates on the Bill last year, and the discussions that surrounded them, have shown beyond doubt that there is overwhelming support in this House for the reform that I am proposing. Support has come from Labour, Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Cross-Benchers—including a very large number of hereditaries themselves, who have come to me and, understandably, find it difficult to speak on this subject. I would love to know what the actual numbers were among the hereditaries of those in favour and those against the change. When the opinion of the House was tested in Committee—of course, on a Friday, when Divisions are rare—the first vote on the principle of the Bill resulted in a defeat for its opponents by a majority of 93. There can be no reasonable doubt that the number of Members of this House who are resolutely opposed to this Bill is minuscule.

The weakness of the Bill’s opponents could not be better illustrated than by the tactics they employed in Committee. In the three months last year between Second Reading and Committee stage, just six amendments were tabled. Then, lo and behold, on the day before the debate, inspiration and creativity overwhelmed two Members of this House: the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, tabled 50 amendments overnight. My Lords, we all know what that is about: a tiny number of Members knowing they were in a hopeless minority in the House and knowing that they could not win by votes so they had better win by tricks. Fifty overnight amendments—if you are going to wreck a Bill, do it a bit more subtly.

This time, my appeal to anyone who is thinking of trying these tactics is to please think again. They do neither noble Lords’ nor the House’s reputation any good. They should win by the arguments and in the Division Lobbies, not by tricks. It is the opinion of the House that should prevail, not the opinion of one or two of its Members.

I also say to anyone who is thinking of wrecking the Bill this time to please think of the adverse publicity for our House that that will attract. I will give three examples from the media since then:

“Hereditary Peers Set To Ambush Bill Aimed At Scrapping Their ‘Laughable' By-Elections”.


Another headline is:

“‘An embarrassment to our politics!’ Fury as Lords prepare to elect new hereditary peer”.


Finally, we have:

“Tory aristocrat joins Parliament for life by winning 143 votes in a ‘Blackadder’ by-election”.


I am the last person on the planet to argue that we should change a good policy because of some bad newspaper headlines, but it is noticeable that there is absolutely nobody, apart from a handful of people in this House, who is prepared to defend these by-elections. The argument for their continuation is friendless, and surely that is because simply there are no such good arguments.

I challenge anyone today who is thinking of opposing my Bill to not give us a history lesson. Instead, come clean and explain to us, in 2017, what added value the by-elections provide to our parliamentary system. Tell us precisely why we continue to replace the 90 hereditary Peers. Tell us what the distinctive characteristics of the 198 people on the Register of Hereditary Peers are that mean that we need to provide them with a reserved place in our legislature? Once elected, what is special about their parliamentary talents that distinguishes them from other Members of the House? To make it personal, what is the justification for the heir of a hereditary Peer in this House having a one in 200 chance of becoming a member of the legislature while for everyone else in the country, that chance is something like one in 90,000? Tell us, here and now, 18 years after the House of Lords Act 1999, what it is about these by-elections that enhances and enriches our parliamentary democracy. If they cannot answer these questions, surely it is time to call it a day and stop playing King Canute.

There have been significant developments in the last 12 months that have strengthened the case for my Bill. Among them has been the evidence provided by yet more by-elections. For those of us in favour of scrapping them, the by-elections are the gift that keeps on giving. There have been two such elections this year. The first, on 21 March, was for a hereditary Peer to be elected by the whole House. The second, on 18 July, was for a Cross-Bench Peer, when only hereditary Cross-Benchers could vote. It is the first of these two by-elections that provides the richest vein for satire. This, remember, was an election for a place in our Parliament—or rather, a parliamentary by-election. The figure for the electorate was 803 and the number of votes cast was 436, meaning that the turnout was 43%. By way of comparison, it is worth noting that in the general election in June, the lowest turnout in all 650 constituencies was Glasgow North East, with 53%. The propensity to vote in a House of Lords by-election, where voters need only walk down the corridor from their offices and put a ballot paper in a box in the Committee room, is 10% lower than the parliamentary constituency with the lowest turnout. That, to me, provides pretty clear evidence that the majority of Members of this House feel no great attachment to the practice of re-electing hereditary Peers.

Then there was the little matter of the ballot itself. No fewer than 27 candidates put themselves forward, 19 of whom got fewer than 10 votes. Under the alternative vote system there were 25—yes, 25—rounds of balloting before the winner was declared. What is more, the same person led in all 25 ballots, so if the voting system had been first past the post, the same result would have been achieved with a lot less trouble. I just thought I would point that out. There was a 43% turnout, 27 candidates, 25 ballots, and only hereditaries could stand. In 1999 when the original Act was passed, surely no one could have intended that 18 years later we would still have that system of recruiting people to our Parliament, and with no prospect of an end in sight.

The other matter is the very important Motion that this House passed last year, moving that,

“this House believes that its size should be reduced, and methods should be explored by which this could be achieved.”

As a result of that debate, the Lord Speaker established a committee under the noble Lord, Lord Burns, to consider the issue. The committee is due to report in October. What has that to do, you may well ask, with my Bill to end the by-elections? The answer is that if we are to reduce the size of the Lords to around 600 Members so that it is smaller than the Commons, surely we will have to amend the legislation that preserves in aspic 90 places for hereditary Peers. If we reduce the size of this House without changing the law on the hereditary bloc, the proportion of hereditaries would rise from 11% to 15%. For us to embark on an important modernising measure to reduce our size with the result of significantly increasing the proportion of hereditaries really would be a case of Alice in Wonderland.

I should point out that we are not the only ones looking for ways to reduce our size and of the way in which that might involve the hereditaries. Since I introduced my Bill last year, the size of the Lords and the issue of the hereditary Peers have been discussed several times in the Commons, in a Select Committee inquiry, a Private Members’ Bill, a Westminster Hall debate and a 10-minute rule Bill. Most recently, on Wednesday this week, the Commons gave the First Reading to a Bill introduced by my right honourable friend David Hanson, which is scheduled for Second Reading in April. The Bill would end the right of all hereditaries to sit in the Lords with effect from 31 December 2019. Surely the initiative for sensible reforms of this House should come from this House. With the help of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, we have had a number of very good reforms in recent years and I believe that with the Lord Speaker’s committee due to report next month, there will be more to come. We should reform ourselves, not wait for someone else to do it for us.

