House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Hacking Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I did not have the pleasure of hearing the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brady, but I am sure that he is most welcome to the House. But I did have the opportunity to hear my noble friend Lady Quin’s exquisite valedictory speech, and I am sure that we will all miss her.

I stand as a very rare species: I am a hereditary Labour Peer. More than that, I am the only hereditary Labour Peer taking part in this debate. My noble friend Lord Stansgate has avoided having to speak to the House by taking the chair for one hour as Deputy Chairman, so it has been left to me.

In the parlance of these days, I should state where I am coming from, so I will express it to your Lordships. I took the oath for the first time in February 1972, nearly 53 years ago, when I was 34 years of age. At the time, Earl Jellicoe was Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House, and Lord Shackleton was Leader of the Opposition. One was the son of Admiral Jellicoe of Jutland fame and the other was the son of the great Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton—I felt a touch of heredity existed. I remained in the House until 1999—I was here for 27 years—and returned in 2021 at the encouragement of my noble friend Lord Kennedy, my Chief Whip. I have therefore been in the House for 30 years, with my first spell being 27 years.

Since I arrived in this House in 1972, I have always held that, in the world of the Mother of Parliaments, no membership of this or any other House should be by the accident of birth, and I remain strongly committed to that principle. That is why, in 1999, I refused to put myself forward for election among the 10% of excepted hereditary Peers. I am afraid that I did not keep to that same purity in 2021, but my noble friend Lord Kennedy is very persuasive.

Yes, as the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said, there are improvements to be made, and I hope they will be put forward. The noble Earl suggested that absent prayers—I mean absent Peers: a slip of the tongue—should be excluded on a tighter basis than just one absenteeism in the whole five-year period of a Parliament. I hope that that will be attended to in Committee.

Therefore, I will address only one issue, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord True. He argued that the removal of the hereditary Peers was unnecessary and that they should be allowed to wither away. He cited the treatment of the existing hereditary Irish Peers in the 20th century, who were not removed but allowed to wither away. Indeed, they did wither away some time ago. The trouble is that the noble Lord’s argument runs against the principle that nobody in Parliament should be here by the accident of birth.

It has been a great privilege for me to be in this House from 1972 to 1999, and then again since 2021. I end my short brief speech with praise for my Leader for the very tactful manner in which she introduced this Bill and her readiness to give rightful praise to a number of hereditary Peers. In her earlier speech, she actually identified two hereditary Peers of great distinction. This contrasts with the noble Baroness who was the Leader of the House in 1999, who, in a rather brief speech, addressed the hereditary Peers with the words, “Thank you and goodbye”.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Hacking Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, it is great fun following the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie. I stand before your Lordships as a very rare species: I am a hereditary Labour Peer. There are only four of us altogether, and I am a bit more rare because I am the only Labour hereditary Peer speaking in this debate. More than that, I have more experience than other noble Lords, except for the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, who has enormous experience in House of Lords reform. Indeed, shortly before I joined this House, in the first Wilson Government, there was a serious attempt to reform the House of Lords. It was defeated by an unholy alliance between Michael Foot on one side and Enoch Powell on the other. I then experienced the 1999 Lords Bill—but I had better be careful because at the height of the debates I came into the House with an enormous black eye. The rumour was that I had been duffed by an angry hereditary Peer for disloyalty towards other hereditary Peers.

It has always been my position that, as we are the mother of Parliaments worldwide, we should not have in our membership those who have got here by accident of birth, including myself. Clearly all of us hereditary Peers must go, whatever fine contribution we are making.

