Hereditary Peers By-election

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Mancroft

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

They are getting older, as my noble friend says. We have had 16 by-elections in the 16 months—by coincidence, it is 16 months—since by-elections resumed after the suspension during the period of Covid, so we have had 16 new Members: two Labour; two Cross Bench; and 12 Conservatives. Nine of the 12 Conservatives were elected by this privileged circle of Conservative hereditary Peers, so nine selected by 43: again, the stats are pretty good if you are a hereditary and a Conservative. I can mark a landmark, which some may celebrate but I have to admit that I do not, that with the two elected today, there have now been 50 Peers elected via the by-election system since it began in 1999.

It is interesting that, as we all know, this was introduced as a temporary measure—we have had 50—and now the next generation is moving on. Peers who came in at a by-election are retiring and now causing another by-election, so we are having by-elections for by-elections in something that was intended to be a temporary phenomenon.

As the House knows, I am afraid the Government have always refused to make any changes. But I am an optimist. There is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. We have heard from the Prime Minister repeatedly this week that she is a listening Prime Minister. I wonder whether she will listen to the overwhelming majority of noble Lords in this House, who have said on every test we have had that these by-elections could cease. It might be a U-turn, but these things happen. It would be terrific if the Prime Minister listened to us and ended these ridiculous by-elections once and for all.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, rightly points out, this is a very strange way of selecting people. That is because it was designed by the Labour Party when it was in government. A sensible party would have come up with something different. However, the two candidates we have elected today are of a very much higher calibre than many of the candidates appointed over the last few years. More importantly, neither of them has abused parliamentary privilege to interfere with the system of prosecution in this country or disgracefully used their position to destroy and attack the reputations of three very honourable public servants, including my late friend Lord Brittan and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall. They would never have dreamed of doing that. That in itself has destroyed any possibility of having an appointed House in future.

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

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Mancroft

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 13th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I have to say that I do not think the second speech of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, was an improvement on his first. He should read the speech—he could not have been listening very carefully—of his noble friend Lord Mancroft, who made precisely the point about the particular skills and insights of hereditary Peers that are denied to the rest of us.

[Lord Mancroft]

My Lords, I was not making that point. I made no points about the prominence of the hereditary peerage and I echo the comments of my noble friend Lord Strathclyde. This debate is not about the hereditary peerage at all; it is about the future of this House, with or without hereditary Peers. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who has a very good case to make, damages his case by making remarks like that.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the people who have been damaging their case are all the hereditary Peers—with the exception of the noble Earl, Lord Howe—who made contributions today. They have been particularly depressing in their unanimity, but they are also unrepresentative of the rest of the hereditary Peers, who are not here, because, as I said, there are many who wished this Bill well for the future.

We heard from nine hereditaries: Messrs Strathclyde, Trefgarne, Caithness, Trenchard, Reay, Mancroft, Glenarthur, Astor and Northbrook. I mention their names because they failed to do what the Companion requires, which is to declare an express, clear interest. Time is short, but I am being persuaded that I really ought to read out the extract from the document itself, the text to which we all adhere. The section headed “Rules of Conduct” on page 65 states:

“In order to assist in openness and accountability, Members shall … declare when speaking in the House or communicating with ministers or public servants any interest which is a relevant interest in the context of the debate or the matter under discussion.”


That is game, set, match and tournament. According to the rules of this House, they should have declared their interest.

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

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Mancroft

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

[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”.