I submit that the case for ending the by-elections has strengthened inexorably since I introduced my Bill 12 months ago. We now have the opportunity in this House to initiate a simple sensible reform that would hurt no one and cost nothing. My Bill was first in the ballot and we are at the start of a two-year parliamentary Session, so parliamentary time should be no obstacle to the passage of a simple two-clause Bill. The case is overwhelming, the time is right, so let us do it. I beg to move.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, as a hereditary Peer I have a brief say at the beginning of this debate. We have a long day of three debates and a large number of speakers ahead of us. I remind the House that there is an advisory speaking time of five minutes for this debate and I urge speakers to adhere to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I regret the introduction of the Bill, but not as much as I regret the fact that we have not had a further Bill, after the 1999 Bill, to reform this House. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and I are on the same sheet of paper when we think what the future of the House should be. We hope that something will happen fairly soon, and it will considerably improve the House.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Caithness]

No, I listened to the noble Lord for 12 minutes and I only have five.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, intervened on the Farriers (Registration) Bill on 26 April this year, and your Lordships can find what he said in cols. 1392-93. That was a Bill that I had taken forward, and he was basically asking whether I would afford the same courtesy to this Bill of his, which was due to come forward, as the House was affording to mine by not putting down an amendment. As a result of that intervention I got a number of emails from people asking: “Is this really how the House of Lords works? Is it, ‘You scratch my back and I’ll scratch your back and we’ll get the legislation through’?”. My response was very firm in saying, “No, that is not the way I operate”, and I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that I will be putting down amendments.

I commend the noble Lord for his consistency in bringing forward this Bill and I hope he will commend me too for my consistency, along with that of my noble friend Lord Trefgarne. Whether it be the Steel Bill, the Hayman Bill or the Grocott Bill, we have been utterly consistent in our opposition to this particular proposal. The reason is that the agreement back in 1999 was hugely important. It resulted in a compromise that many people did not like but, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, the then Lord Chancellor—whom I am delighted to see in his place again today—said, compromises are not necessarily totally acceptable but they are the practical way forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said in his speech that the agreement was binding for all time. That is absolute rubbish; that was not the compromise at all. The compromise was that it was binding in honour for those who voted for it until such time as there was further reform. I believe that the longer the by-elections take place, the more impetus there will be for a major reform of this House. It might take longer than 20 or even 25 years, but if the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, succeeds, we will turn ourselves into a totally appointed Chamber, very keen to defend that position. I think that that is quite wrong for the British constitution in this day and age.

The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, whom I also call a friend, said that it was principle. I say to her that it was not; it was a commitment binding in honour, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, said so twice in two separate paragraphs. That is the reason for my objection to the Bill and I will continue, as I have done in the past, to oppose it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate and massively grateful to those who have supported my position.

I do not know whether to take the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Young, as a clear rejection or as a possible consideration at a later date, and I am sure that that degree of ambiguity was fully intended by him in his remarks. However, I just want to emphasise that this Bill is not about reducing the size of the House. That would be a small net benefit of this Bill, but that is certainly not its objective—if it was, it would be a pretty poor tool.

In the 17 or 18 years since the passage of the original Bill, 32 new hereditary Peers have arrived, not by any means all of whom have replaced Conservative Peers. The inference of the contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord True, was that this Bill would somehow lead to a massacre of Conservative Peers. It would be a very slow process of attrition and I think it would be about another 40 years before the job was done which, having myself been here for a little while now, is about the pace at which this House likes to move.

What has been noticeable about the debate, and I shall read it carefully to make sure that my initial impressions are correct, is that the challenge that I put out during my opening speech, which was to hear some positive arguments for the by-elections in terms of how they enhance the House, has not been answered. Of course good people have come here by means of the by-elections—that is not in dispute any more than is the fact that good Bishops have come, as well as good life Peers. But as for by-elections being a mechanism for putting people into a House of Parliament in the 21st century, no one has offered any positive arguments in favour of retaining the system apart from, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, who was clearly nostalgic. I understand his nostalgia for a time when virtually everyone here was hereditary and of course most of them voted Conservative. I can understand why that would appeal to him. He described some wonderful debates to us.

[Lord Mancroft]

My Lords, I was not displaying nostalgia; I was reflecting upon the very real fact that the nature of the way the hereditary Peers operated was that, because they were hereditary, they had a degree of independence which was extremely desirable. I was reflecting on that point and it is not a nostalgic one at all. The fact is that the composition of this House today has by its very nature lost to a significant degree its independence from the existing political establishment, to the detriment of both this House and of Parliament.

[Lord Grocott]

I advise the noble Lord to stop digging. This wondrous independence and spirit of quality and intellectual debate invariably resulted in a House that always supported Conservative Governments and caused no end of trouble to Labour Governments. I will leave that one there.

I could not improve on my good friend Lord Snape. He has lost none of it in 50 years; he really can turn it on when he needs to. I was always deeply respectful of him. He reports the fact that I was his Chief Whip, but he was my Whip in the 1970s, when he reportedly put next to my name “WWWW”, which meant, “Works well when watched”.

[Lord Snape]

Will my noble friend accept the perception of my views at that time? He has come along very well since.

[Lord Grocott]

I saw no arguments in favour of the by-elections, apart from the one that I really want to put to rest now, which the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, repeats time and again about this compromise reached in 1999 which resulted in the 92 hereditary Peers remaining. The noble Lord, Lord True, referred to the fact that I was involved to some extent in that because I was working in Downing Street at the time. I remind him of what I still feel was breath-taking about what happened then. A Labour Government, elected on the clearest possible manifesto commitment to end the hereditary principle as a basis for being in the second Chamber—a Labour Government with a record post-war majority of more than 150—brought that proposal to this House. It was made clear in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and others that the Bill, with a huge majority and manifesto commitment, would not be allowed to pass unless major concessions were made, of which these 92 Peers are the result. That was not normal parliamentary procedure resulting in this binding agreement; it was blackmail. That is the only argument that has been put forward to continue with these by-elections. It is a history lesson that ought to be written according to what actually happened.