My noble friend the Privy Seal has invited us to provide comment about reform. My answer to that is twofold. First, there should be in place a House commission with full, unrestricted powers for the choice of new Members. Secondly, we should be an appointed House, not an elected one. The basic problem with an elected House—I know I am disagreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Newby—is that there will be two elected Houses in Parliament, and that is a constitutional problem. In the legislation there may be great attempts to fetter the electoral powers of this House but we will still be an elected Chamber, and there will still be a serious risk of a constitutional clash between the two Houses of Parliament. That will bring about the inevitable problems that, as our constitution is structured, we will be ill-equipped to handle. The United States of America has two Houses, each of electoral power, but there is a President in the United States of America who can try to find a solution between them. We have a constitutional monarch, and we do not want to bring a constitutional monarch into a constitutional crisis.

That brings me to the end of my speech. Having rather a reputation of going over time, I hope my Whips will note that I have gone under time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I have to urge patience on the noble Lord. I am at the start of my comments on the debate and the noble Lord seeks to intervene on me within a few minutes. I would urge him to have a bit of caution and patience, but I want to raise another point. He said that this was sprung on us; how utterly ridiculous. It has been 25 years; it was in the manifesto; it was a major part of his comments and those of others on the King’s Speech. This was not sprung. I wrote an article saying, as I have said in the House on many occasions, that if the by-elections continued this would have been a consequence of that. The option was there to stop the by-elections. One noble Lord—I cannot remember who—said that we have stopped the by-elections now. No, we have only paused them until the conclusion of this legislation.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, had great strength in his arguments. There was consistency of principle but pragmatism as well. He asked whether I still held the view that the House worked best when there were roughly equal numbers between the government party and the Opposition. That is a personal view which I expressed in a Select Committee that he and I both attended. It is hard to get to those exact numbers, but when you have such a great imbalance as there has been over the last few years, the House does not do its best work. I think the House works better with roughly equal numbers. I will return to that in a moment.

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for his very thoughtful and helpful comments. He has been instrumental in bringing forward papers to look at the conventions of the House over the last year or so, and I am grateful to him for his time on that. He was also the first to try to put some detail on the issue of participation. As I said when I opened, I think we all have an innate understanding of what we mean but quantifying that is quite difficult. I am grateful to him for looking to do so and for his comments on laws and conventions.

A number of noble Lords—including the noble Lords, Lord True, Lord Forsyth, Lord Mancroft and Lord Inglewood—talked about there being a power grab for parties on this. It is quite right that, in recent times, no political party has had an overall majority in this House. That is the right way for us to operate; it will not be changed at all by the Bill that has now been completed in the other place. That will not change as a result. If we look at the statistics of how we operate, currently the Conservatives have 34% of your Lordships’ House; after the Bill being implemented, that would be 32%. On my side, currently 22% of the House are Labour Peers; after the hereditary Peers are removed, it will be just 24%. In fact, the party that gets closest to being reflected most accurately is the Liberal Democrats. There will be very little difference between that party’s representation here and in the other place.

I also gently—or perhaps not so gently—remind noble Lords that after 12 years of a Labour Government, there were 24 more Labour Peers than the Conservative Party had. After 14 years of the Conservative Party in government, there were over 100 more Conservative Peers than Labour had. When I hear weaselly words such as, “We’ve got to stop this Prime Minister making appointments”, I ask: why was that never considered prior to the Bill being introduced?

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, also asked what the Government’s view is of the size and composition. He was right to raise that but the noble Lord, Lord Burns, made a very valid point, which I accept. There is little sense in the House reducing its size, by whatever means, if that is not a sustainable position to hold. I will take that away and reflect on it because the noble Lord is right.

We also have to ask: why do we think a smaller House would be the right thing? There has to be the purpose first, which is not having a smaller House. The purpose is to be more effective in how we operate and what we do. The representations I have had from across the House, from almost every noble Lord who has been to see me, is that they think we would do this better with a smaller House. Indeed, some noble Lords who have since departed said to me that they felt as the House got bigger, they were less able to make the contributions that they wanted to make. It is absolutely right that if Members leave the House, that should not necessarily be to create a vacancy for more appointments.

