House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, this Bill is specifically and ostensibly about the membership of the excepted hereditary Peers in this House—I must declare at the outset that I am one of them—but it is also, and I think much more importantly, a part of a wider debate about the future of our country’s second Chamber of Parliament and our constitution more widely. That is more important. Not much has been said about the volatile state of the world we are in. Domestically, politics is looking very much as if it is evolving in a rather startling manner that was not anticipated even a few months ago. Internationally, we have seen all kinds of change that was not anticipated over the past three or four years. In talking about our constitution, we need to remember that if the world changes dramatically, perhaps some of our ideas may need to change dramatically too.

My understanding of the Government’s position is that they see this proposed variant of Pride’s Purge of 1648 as the first step on a journey. A journey has to have a destination. All journeys go somewhere. I slightly feel that, as described by the Leader of the House, we are on a bit of a mystery tour. I do not think that the Government know exactly where they are going. I do not think I know either. I was on national television just after the general election when Jonathan Ashworth conceded that in fact there was not a worked-up plan when the Labour Party manifesto was drafted, which seems to me a bit careless, a bit foolish and slightly reminiscent of the days of the South Sea bubble, but—and this is the important thing—I think the merit or lack of merit of the Bill we are considering very much depends upon the answers and the responses to these wider, longer-term implications rather than simply the detail of what is being proposed.

From all that I have heard this evening, I think there is general agreement around the House that change, which may well include a reduction in numbers, is required. Against that wider context, I think we must try to see ourselves as others see us. I, and, I think, most noble Lords, believe as a generalisation that we conscientiously fulfil our wider role, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, asked: is that the general perception across the country? Noble Lords need only look at the tabloid newspapers and the media more generally to see an almost prurient interest in and sometimes ersatz horrified surprise about how people become Members of this House. Getting a Writ of Summons, the basis of our membership, appears very often to depend, at least partly, on luck or chance. Clearly, that is absolutely true for hereditary Peers, although I must confess that I have sometimes wondered whether it was good luck or bad luck, but that is for others to decide. Equally, in the case of a large number of other people here, the same principle applies. What it boils down to is that what in the Middle Ages was known as Fortune probably plays a decisive part in everyone’s life at some stage.

I am concerned that, if we are not careful, this House could become perceived in the wider world as a kind of political mates club writ large. Indeed, I think some of those who disparage us may already think that is the case. If that becomes a widely held view, the integrity and robustness of our constitutional arrangements and our place here in it would be severely impugned. The Westminster bubble, in which we are all sitting, is not, in fact, all that favourably viewed outside the M25. It is perceived as being too self-regarding, too introverted and out of touch with much of the country, which in turn devalues the perceived worth of the work done within it, taking the UK as a whole. As a number of Peers have already said, we cannot allow this second Chamber of which we are part to become too metropolitan and south-east focused in either its concerns or its membership, because that devalues its impact, value and importance for the country as a whole. I add my tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, who has been a doughty champion of the north of England, where I come from.

The way I look at it is that what the Government are proposing in this legislation is to send a platoon comprising the excepted hereditaries over the top in the first wave, leaving the others behind, at least for now. In circumstances like that, somebody has got to be in the first wave. Normally being at the front of the queue is thought to be a good thing. I am also conscious that greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his friends, but I think it would be not unreasonable for those of us who may be going over the top to be a bit clearer about what the longer-term plan actually is and how it will make our country a better place.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, ever since my early days, I have thought it anomalous to have hereditary legislators. But here I am, in the Chamber of the House of Lords, an excepted hereditary Peer. I suppose, ignobly, I have to say that in this life you have to play the cards you are dealt, and it was clear early on that I would not be a good professional footballer.

Obviously, as an individual, I am disappointed by the prospect of ejection, but that is the way of the wicked world in which we live, and the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is quite right that it is indifferent to my private grief.

For me, the real issue is not what happens to me but the process, and the consequences of those processes for the world more widely. In reading and thinking about these issues and their history, I was initially surprised that the Parliament Acts appeared to pay so little attention to the question of the transition from the old House to the new one. Then I realised that it is almost certainly because the Life Peerages Act 1958 had not been passed, so at that point the whole thing was not really an issue.

We now appear to be in a constitutional world where so long as the Executive control the House of Commons, which they invariably do, they have the capacity to abolish the second Chamber, and, if they wish, to fill it with creatures and lackeys, for which there will be clear precedent that they can be removed at will. We risk seeing a second Chamber that becomes entirely impotent and, indeed, Parliament as a whole will have no direct say in all this. So much for bicameralism, of which I am a strong supporter—and checks and balances equally so.

The fact that nothing like this has happened has to do as much as anything else with what the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, has called the “good chaps” theory of government. It has generally, though unfortunately, become accepted that this is becoming discredited. I was recently ticked off by a fellow Peer outside the Chamber for making this point. I can see the point she was making. She said, “Don’t be silly; it couldn’t happen here”. Couldn’t it?

When I was elected a Member of the European Parliament in 1989, just before I came here, I had many colleagues who had themselves, or their colleagues, family or friends had, been locked up and tortured by authoritarian regimes. The father of the then chair of the legal affairs committee, Ludwig von Stauffenberg, was one of the heroes of the July plot and had been shot by firing squad on Hitler’s orders. One of my British colleagues told me of a Member whom he got to know who never wore a tie because he had been condemned to death and taken to the gallows, and reprieved only after the noose had been placed round his neck.

For five years, I sat on the European Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee and I was struck by how many other countries had approaches to constitutional law and the courts that were quite different from ours. No doubt that is because they had been under authoritarian rule quite recently. In this country, there was no German officer on a white horse riding down Whitehall, as happened on the Champs-Élysées. That is not that far away, in either time or space.

In those days, bliss it was to be alive in the political world; now, there is volatility and even darkness in the wider political atmosphere. There are international conflicts of a kind we have not seen since the Second World War. Only a few months ago, in this very Chamber, we debated whether the Government of the day should remove the scrutiny of the courts from some of their activities. Since then, we have seen a number of extremist riots in our streets. I believe that “It couldn’t happen here” are some of the most dangerous words in politics. We should remember that we take out fire insurance not because our house will burn down but because it might.

At the conclusion of the consideration of the forthcoming Bill, I believe we will need to have a definitive restatement of how the Parliament Acts, the Life Peerages Act, the Bill itself and the sovereignty of Parliament all fit together in the interests of freedom, democracy and the rule of law, and what if any safe- guards might be needed to underpin them. For all of us here, I believe this is a case of ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.