The only other argument I have picked up is that, somehow or other, the hereditary Peers here provide a constant incentive towards swift movement towards a fully comprehensive elected House. The noble Lord, Lord Young, is in a better position than me because he was there longer: there were loads of debates in the other place on an elected House, but I never heard anyone say that we need to do this because the noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Elton, or the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, are insisting that it happens. By definition it simply has not worked. Those Members who want a fully elected House, of which I am not one, have not been able for various reasons to deliver it, so this incentive that allegedly is there clearly is not working. We should remember that as well.

The only really helpful, constructive attempt to move forward on this, other than what I think is the only sensible way to proceed, which is my Bill unamended—although I always listen to what the noble Lords, Lord Cope and Lord Cormack, and others, have to say—is that there should be an election of the whole House whenever a vacancy occurs rather than these absurd party by-elections with minuscule electorates. I partly answered it in my opening remarks. Even when that happens, less than half the House participates. I always regarded it as a waste of time and I am clearly not the only one. That does not enhance the quality of the democracy, and—this is an even more substantial point made brilliantly by the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge—it does not alter the fundamental flaw that, on the register of hereditary Peers as it stands, there are 198 names, 197 of whom are men. Changing the Standing Orders and having an electorate comprising the whole House would not alter that fundamental problem any more than it would alter the fundamental problem of why on earth the only people entitled to stand should be the heirs of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, or the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, although we hope their heirs do not materialise for a long period yet in their new titles. Why should their heirs have an assisted places scheme to get into the House of Lords?

We all think our arguments are pretty convincing. I think the argument I and many of my noble friends put forward are absolutely overwhelming, so let us get on with it.

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

Boundary Reviews 2018

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I heartily agree with my noble friend. His constituency was made unwinnable by the Boundary Commission; mine was actually abolished; I am not quite sure which of us came out of it best. So far as his question is concerned, it would be an affront to democracy if the proposals of the independent Boundary Commissions were obstructed.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Is it not also an affront to democracy that the strategy of this Government has been to plan a reduction of the number of MPs from 650 to 600, while in the same period increasing the size of this House by 240-plus life Peers? Could the Minister explain the thinking behind this situation?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord will know that the coalition Government sought to reduce the number of noble Lords by a very substantial number, but because of the failure of his party in the Commons to support it, that Bill did not go through. He will also know that the Lord Speaker has set up a committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, which I understand may report in July. There is a consensus across the House that the numbers need to come down. We look forward to the noble Lord’s proposals, to see how that might be delivered.

General Election: Voting Rights

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My noble friend takes a keen interest in matters psephological. He is quite right that a large number of people who have retired will be taking their holiday in June. The Electoral Commission is aware of this propensity and, as part of its campaign to encourage people to register to vote, it will be taking on board the necessity to remind people who are going to be away that they should vote by post. I suspect that the political parties will be taking similar initiatives.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Will the Minister explain what principle he is defending? He seems to be saying that someone who has lived and worked abroad and has not paid taxes or lived in the United Kingdom for, let us say, 50 years, and has not even been on an electoral register in the United Kingdom to tie him or her to a particular part of the United Kingdom should have exactly the same rights in determining who the Government of the United Kingdom should be as a lifetime resident of this country.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

British citizens living abroad have been entitled to vote ever since I have been a Member of Parliament. Initially, it was 20 years, which was then reduced to 15 years. So the principle that the noble Lord seems to object to has already been conceded; the debate is where you draw the line. At the moment, it is 15 years. My party stood on a manifesto to increase it. Those who have lived abroad for more than 15 years quite often have families in this country and connections in this country, and in many cases they may want to return to this country, so it is perfectly right that they should be enfranchised for future elections.

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

Lord Grocott Excerpts

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

Moved by

[Lord Grocott]

That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, the whole situation in which we were going to discuss the Bill has changed as a result of the useful debate that we had on Monday. We did not all agree but at least we were able to express our views without some of the intolerance that is creeping into the Chamber today. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said, there is a committee looking at this in the other place.

Mention has been made of the system of appointing hereditary Peers, and we have tabled amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said at Second Reading—I apologise to him and to the House for not being able to be here for that—that the appointments system was beyond ludicrous. There is a very good argument for saying that, but we have amendments to make it considerably less ludicrous.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the noble Earl was not here at Second Reading and he may not have read Hansard. I did not say that the appointments system was beyond ludicrous, I said that the current system of by-elections for hereditary Peers was beyond ludicrous.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I did read Hansard, and in fact I have it beside me—which is no surprise to the noble Lord because he knew that I would. Yes, he said that the succession system was beyond ludicrous. We have amendments down to make it less so and I hope that he will be able to accept them.

I am also against what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, proposes because of what happened in 1999. I have spoken and written to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, who was Lord Chancellor at the time—it was really his amendment rather than Weatherill’s. He had said:

“The amendment reflects a compromise negotiated between Privy Councillors on Privy Council terms and binding in honour on all those who have come to give it their assent”.—[Official Report, 30/3/1999; col. 207.]

My last letter to the noble and learned Lord was on 31 March 2014, when I wrote seeking elucidation as to what those words meant. I spoke to him afterwards and he said, “You’re not going to get an answer from me”, so I had to interpret them myself. I believe that those words “binding in honour” apply to all the 308 Peers who are still in the Chamber and were here during the debate in 1999, and they also apply to the 109 former MPs who were in the House of Commons when that debate took place and are now in this House. I believe that because they are binding in honour and the agreement was on Privy Council terms, it is not for me to break that agreement. Others may—that is up to them and their consciences—but for me it is a point of principle. What the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, wishes to do is a major constitutional change and I believe that major constitutional change should be undertaken by the Government, not by Back-Benchers.

This House has had an elected element for 273 out of the last 309 years. There was a gap between 1963 and 1999. Removing the hereditaries, which is the inevitable result of removing the succession to them, would leave a solely appointed House. That is not what the public want. The latest opinion poll that I could find shows that 60% of the public want an elected House. Those figures replicate earlier opinion polls.