The manifesto talked about retirement age and participation. I am keen to engage further on this and I am grateful to noble Lords who commented on how that could be implemented. A number of issues were raised and I will take those forward. A point made by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, was that one reason the House has become so large is that you have Members coming in but not departing. He sought to look at that at the time of his report. I think that the noble Lords, Lord Hampton and Lord Inglewood, made similar comments.

Several noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Liddle, raised something that has been raised before: decoupling the title and the membership of the second Chamber. There is no doubt that, when noble Lords are given a title, it is recognition of work they have done in the past. But it also has to be an expectation of what they are going to do in the future and the contributions they will make. The two go hand in hand. We want to see an active membership. As I said, that does not mean that every Peer has to be here all day every day. We are a full-time House. Not every Member has to be full-time, but they have to make a commitment to the work of this place.

The noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, raised the issue—I think it is an interesting point—of devolved Governments’ First Ministers being offered peerages. The SNP of course does not nominate people to this House. The point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, was that, where there are institutions in which you can make your voice heard, you should do so. I think her party takes a very different position from—I say this in the loosest form—its sister party in Scotland on that one. The noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, was the First Minister of Scotland: currently he is the only one from our party. Other parties have made nominations as well. But I think it is a point well made. We want a more diverse House, in terms of a whole range of characteristics, including geography but also age, gender, ethnicity, religion and other issues as well.

A number of noble Lords raised participation. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for his initial comments on this. I would quite like to have further discussions around the House on this as I do not think there is a consensus on how to move forward. My impression, from the conversations I have had, is that most noble Lords think that this is important, but no one can actually quantify it. What you do not want—I think the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, said this—is a perverse incentive to encourage people to turn up or speak when they do not need to speak. But you do want to know that someone is serious about being here.

All of us have expressed concern about those noble Lords—albeit a small number of them—who come in here, sign the book to retain their membership and then walk out and leave. That is not being serious about this House.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

Hear, hear.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

It is good to have some encouragement from the noble Lord; it is not always forthcoming.

This comes back to the point the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made about whether there could be two kinds of title. There are difficulties with that, but I think it is something noble Lords might want to consider. In the manifesto we deliberately were not exact or precise about that. We thought it was something to be discussed by the House and for the House to come forward with something on that. It is about striking the right balance.

I think most noble Lords have spoken in support of the Bill that is going through the House of Commons but have made a number of other comments. Some want us to go further, some sense that it is a first step in the current programme and some are not comfortable with it.

The issue of some Conservative hereditary Peers becoming life Peers was raised. The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, raised the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain. He is absolutely right; we have to ensure they can properly fulfil all their duties. I have already raised this with the Lord Speaker to ensure that that can happen. We will do nothing that makes it difficult for them to fulfil their responsibilities and constitutional roles. He does not have to table an amendment: we will ensure that happens. I can give him a guarantee already on that one. They will continue to exercise their functions.

The noble Viscount, Lord Astor—who has explained to me why he is unable to be with us for the wind-ups today—the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, raised female succession to hereditary titles. The noble Earl and I have been in correspondence on this. I am sympathetic to his points. It is more complex than I had anticipated. I have made some initial inquiries in this area, and part of the problem is that the original writs of summons—his is much older than anybody else’s—specify that it is through the male line. There are all kinds of issues, including adoption and the expectations of existing heirs. As I say, I am looking into the matter, as he raised it with me, because I know he is interested in it.

The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, said that the removal of the hereditary Peers in that Bill was to clean up politics—that is absolutely not the case. Those are two very different issues, and no one is casting aspersions on individual hereditary Peers.

HOLAC was mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Cromwell. They are absolutely right that there are issues with how HOLAC operates. I am not content to leave this entirely to HOLAC; the political parties have to take responsibility for their appointments and the checks that they are supposed to do. There may be something about HOLAC asking for assurances that those checks have been done. There are discussions to be had on that. HOLAC has an important role for the Cross Benches, which have not always had the appointments that they should have in that regard—even though they are currently larger than the Labour group in this place. The point about the quality of new appointments was well made, but political parties have to take some responsibility for that as well, or face the consequences.

