House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord True

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

It would. If such a rare case applied, a second, life peerage under the 1958 Act could be conferred—it would be very simple.

Like much constructive reform, this may not be a great innovation. It is an extension of a principle that exists under the royal prerogative, an extension to the 1958 Act so that non-sitting life Peers may be created through a statutory process as well. This would be helpful to Prime Ministers who wish to honour distinguished men and women but not necessarily to swell the ranks of this House.

There are many Peers who currently do not have the right to sit in your Lordships’ House, and I found the arguments put against this proposition in Committee faintly risible. A clear and unequivocal reform, enabling the creation of non-sitting life Peers under the 1958 Act, would be no more or less confusing than the current position, but it would relieve us of the potential difficulties both for individual Peers and for the House, to which I have referred. It might save some future Peers, and indeed your Lordships’ House, from the unnecessary embarrassment of including people who do not want to be here or to stay here for very long. I cannot think for the life of me why any Government would wish to resist it.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I will risk the possibility of being called risible by the noble Lord, Lord True, for disagreeing with him, but I think he has failed to spell out precisely one point that he should have done. He prayed in aid various people, including my noble friend Lord Foulkes as someone who thought we should separate membership of this House from the peerage. I agree with that—it is a very good idea—but there are of course two ways of doing it.

One way is to say that you do not require a peerage to be in this House, nor do you need a title—we could be called Members of the upper House. That deals with the problem just as effectively as the problem he has constructed, which I do not think is a serious one, to create a new category of Peer. This is the last thing we want to be doing in a Bill of this sort, which tries to simplify and clarify membership of this House, however far from that we have strayed.

According to my reckoning, if we were to make the mistake of following the advice of the noble Lord, Lord True, we would then have six categories of membership of this House. We would have hereditary Peers here for at least another 40 years, maybe longer, due to the amendment we have carried; some Law Lords remaining from the previous legislation; Bishops; life Peers; and we would still have—though not as Members of the Lords—hereditary Peers, who are not able to sit in the Lords. He is adding a further category of life Peers who are not able to sit in the Lords.

If he tried to explain that in “Understanding the House of Lords” to the average 18 year-old studying the British constitution at the moment—or the average anybody—it would sound like the ultimate in making a mountain out of a molehill. We do not need additional categories of membership of this House; we need fewer.

[Lord True (Con)]

I am not proposing an additional category of Members of this House; the whole point of this amendment is that those people should not be Members of this House. By the way, any life Peer who retires from this House is still a life Peer and a Lord, so is the noble Lord confused by that?

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

If the noble Lord, Lord True, cannot see the difference in category between a life Peer who can sit in here and legislate and a life Peer who cannot, then we are going to have considerable difficulty in having a sensible discussion. They are obviously fundamentally different, just as there is a fundamental difference between a hereditary Peer who cannot sit in this House because he is not one of the favoured 92, and a hereditary Peer who can. Believe me, they know the difference—and I am sure the life Peers would, as well.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord True

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I do not wish to still the debate, but perhaps I might, as the noble Baroness did on a wider point in the first group, intervene briefly. As a previous Leader of your Lordships’ House and now as Leader of the Opposition in this House, the remarks I am going to make, I make as Leader of the Conservative Party here and with the full assent of my right honourable friend the leader of the Opposition nationally.

I say, by the way, to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, that this House should never be cowed from proposing a thought to the other place. Indeed, one of the arguable contentions that we have had on this Bill is that it must have no amendments. I am sure there have been occasions, but it is unusual in our parliamentary proceedings that the expectation should be that a Bill, and certainly one of this constitutional significance, be unamended. Would the proposition that one cannot have a conversation with the House of Commons on this matter apply to a future Bill to remove people over 80, as promised in the Labour manifesto? I hope not. I hope this House would vigorously raise questions on that.

I have been listening carefully to the debate that was initiated very ably by my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, brilliantly supported by the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, and my noble friend Lady Laing. They put a proposition that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, acknowledged he owns and loves, but he is going to vote against it today. It is a proposition that I think many of us know in our heart is the right and balanced way forward. I think many of us know in our heart that if there were not a party whip applying, there would be a majority in this place to reach a balanced solution. That balanced solution gives the party opposite and the Liberal Democrats what they have legitimately wanted for a long period, which is the end of the hereditary principle as a route of entry into this House, but which does not hurt existing Members or impede the workings of this House in the way my noble friend Lord Forsyth suggested.