An appointed House is not what the House of Commons wants either. It voted against it on 4 February 2003 by a majority of 78. There was an even larger majority on 7 March 2007 of 179. The Commons also voted for an elected Chamber. I know that did not come to pass in the 2012 Bill, but if that Bill had come to this House, I would have supported it because I have said in this House before that I am a firm believer in having an elected second Chamber and have voted for that. I support what the House of Commons said. Yes, let us remove all us hereditaries, but only on the condition that all the life Peers go too. Do not remove one without the other. I believe that keeping the hereditaries will help us to achieve a democratic, elected House sooner rather than later.

I discussed this with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, over breakfast downstairs. He is entitled to his view, and he has been a firm and totally consistent advocate of an appointed House. I take a different view. I want an elected House, and I think that the retention of the hereditaries will bring that about sooner rather than later.

The appointment system has been criticised. If we remove the hereditaries with this Bill, we will be left with an appointment system. In 1999, my now noble friend Lord Cormack said:

“We are witnessing a crude exercise of patronage”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/11/1999; col. 1200.]

If that was true in 1999, how much more true is it today?

The appointment system was condemned by many during our debate on Monday. Since 1997, 25% of those appointed to this House have been ex-MPs, and a further 7% have been affiliated to parties either by working in them or by taking party positions. That is more than 30%. I have tabled Amendment 45A, which seeks to draw attention to this. In order to help the House, I shall speak to it now.

I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, would ever accept an amendment that restricted the appointment system to such a disproportionate percentage of former MPs. We have become the dumping ground for MPs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for steering his Bill, which has provoked an interesting and engaging debate, into Committee. The whole House recognises his understanding of Parliament and his commitment to ensuring its work continues to be relevant. Given the number of amendments before us, many of which are related, if not grouped together, it may be for the convenience of the House if I set out the Government’s position at this point. I do not intend to comment on subsequent amendments, solely because I would be repeating myself.

As we have seen in the past, if reform of this House is to succeed, we must be able to work constructively together to make progress. It is clear from the Second Reading debate and comments from noble Lords today that this is an issue on which there are strong feelings on both sides, and no clear consensus as to the way forward. With that in mind, and as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said, with so many other pressing legislative priorities to deliver over this Parliament, noble Lords will perhaps not be surprised to hear that as a Government we express reservations about this Bill.

Yet that does not mean we should simply set ourselves in aspic. As my noble friend the Leader made clear in the debate earlier this week, we want to work constructively with noble Lords to look at pragmatic ideas for change that can command broad consensus, just as we did in the last Parliament. Then, we worked with noble Lords to introduce some focused, important reforms. With government support, the Bill sponsored in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, now the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, enabled Peers to retire permanently for the first time—54 Members so far have done so—and provided for Peers to be disqualified when they do not attend or are convicted of serious offences. The following year, through what is now the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015, we supported the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, which provided this House with the power to expel Members in cases of serious misconduct. Both were important reforms that have made tangible changes to the culture of this House.

We must now bring that same spirit—of pragmatic, incremental, consensual progress—to discussions in the coming weeks and months, keeping in mind the need for any further reform to both enhance our role as a Chamber of scrutiny and revision and enable us to continue to draw on a wealth of expertise and experience. We must do so together as a House, building on the sense of real partnership that the debate earlier this week demonstrated. Although there might not be consensus on this Bill, I look forward to the discussions we have to come in order to identify where that consensus might be found.

I finish by observing, as my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lord Strathclyde said, that the debate in the House on Monday on the size of the House was conducted in a friendly and constructive spirit, whatever the differences between noble Lords in their views on the right way forward. Monday showed this House at its best, and I am sure we will continue in that spirit today.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been a varied debate, although the one thing that has united everyone who spoke, including the mover of the amendment, is that no one spoke to the amendment. I do not make a criticism on those grounds, but we have essentially had a Second Reading debate, and I fear that we would have that on all 60 amendments should we proceed. I shall be brief as I also note that this first group has taken an hour, and there are 60 amendments. Most of them were put down yesterday, which makes them quite difficult to deal with, and all of them have been degrouped, so we have to have nearly 60 separate debates. I think 60 hours on this would be a bit much and try the patience of all of us—quite apart from how we would appear to the world outside.

The first amendment simply removes Clause 1(1), and basically wrecks the Bill. It certainly does when considered with all the other amendments of that type. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, has put down amendments to remove subsections (1), (2), (3), (4), (5) et cetera. He is perfectly entitled to do that. We are a Parliament with parliamentary procedures, and he is entitled to put down as many amendments as he likes, but he acknowledged in his opening remarks that he is totally opposed to the Bill. That again is a perfectly legitimate and honourable position to adopt, but if he wants to adopt that position, he either should have voted against the Second Reading or should vote against the Third Reading. He has another opportunity to do that, but instead he has just put down huge numbers of amendments, which I do not think he would be too proud of if they were read out one by one—as I have already mentioned, he did not actually move the first amendment. Seven or eight amendments simply vary the date at which the Bill comes into operation: one month, two months, three months. Let us have a serious debate on serious amendments if we are going to, but of course the problem that the noble Lord, and the House, face is that this is such a narrow and specific Bill. It is a two-clause Bill, dealing with a very specific problem, and it is almost impossible to amend sensibly. However, of course your Lordships can reject it. You either support the end of the hereditary by-election system or you do not, and I hope that the House will come rapidly to a decision on that.

Since everyone else has made something close to a Second Reading speech, I will just remind the House what my Bill does. It was motivated by a general feeling of unease, but was precipitated by the by-election on 18 April this year—I know most Liberal Democrats feel just the same about this as I do—where there were seven candidates and an electorate of three. That must be a world record. Of the seven candidates, six did not get any votes, and the seventh got all three votes—100%, which, as I said at the time, beats North Korea. That is not sustainable. It is so easy to get a laugh out of this, because the present system is laughable. Whatever the motives or arguments over why it came into operation, and we can rehearse those again and again, it is what has happened as a result of the decisions made in 1999 and the resulting section of the 1999 Act that has resulted in this by-election system, which has now been going on for 17 years and has led to 30 new Members being brought in via this mechanism.

The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, thinks that somehow the 92 hereditaries are precipitating a major reform of the House. “It is a long time coming”, is all I can say to that, and he did not offer a timescale on which he expected that to be achieved. So the objective has not worked. We have had all these by-elections, and they will go on in perpetuity. If the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, is straightforward with the House about this, as I am sure he will be, he will acknowledge that if the Bill fails the by-elections will continue and we will end up at the stage where the grandchildren of the Peers who were first exempted find themselves in the House of Lords via this bizarre mechanism.