The noble Lord, Lord Birt, mentioned diversity and the composition of the House. He and I have discussed this. If we are diverse as a House, the public can look to the House and see that it better represents the country. I do not know where the noble Lord got the idea of a senate of nations and regions. Our longer-term plans say that:

“Labour is committed to replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations”.


In the meantime, we seek to improve the national and regional balance of the second Chamber. That is a worthy objective and one that we should take seriously. We will take it forward.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, asked why we should not bring in a new age limit for the House of Lords now. On the manifesto commitment about Members retiring at the end of the Parliament in which they reach 80, I have to thank my noble friend Lord Foulkes for that suggestion in the first place. He and other noble Lords from the Labour group put that forward.

Death of a Member: Lord Judge

Lord Hacking Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, I talked to Lord Judge only about the fact that I went to school very near the Oratory. We were the rough Catholic school, St Thomas More. We would go up to his school and fight with people from there, just because we were awkward. He asked me, “Why was it Catholic fighting Catholic?”, and I said, “I really don’t know”. He was an absolutely magnificent, kindly and thoughtful person. I once made him giggle when I said, “You would have made a brilliant probation officer”.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I found myself as a fellow pupil barrister with Lord Judge. There were just two of us in chambers in 2 Crown Office Row in October 1963, almost exactly 60 years ago. I have known and admired him ever since. I remind your Lordships—and myself—that he had a dark head of hair in those days, which he preferred me not to talk about in later life. When I returned to this House two years ago, he kindly recalled in the Chamber the jousts we had had together as young barristers in the Bedfordshire Quarter Sessions. I am not sure that they were jousts, because he was not a flamboyant, noisy advocate but a quiet, penetrating one and, when he took Silk, a strong and courageous one. So much can be said about the witty and persuasive Igor, who, in a debate not long ago in this House, solemnly read a letter that he had written to himself. He had made his point and made it very well. Golly, he will be missed.

Cabinet Manual: Revision (Constitution Committee Report)

Lord Hacking Excerpts

Friday 16th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I am speaking only through the helpfulness and alertness of the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, who noticed that I was attempting to speak. He said that if I did not make the right decisions in consulting the clerk and letting your Lordships know, I would not be allowed to stand now. I understand that I am now in the clear, particularly through the kindness of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire.

I have not studied this subject, but I have looked through passages in the Cabinet Manual. I looked in particular at paragraph 1.9, which deals with the problem of when the sovereign becomes incapacitated. If I remember my history right, only one monarch has been declared insane, with a regency then being set up. I think that was after King George III, when travelling in Windsor park, rested his carriage, got out and addressed one of the large oak trees as the King of Prussia. Thereafter, he was declared to be insane. However, he recovered from his insanity. I cannot find any provision in paragraph 1.9 or elsewhere in the manual about the processes that should be used when the sovereign recovers from his insanity. That is only a small measure.

Unfortunately, through a serious incapacity—being unable to walk more than five yards—I have been out of the House for three months. This is my first week back and this is the third excellent debate that I have listened to in your Lordships’ House. Since my period of incapacity, questions have been raised about our future. The big challenge for whoever replaces us is to provide intellect and intelligence in debate. This is the third debate I have heard this week, my first week back, which is in that category.

Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

Lord Hacking Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I can only think of Her Majesty as a young Queen. I wrote to her at her 80th birthday to tell her. That must seem very strange when she was 80 years old and even stranger now she is 96 years old. Let me explain. To do so, I shall take your Lordships, if I may, back to 6 February 1952. I was then a schoolboy aged 13 years. It was a normal start to a normal school day, but by mid-morning a rumour was passing round the school that the King had died. This was a great shock; he was only 56 years old. We knew that things were not well when the BBC shut down all its radio programmes—the Home Service, the Light Programme and the Third Programme, for those who can remember those days.