In case there is any doubt, I put on record beyond any doubt what those who have been following the debates on the Bill from the outset will already know, which is that my party has no plan, intention or device to block the Bill indefinitely or to delay its passage by the kind of constant ping-pong that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, referred to. From the very outset, within days of the last general election, on my initiative and that of the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, we recognised, regret it or not, the Labour Party’s mandate to end the entry of Peers to this place by any preferment of heredity. The convenor and I proposed—and the noble Baroness the Leader of the House graciously accepted and helped to develop—that proposal, that by-elections for hereditary Peers should be suspended. That has been accomplished, and it remains so. It is done. It is not an issue in this debate, even though the word by-elections has featured a great deal. No person has entered this place by reason of election under the 1999 Act since Labour’s victory in the last general election, nor shall one ever do so again.

That is a mighty thing under the eyes of 800 years of service here by hereditary Peers. By the end of this month, a Bill will pass which will permanently end entry here on the grounds of heredity, and if the Government should choose to send it for Royal Assent, it could be law by dawn on the first day of August. That is the position. Whatever may be implied or said to the contrary, we on this side are not arguing for the continuation of the hereditary principle as a route of entry here.

My noble friend’s amendment would not alter, detract from or frustrate that in any way; in fact, it would enable it. The sole issue before your Lordships in this debate, as my noble friend Lady Laing argued so passionately, is not who comes here in future but who goes now.

As the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, said—I think the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, slightly missed this point—if the Bill successfully affirms that any Government may expel summarily a group of existing Members of our legislature who for whatever reason they do not like, then any future Executive, using what will be the awesome power—unique, actually, in the world—of a Prime Minister to choose who comes here, and now, on this example, who goes, any future Government, of whatever colour, and heaven forfend it should be the example put before us by the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, could use the same arguments—

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord True (Con)]

I will complete my remarks and then I will give way. They could use the same arguments to expel any other group now among us in the future.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, this is such an absurd, fanciful and imaginative suggestion. By way of evidence, can the noble Lord explain to us how 667 hereditaries being removed overnight in 1999 raised the spectre that he is trying to put before us—that it enabled subsequent Governments to act in the completely arbitrary and brutal way that he has described? It is pure fantasy.

[Lord True (Con)]

Well, it certainly encouraged the Labour Party, which removed the Law Lords—although allowing those who were here to stay—and are now removing the rest of our hereditary colleagues.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord True

Committee stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I had not realised we were quite as democratic as that. Obviously, I am sorry for people who enjoyed it here and are going. I dare say it will happen to me before too long. But, really, they cannot complain when they have had an innings of 40-odd years. It is a pretty good deal, especially when they come from a cohort of Peers who have come via the electoral process, of which much has been heard—occasionally with approval, I am amazed to say. People coming via that mechanism can have no complaints if their service comes to a conclusion. I think 40-odd years is a very good innings and there is no reason to weep and wail because it is coming to an end.

I will not go through the rigmarole of asking why on earth the noble Lord, Lord True, has had his change of mind. It is not entirely accurate to say that he was a slavish servant of the Government at the time because, when my Bill was first introduced, unless my memory serves me badly, he was not a member of the Government and, along with the noble Lords, Lord Strathclyde and Lord Trefgarne, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, was resolutely opposed to the Bill, just as they were to every attempt to reform this place over the period that they were in power. I am not going to speak any longer, for fear that I will get interrupted.

[Lord True (Con)]

If the noble Lord will allow me, I was strongly in favour of the proposals put forward by the coalition Government and I look forward with interest to the debate launched by the noble Lord. That was my view.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord True, is talking about the coalition period. He was in favour of the Bill then. I assume that is what he is arguing about, not my Bill. I am talking specifically about my Bill, which he previously opposed in a powerful way and has now tabled an amendment to implement. I have no intention whatever of voting for the amendment, he will not be surprised to hear. Those who have sat it out as hereditary Peers have had a very good, generous innings from a very small electorate. Hereditary Peers on the list who have said that they are available for election have something like a one in 200 chance of becoming a Member of the House of Lords, whereas members of the general public have a one in 75,000 chance of becoming a Member of Parliament—so it has been a pretty privileged group. Many have served well, but the end is nigh and I suppose we will continue to repeat these kinds of assurances.

I will make one more point and then I will sit down for the rest of the evening. We make much of these 92, including many capable people, leaving their position in the Lords. A mere eight months ago, some 220-odd people lost their seats in the Commons and, although most of them were Tories, I am prepared to admit that maybe some of them made a useful contribution while they were Members of Parliament—but you go; you are chucked out; that is what happens. And that is what is likely to happen as soon as this Bill becomes law.