I repeat that my Bill hurts no one. I was mildly concerned about the comment from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell; I am not trying to bribe anyone at all. I know many hereditary Peers who support what I am doing. I make no criticism whatever of the hereditary Peers in this House. The reason why they are excluded from the Bill is not that I am looking for their votes in passing it; frankly, I probably do not need them. It is because many of them, such as—it seems invidious to mention any of them, but I shall mention one—the noble Earl, Lord Howe, make a tremendous contribution to the work of this House.

So the Bill is nothing to do with that point. It is simply saying that any honest, straightforward person looking objectively at the system that exists would say, “Let’s get rid of it with a clean break”. Then, admittedly, over a period of 30 or 40 years, there would no longer be any hereditary Peers in the House. That is not the objective of the Bill but a consequence of it, and I do not think it is a revolutionary consequence. The noble Lord, Lord True, who I know very well, mentioned that it might result in a change in the party balance. I think 10 Tories have been elected so far under the by-election system over a period of 17 years. I know we move slowly in this place, but that does not strike me as a revolutionary overnight change. This is incremental reform in the best traditions of the group chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, which I have supported over many years. I am often criticised for that; I am called a “constitutional conservative”, and I can live with that. It is common-sense incremental reform to a system that to want to sustain is, frankly, pretty indefensible.

The indications I have are that there is very strong support for this in the House. I would much prefer it if we could just acknowledge that, complete Committee stage and see what happens to the Bill. The worst of all solutions would be if we had hour after hour after hour of debate on amendments that, frankly, I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, or the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, would be terribly proud of if their biographies were to be written. That would not bring the House into disrepute but would not leave it looking very good, particularly after the splendid debate on Monday—I can say that as I did not take part in it, though I listened to most of it—when it was clear that the wish of the House was that it should be smaller. It must be pretty well a first in the world for an organisation to say, “We want fewer of us”. I cannot think of any other organisation that I have had anything to do with that would say that. So the House realises that its size affects its performance and reputation, and that we should look for ways of reducing its numbers. Here is a way that would reduce its numbers over a period of 30 years to the tune of 92.

I make this appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and I think I speak for most people here, whatever they feel about the Bill: I ask him not to persist with the remaining 59 amendments, most of which are in his name. I ask the noble Lord to acknowledge that when he stands up to speak.

We have had a good debate. We need to come to a conclusion on this amendment, which would remove subsection (1), which, as I have said, would wreck the Bill. The House needs to decide whether it wants to do that, and I hope the noble Lord tests the opinion of the House. Most of all, I would like to hear him acknowledge that we should move on and have a Report stage in due course, and formally move the rest of the amendments.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord said we should wait and see what happens to the Bill. We know what is going to happen to it. It has no prospect whatever of becoming law, so why is he bothering to continue with it?

[Lord Grocott]

The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has been around longer than me. It is not me who is bothering to continue with today’s proceedings. For the previous three months, since the Second Reading debate on 9 September, I have looked with joy to check how many amendments were being tabled. Until Tuesday of this week there were six, one of which was mine. Then, lo and behold, inspiration clearly struck two or three of our Members and 60 amendments were tabled overnight. I am sure they were considered—no, it is best not to be sarcastic. I will put it as neutrally as I can: I do not think they were done with the intention of improving the Bill. It is up to those who tabled them. The impetus today has not come from me. It has come from those who want to hold us here for hours discussing largely meaningless amendments, and I call on the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, to acknowledge that.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord did not answer the point that I made in my short contribution. Since he started this process, it has excited interest from the House of Commons. We are all being consulted by the Commons on what we think the future make-up of the House of Lords should be. The Government have said they are not going to support the Bill. He says it is not in his hands, but it is entirely in his hands; if he said he was happy to withdraw the Bill, I am sure my noble friend Lord Trefgarne would be very happy with that.

[Lord Grocott]

I really do not want to prolong this, but the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, suggests I have powers that I do not possess. The debate in the House of Commons started in April this year, when a 10-minute rule Bill was unanimously passed at First Reading that would remove all hereditary Peers. That is the view of the House of Commons and it predates anything that I have done here. Let us get the chronology right.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I start again with the position that I am not opposed to House of Lords reform. If the Bill that was introduced by the coalition Government three or four years ago had reached your Lordships’ House, I would not have opposed it, and that would have been the end of the hereditary Peers. They were not provided for especially as far as that Bill was concerned, although they could of course have stood for election had they chosen to do so.

The future of this Bill is not for me to decide. If I can be assured that it is not going to reach the statute book, I may take a different view on the rest of the amendments before your Lordships. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, the arguments in favour of this amendment are very similar to those which we deployed at some length on the previous one. I again make it clear that I am not opposing reform. I refer back to the speech of my noble friend Lord Cormack, who drew attention to what he saw as some of the shortcomings of the existing by-election arrangements, but not objections in principle.

If the Bill was simply amending or improving by-elections and there was scope to do that, that would have been a different matter—we could have moved amendments for that purpose—but that would have been outside the scope of the Bill, because that is entirely clear in the Long Title: it is to stop the by-elections, no more and no less. Had we sought simply to improve the by-elections through the Bill, that would not have been allowed, and it is for that reason that we have opposed the Bill in principle.