It was a particular shock because we did not know the King was ill. As young schoolboys, we did not notice, in so far as we looked at newspapers, that the King looked awfully unwell a few days earlier when bidding farewell to his daughter Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh when they were starting a world tour on his behalf. We learned on that very day that he was being succeeded by the young Princess Elizabeth, only 25 years old. This was not much older than most of us schoolchildren; it was only 12 years older than me. That evening, we had a broadcast from the Prime Minister. He mainly directed his broadcast to a tribute to the late King. He made little mention of the new monarch until the end, when, with great Churchillian style, he said, “I must end this broadcast with an anthem and prayer of my youth—God save the Queen.”

Shortly afterwards, we heard at my school that the young Queen was paying a visit to Portsmouth. It so happened that my school was quite close to the A3, which was—still is—the road from London to Portsmouth. A group of us went to the roadside. The royal car, on Her Majesty’s directions, I am sure, slowed down to almost walking pace and we were able to have a wonderful view of the new Queen. This was my first opportunity to see Her Majesty.

Next came the Coronation in June 1953. The Queen was then only 27 years old. I was the only person in my family who was not in the abbey at the Coronation—I had some jealousy over this—but I was allowed to go to the dress rehearsal, where the Duchess of Norfolk, the wife of the Earl Marshal, took the role of the Queen. Of course the Queen was not there, and that made her faultless performance at the Coronation a particular credit to her.

The next time I saw the Queen was four years later. She was then 31 years of age. I was doing my national service in the Royal Navy, and I took part in a royal review off the coast of Invergordon in the north-east of Scotland. The review started with all the Navy’s vessels, or as many as could be gathered together, steaming past the royal yacht, which was then in very new use with a wonderful, gleaming hull. As we passed the royal yacht, we doffed our hats. The next day, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh gave a whole day to be aboard HMS “Ark Royal”, then a leading carrier in the Royal Navy on which I had the honour to serve. Her Majesty spent most of the day in the control of the ship—the bridge, which controls the movement of the ship itself, and Flyco, which was in charge of the movement of aircraft when taking off and landing. It was obviously an exciting day for Her Majesty and it was all rather exciting to us. The aeroplanes were catapulted off the front of the carrier and there was always a danger that the catapult would not function strongly enough, or that the engines of the aircraft taking off were not sufficiently revved up. These were occasions when the aircraft would dip and almost skim over the water before it got sufficient power to fly.

The landing was also an exciting event. The method then was for the aircraft to have a hook at its stern and to catch one of the hawsers as it came in to land on the carrier. There were occasions when it failed to catch the hawser, and then a frantic signal was given to the pilot to roar off the deck and, we hoped, not dip into the water. Her Majesty thoroughly enjoyed that and watched all the detail of the day. I was in the chart room as a very young navigating officer. It was very close to the bridge and Flyco and I was therefore able to witness Her Majesty deal with a problem. She was in high heels and they were catching on the decking of the ship. She asked the captain if she could remove her shoes and, for the rest of the day, she padded around in her stockinged feet, still enjoying and participating so much. Although I have had the honour on several occasions to meet Her Majesty in person, in Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace and other places, these memories are indelible for me.

The greatest tribute I think I can give to Her Majesty is on her success in avoiding any expression of view on political matters. It is true that she has very occasionally dropped a few hints, but for the most part this has been most rare. Her views on Scottish independence were unfortunately leaked by Prime Minister Cameron. I always thought Her Majesty was anti-Brexit because it was going to badly disturb our status quo—as indeed I believe it has. But, like everybody else, I simply did not know Her Majesty’s view on Brexit.

I feel I must end this short tribute to her as I began, with Churchill’s words of his youth, which have been the anthem and prayer of my last 70 years and Her Majesty’s last 70 years: “God save the Queen.”