Again, if I could be assured that the Bill will not reach the statute book, I might take a different view, but that is not the present position, it would seem.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I hope that the House will reject the amendment, should the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, put it to the vote.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I shall not withdraw this amendment. Apparently, the assurances that I seek are not available. The Government are not prepared to give an assurance, although I understand why that should be so. In that case, I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the Government have stated their position, which has been consistent throughout. I never thought that they would throw their weight behind this Bill. However, I am frankly surprised at their reasoning. I do not think that the fact that they are having to sort out the economy and Brexit is a good reason for opposing a two-clause Bill, which I think has pretty universal support and would improve the workings of this House. However, the Minister’s reassurance may be enough for the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, to not ask the opinion of the House on the amendment that he has just moved, and thereafter not to move his further amendments, so that we get through the Committee stage of this Bill and then proceed to Report, if that is permitted. I do not think the Bill is likely to proceed to Report, and that is not something I feel pressed to pursue. However, I obviously regret the fact that it is unlikely to proceed further if the Government say so. Bearing in mind the knowledge of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, in relation to the high death rate of Private Members’ Bills, from whichever House they emerge, I think that the ball is now in the court of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, on putting in all four Tellers on the first amendment. He was, of course, beautifully educated by the late Walter Harrison, one of the great Whips of the Labour minority Government of the 1970s, and he must have learned at Mr Harrison’s knee. Indeed, there is an extremely good play, which I recommend to all your Lordships, in which this is portrayed. The noble Lord has learned the arts of government extremely well, as indeed he did when he was PPS to a former Prime Minister. That was complemented by his excellent term as Chief Whip in this House. Therefore, we have a lot to learn from the noble Lord on handling parliamentary procedure. Is he prepared to accept any amendments to his Bill to improve the way that hereditary Peers are elected? In other words, is he set in his view that the banning of succession is the only thing that matters, not trying to get the system to work better?

[Lord Grocott]

My view is diametrically opposed to that of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. I can see no compromise. You cannot half hang a man—you either have the by-elections or you do not. The noble Earl thinks that we should have them. I think that we should not. The Government cannot support the Bill at the moment but I think we could conclude the Committee stage, given that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, has been given the assurances that he sought from the Government. Therefore, we can conclude these proceedings in 10 minutes through the remaining amendments not being moved. I have been around a long time and I know that in practical terms that means the Bill can proceed no further.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I do not think the noble Lord quite answered the point made by my noble friend Lord Caithness. He asked whether the noble Lord would think it sensible that the House should consider some means of improving the Standing Orders, or changing the Standing Orders which govern the by-election procedure to make them less absurd. The noble Lord has pointed out that an election with an electoral college of two or three is seen as absurd, whereas I think the by-elections for the Conservative Benches and the Cross Benches are somewhat less absurd because there are about 30 electors in both cases. Therefore, the noble Lord did not answer the point made by my noble friend as to whether he would support an improvement in the Standing Orders for the by-election system. My noble friend asked him to state whether he was utterly opposed to the by-election system, however the Standing Orders might be improved to reduce the absurdity of the Liberal Democrat and Labour by-elections.

Franchise: British Citizens Abroad

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I thank my noble friend for that. Introducing votes for life will require primary legislation to amend the Representation of the People Act 1985 and associated secondary legislation. There is no current timetable for introducing the Bill but the intention is to have the new arrangements in place ahead of the next scheduled general election in 2020.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Has the Minister heard the ugly rumour that the reason the Government are proposing to extend the franchise to people who have not lived, worked or paid taxes here for decades is not because of an important constitutional principle but because they think they are more likely to vote Tory? In order to dispel that ugly rumour, will the Minister tell the House from the Dispatch Box that no such consideration has ever entered her or any other Minister’s head?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I certainly cannot speak for anybody else but it had not entered my head. This will allow everybody who was resident in the UK and is now living abroad, but has been living there for more than 15 years, to vote in UK elections. It does not matter what party they vote for; we welcome them all.

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

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Grocott]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, in April this year a by-election took place in Westminster. It was a by-election for a seat in Parliament so I suppose we should call it a parliamentary by-election. There were seven candidates contesting the seat; the electorate was three. On 18 April, the result was declared. There were no spoilt papers; the turnout was 100%. The figures were as follows: Lord Calverley, no votes; the Earl of Carlisle, no votes; Lord Kennet, no votes; Earl Lloyd-George, no votes; Earl Russell, no votes; Lord Somerleyton, no votes; Viscount Thurso, three. So it was declared that the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, was to be the new Member of Parliament. The total cost of the election was £300, which is £100 for each vote cast. To achieve 100% of the votes cast in an election is spectacular, even by North Korean standards, and to hold an election where there are more than twice as many candidates as voters deserves an entry in the Guinness book of records. I am not, of course, in any way criticising those who took part in the election, nor do I question their abilities. However, to have this procedure as a mechanism for electing a Member of Parliament is beyond ludicrous. It is, as I think I have demonstrated, laughable.

My short Bill has the simple objective of ending this by-election procedure once and for all. As the House will know, I am not the first person who has tried to address this problem. I pay particular tribute to Lord Avebury, who introduced a Bill in 2006 which tried to do precisely what I am trying to do today. It is deeply ironic that it was his sad death which led to the hereditary Peers by-election that I have just described. How have we arrived at a situation where we are obliged to hold by-elections to fill vacancies for hereditary Peers? The answer lies in the provisions of the House of Lords Act 1999. The Act was passed before the great majority of noble Lords in the House today—including me—had even become Members. It is therefore worth reminding ourselves of the details.

The Act’s principal objective could not have been clearer. Section 1 states that:

“No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage”.

However, Section 2 provides for certain exemptions to the general principle of removing all the hereditaries: 92 are exempt; two of them, the holders of the offices of Earl Marshal and Lord Great Chamberlain, continue as before. Of the remaining 90, 75 were to be elected on a party-political basis. The electors for this are the hereditary Peers who are members of the party in which the vacancy has arisen. So, in the by-election referred to earlier, caused by the death of a Liberal Democrat, there being precisely three Liberal Democrat hereditary Peers, the electorate was three. You know it makes sense.

It may be asked why on earth there were any exemptions at all to the clearly enunciated objective—which virtually everyone now accepts—in Section 1 of the Act, which abolishes the hereditary principle as a qualification for Members of the Lords. There are two main explanations. The first was simple, practical political arithmetic. In 1997 the Labour Government had a clear manifesto commitment to remove all hereditaries from the Lords. The Government had a huge overall majority—418 Labour MPs, 165 Conservatives—of 186. Those were the days. In the Lords, the position was very different. There were 1,210 Peers, just 193 of whom were Government supporters taking the Labour Whip. The Official Opposition, the Conservatives, had 484 members. What is more, 750 Peers were hereditaries who, not surprisingly, were not for the most part too struck on the Bill. From the Government’s point of view there was real anxiety that, unless some concession was made to the overwhelming opposition to the Bill in the Lords, there would be total disruption of the Government’s legislative programme.

The second reason for retaining some hereditaries was that their presence would somehow put pressure on the Government to fulfil their commitment to wholesale reform of the second Chamber. As soon as this reform was achieved, the remaining hereditaries would be removed. So the 1999 Act was to be a forerunner to a much more comprehensive reform and the remaining hereditaries, and any consequential by-elections, would be a temporary expedient. As my noble and learned friend Lord Irvine, the then Lord Chancellor—who I am pleased to see is in his seat—said at the time,

“the Government with their great popular majority and their manifesto pledge would not tolerate 10 per cent. of the hereditary peerage remaining for long”.—[Official Report, 30/3/1999; col. 207.]

That pledge was made 17 years ago. A clause in the 1999 Act, which should have long ago become redundant, has to all intents and purposes become part of our constitution.

When Lord Avebury introduced his Bill to abolish by-elections in 2006, he noted with some incredulity that there had already been eight by-elections. I can update the House: there have now been 28. These have resulted in 30 Peers arriving by this method—two of the by-elections returned two members. So one-third of the hereditary Peers in this House have arrived, over a 17-year period, by a mechanism that was described as a temporary expedient. At this rate, it will not be long before a hereditary Peer is elected who was not even born when the original temporary measure was introduced.

There is one further characteristic of the by-election system as it has evolved in practice that makes it completely unacceptable in a modern Parliament. Following the 1999 Act, among the hereditary Peers who remained, just five were women. Since then, four have been replaced, all of them by men, leaving just one female hereditary Peer. That is one out of a grand total of 92. You might say that this may change in subsequent by-elections: no, it will not. In order to stand in by-elections, hereditary Peers who are not Members of the House have to be listed on the Register of Hereditary Peers. I have checked the most recent copy. The current list has 199 names; just one of them is a woman. Therefore, for the foreseeable future the overwhelming likelihood is that any vacancies will be filled by men. The 1999 Act, in its application over 17 years, has to all intents and purposes resulted in 92 positions in the House of Lords being designated men only. This cannot go on; it is indefensible. Who is to blame for a temporary expedient becoming in practice a permanent arrangement? Those who want to retain the present by-election system have an answer: they blame the Government—all Governments, successive Governments over a 17-year period—for failing to enact a fully comprehensive reform of the Lords. Surely the answer to that has to be that successive Governments have tried; my word, they have tried.

The Labour Government over a period of 11 years made numerous attempts at reform, including a royal commission—the Wakeham commission—a Green Paper, three White Papers and, finally, the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, which would have removed the hereditaries but the clauses were lost in the run-up to the 2010 general election.

Under the coalition Government, we had a White Paper with a draft Bill in 2011. This was followed by a Joint Committee of the two Houses. Then we had the House of Lords Reform Bill, which received its Second Reading before being withdrawn in 2012 because, according to the Deputy Prime Minister, there was no cross-party consensus on reform. There still is not. So we have failed attempts by Labour, then failed attempts by the coalition and now we have a Conservative Government who have repeatedly made plain that there will be no comprehensive Lords reform Bill in this Parliament. It is clear, therefore, that unless some action is taken the hereditary by-elections will continue at least until 2020, by which time a temporary measure will have been in operation for almost a quarter of a century.

To those, therefore, who argue that the by-elections must continue until there is comprehensive Lords reform, the answer is simple: successive Governments have tried and failed, but what also has failed is the argument that the remaining hereditary Peers would somehow guarantee swift movement towards a fully reformed House. To those who say that commitments to the by-elections made in 1999 must continue today, the answer is surely that one of our fundamental constitutional principles is that no Parliament can bind its successor. We have had three Prime Ministers since the original Act and four general elections. In the Commons today, no fewer than 528 Members had not been elected at the time of the 1999 Act. In the Lords, out of 839 Members, 519 of us were not here in 1999. To claim that a grand total of 1,047 people covering both Houses of our Parliament should be inexorably bound by a decision made before they were even Members not only defies a constitutional principle, it defies common sense.

My Bill deals with the problem of the by-elections but does not affect in any way whatever the rights of any hereditary Peer in this House today. Under my Bill, they would continue to play the important part that they do in exactly the same way life Peers do. Indeed, in most respects, hereditary Peers in this House are completely indistinguishable from any other Peer, apart from the absurd anomaly of their being able to pass on their peerage to another of their number when they die or retire.

The by-election system is way past its sell-by date. My Bill would scrap it in two simple clauses. For this House to take the lead and pass it would enhance our reputation and improve our Parliament. Its passage would hurt no one and cost nothing. I commend it to the House.

[Viscount Waverley (CB)]

For the record only and not necessarily as an all-encompassing defence, does the noble Lord wish to consider that the Cross Benches have a rigorous selection process to replace one of their own, representing quality, availability and specialists in their subject?

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I think that was more of a mini-speech than an intervention. Of course, I have tremendous respect for the Cross Benches, but the basic principle must remain—namely, that for a group of hereditary Peers to replicate themselves ad infinitum in a by-election situation which I hope I have described as being completely unacceptable, is no longer defensible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I am grateful for those interventions at the end: they will enable me to be shorter in my summing up. In particular, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, for making the point that I was not intending to derail the Government’s whole legislative programme. I think it would take about 10 minutes to get the Bill through were it not for—I say this with respect to them—a very small number of Members in this House, who were understandably overrepresented in today’s debate, who still feel that we should continue with hereditary by-elections. That is despite the fact that there is universal agreement—there I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, and so many others who spoke—for the Lord Speaker’s initiative to reduce the number of Members in the House. It has got to a ridiculous size, but that was not the main subject of today’s debate, although I say in passing that unless my Bill were passed, one way that we could not reduce the number of Members of this House would be by removing a hereditary Peer, because the mechanism exists for their immediate replacement by a by-election. I hope that that, at least, will be recognised.

I am very grateful to the many Members on both sides of the House who spoke, particularly those who take the whole issue of incremental reform very seriously through the reformed second Chamber group, many of whom spoke—all, I think, in favour of the Bill. I am sorry: one, perhaps two, did not. I have no doubt that in the House as a whole there is overwhelming support for this measure. I hope that when we proceed to Committee, as I hope we will, those who still feel strongly against it will respect the overwhelming support which, I submit, exists across the House to see the system changed.

I tried in my opening speech to address the fundamental principle that to refer to what was said and done in 1999 is no basis for moving forward in any respect. The good faith of Governments—I do not include myself in this, because I am not in favour of an elected House—Labour, coalition and even Conservative Governments, to move towards a fully elected House has proved impossible. They have tried and they have failed. To use that—because Governments have failed to introduce the second phase—as a reason for continuing with by-elections in perpetuity is disingenuous. If you say the by-elections can go when there is fully comprehensive reform, just tell us how you are going to deliver that reform, or we can only conclude that you are not committed to the removal of the by-elections.

The noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Elton, stated what I should think from their perspective is quite an uncomfortable truth—I address this to the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, as well. Why was the Act passed with these exemptions by a Labour Government? I can give first-hand information on this because I was working in No. 10 at the time. It was because the Government knew that unless they made those concessions, their whole legislative programme would be wrecked, probably over two years. When Hansard is checked tomorrow, we will see that that fact was relayed accurately by the noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Elton. That is not a basis on which to have reached either the compromise in the Act or any undertakings that were given. The Act was to that extent passed under duress.

Any reasonable person must look at it now and ask: was it a sensible compromise? Should the by-elections continue in perpetuity? No one has offered an end date. None of the speakers who opposed the Bill has put an end date.

So many noble Lords made excellent points, particularly on the size of the House, with which I very much agree. My noble friend Lord Howard mentioned that and emphasised the importance of incremental change. I always want to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, has to say on these issues and I am very grateful to him for his support, and for that of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. There is cross-party support. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, made the point that we need to remember how we look to the outside world.

Of course the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, is right. If I go to the Labour Club over the weekend, as I may well do, for my pint, people will not be saying: “What are you doing about by-elections in the House of Lords?”. They will not be saying much about Lords reform. They will not be saying much about a large number of the things that we talk about in this House, but that does not mean that they are not important, it just means that most people are not political obsessives as, to a degree, we must all be, or else we would not be here. They get on with their lives, make intelligent decisions on a wide range of subjects, including referendums and general elections from time to time, although not always. If we judged whether to legislate on something based on whether people are angsty about it in the streets, we could have very long recesses in this place, because there would not be a vast amount for us to do.

The original Act was passed under duress—that is the only way I can describe it. I say particularly to the hereditary Peers that I have been very careful in the Bill and in my remarks to re-emphasise time and again that it is no threat to existing hereditaries. I do nothing other than acclaim the work that so many of them do. My point is that they are pretty indistinguishable from everyone else in the House. I have been here a little while, but I have to think, “Are they hereditary?”—or, rather, I do not think about it, it is not of great significance to me. We do not know, and certainly no one watching from the Galleries would have the faintest idea. I reject very strongly what the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft—and, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Elton—said: that somehow it was the hereditaries who uniquely held Governments to account. That has not been my experience at all: they do it in much the same way as everyone else. I am sorry if I have provoked the noble Lord.

[Lord Elton]

I said no such thing. I said that we were put here by those who did not trust the system to deliver the reform that would maintain this House’s functions of scrutiny and challenge the Government of the day—not that we were the only people who did that but that we were to see that if other people opposed that, we would be the opposition to that opposition.

[Lord Grocott]

I am not sure that I fully understood that. I repeat that we are all Members of the House of Lords who come here by various different mechanisms. Judge us as individuals and by our contributions, not by whether we are life Peers, hereditary Peers, Bishops, Law Lords or whatever. Hereditaries have no unique characteristic which makes them more valuable to the House than any other group within it.

This is a plea more than anything else, I suppose, because I know perfectly well how it would be possible to cause great difficulty to the Bill. I know that many hereditary Peers support the Bill. One said to me before I came into the Chamber that it was a little wearing that, somehow, if you were a hereditary Peer in this House, you felt yourself to be in the firing line and that it was always a subject for discussion and debate. If the Bill was passed, that would cease. It would make all the remaining hereditary Peers indistinguishable for all practical purposes from other Members of the House. It would cease to be a debating point—it is a pretty artificial one in any event, apart from this business of by-elections to make sure that the system continues in perpetuity.

I am sorry that at the moment, the Government feel that there are more pressing matters—I agree with them, but a few hours is all that is needed to sort this out and make us look a better House in this small respect than we do at present. I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Hayter for her support for the Bill as a whole. I hope that the House will give it a fair wind both at Second Reading and in the Committee that I hope will follow.

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

Electoral Status: Online Access

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I am sure that we will continue to discuss and debate this matter, but the Government believe that active engagement on registering to vote is preferable. The success of the new individual electoral registration system shows that it is making it easier to register to vote. Between the unfortunate downtime at 10 pm last Tuesday and the close of the registration period on Thursday night, for example, there were more than 453,000 applications.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, it is of course welcome that substantially increased numbers of people have registered to vote in recent weeks, but does that not have clear implications for the work of the parliamentary Boundary Commission? It is due to report in September but is now likely to report on the basis of substantially out-of-date electoral registration figures. If the Government can bring in emergency legislation to extend the period during which people can register, surely they must commit themselves—I ask the Minister to do this—to ensuring that any redrawing of constituency boundaries by the Boundary Commission is based on a totally up-to-date electoral register.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I am sorry to disappoint your Lordships, but I am not going to commit the Government to that. Without the implementation of these boundary reforms, MPs would, by 2020, end up representing constituencies that are drawn up on data that are over 15 years old for all of the UK.

Elections: Campaigning

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

When we perceive that there is action that is necessary to be taken.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Further to the Minister’s comment that it was an “administrative error” that thousands of pounds were overspent in local election campaigns, I suggest that it is a poor defence to say that, nationally, the party spent less than the limit imposed. The question was about the very strict limits that have existed on local spending since at least the 1870s. They were the rules that were breached and surely some attention needs to be paid to this by the Government.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, I am sure that all political parties wish to make sure that their spending limits are accurately presented and have done down the decades—not least the Labour Party. Both the Labour Party and the Green Party were fined by the Electoral Commission for failing to report all their 2014 European parliamentary expenditure. We all need to look at how our processes operate.