Retirement and Participation Committee Report

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, my old foe, and a pleasure to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, on her excellent report and her feat in securing unanimous agreement on it. Some of the speeches today have shown us what a feat that was. I thought I detected what Private Eye calls “a reverse ferret”, though I may be wrong about that. I am certainly a bit baffled by the disingenuous claims that it is not clear what problem the Government and the committee are trying to solve. We know it is to how to bring in new blood without having the place get absurdly large.

Clearly, given the manifesto commitment, it is going to be a retirement age. I think the talk of expulsion is, with all due respect to the noble Lord, Lord True, a little overblown. I, myself, would have preferred a fixed term or a combination of the two—not for any personal reasons as I would be caught either way. I came here in 2004, shortly after my expulsion from the Foreign Office. As for age, I prefer just to say that I was expelled from my pram well before D-Day. Pace the noble Lord, Lord True, it happens. It is called ageing. I hope the report’s case for gradualism is bought by the Government and the other place, because the cliff-edge point seems to me a very real one, particularly for us Cross-Benchers. We are the oldest group here and 60% of us would be over a 2029 edge, lemming-like, all in one go.

On participation, I go for a criterion of attendance rather than verbosity; they also serve who only think and vote. But the minimum requirement should not be set too low. We are sent here primarily to legislate, and we should be ready to commit the necessary time—as many, alas, now do not. HOLAC needs to be able to check that in advance, as well as propriety, and for all people coming here. Our active membership is only about half our nominal membership, as some have pointed out, but that seems to me to be bad news rather than good. It certainly is not very good for our image.

And we are doing nothing to bring down overall numbers. I naively thought the departure of our hereditary friends would produce a big fall, but it has not. Leaving aside those on leave of absence, there were 827 of us this day last year; today, there are 797—a fall of 30, but it is rapidly being reduced as new Peers flock in. A fall of only 30. Yes, there are fewer Conservatives, but only 38 fewer—still the largest group. And there are many fewer Cross-Benchers, that endangered species; we are down by much more proportionately than are the Conservatives. But there are more Labour Peers, more Lib Dem Peers, more non-aligned Peers, and even more Bishops than there were a year ago. We all know about the post-election ratchet effect. I think that is “ratchet”, not “racket”, although I am not entirely sure. But it would be good to remind the three great parties, so busy rewarding their friends, that the report of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, in 2017 convinced us all that 600, not 800, would be about the right size and that until we got there, a “two out for one in” rule would be right. We voted for that. To her credit, the noble Baroness, Lady May, respected it as Prime Minister, but no other subsequent Prime Minister has done so and it is high time they did.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

There are a lot of things that we did in Government that I would not like to defend. I do not disagree with the noble Lord. I understand why a number of very good and excellent appointments have been made to the Benches opposite. I understand the reason why they wish to make up the numbers. All I am saying is that to argue that the Government are not going to accept the amendment from my noble friend because they are worried about the size of the House is ridiculous when, at the same time, they are increasing the size of the House. Have a care here for the importance of Parliament, of effective opposition and of not disabling the ability of this House to carry out its constitutional duties. In the end, it will be to the disadvantage of the Government and the House.

I support my noble friend’s amendment. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Hailsham is going to vote for it, but I do not see any conditionality about it. I am going to support it because it is in the interests of our country, democracy and this splendid institution—the House of Lords—which all of us should hold in the highest regard.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

The thing I find odd about the argument just advanced, and, indeed, about the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and the way in which he introduced it—splendid though it was—is the implicit assumption that if his amendment were to pass here, the other place would say, “Goodness, that’s a good idea”, and accept it. Does he really think that would happen? If so, I have a Westminster Bridge to sell to him. If he does not, does he think that the process of ping-pong will be good for the image of this House?

UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I join the tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, whose chairing of the European Committee I greatly admired, and the tributes to an excellent maiden speech. Like father, like daughter. I also thank the two committees for their advice, but I am going to risk the wrath of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, by focusing my five minutes on only a couple of issues about which I know something—or used to.

When I lived in Washington, I learned that it is very hard to exaggerate the importance the US attaches to the long runway, the deep-water wharf and particularly the electromagnetic spectrum control which Diego Garcia provides in a key strategic location. For the Pentagon and perhaps for the NSA, Diego Garcia may be the most important—certainly one of the most important—things we bring to the security partnership.

So, we have to ask ourselves, what would America do if harassed by possibly legally binding provisional measures—the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, will correct me, but I believe they could be if the proceedings were taken under the Law of the Sea Convention—and then in due course by binding findings, we were to find ourselves in ever-increasing global isolation? What would America do? Well, I believe that the perceived need for security of tenure at DG would drive the US to fall in with the majority, recognise Mauritian sovereignty and do a deal on the base directly for Mauritius. The Americans would ditch us rather than risk Diego Garcia. Of course, they are delighted that we have done the business for them and produced the treaty; that is why they welcome it so much.

Secondly, the American factor makes it particularly baffling that the Opposition should argue that the treaty opens the door for China. If it did, why would the Trump Administration welcome it?

Thirdly, the same goes for India. The Indian Government regularly express concern that the Chinese might contrive to use their 99-year lease with the Sri Lankans on Hambantota to secure a deep-water Indian Ocean base. They would be very alarmed if they thought that China could get a better, ready-made one at Diego Garcia. But they are not alarmed; they too warmly welcome this treaty, because they think that it lays that fear to rest. Mauritius has particularly close relations with India, which is not altogether surprising, because two-thirds of Mauritians are of Indian descent.

The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, speculated about the possibility of Mauritius joining the Chinese belt and road economic partnership. Surely the interesting fact is that it is one of only two African countries that have not joined the belt and road initiative. Why would the Mauritians enrage the Indians, with whom they are very close, by helping the Chinese, whom they distrust? One has to ask: what is it that the Opposition know that Washington, India and Mauritius do not know?

The Opposition’s second point is about the money, which is also conceptually puzzling. If recognising Mauritian sovereignty is absolutely and unacceptably wrong—wrong for fundamental reasons of principle, as the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, argued—surely it would be just as wrong if we paid less money. One can take a principled position, or one can haggle about the price, but it is quite hard to do both at the same time.

I recall from my Washington days that the US pays a very substantial contribution to the running costs of the Diego Garcia base. I cannot remember the numbers and I would not know what inflation factor to use, but I am jolly well sure that it is a great deal more than we are paying to Mauritius under the new treaty. Our payments are the same order of magnitude as the French are paying for Djibouti—a base that is 1/15th the size, less well placed and much harder to defend.

The Opposition, when in office and trying to negotiate this deal, knew that the exchanges would entail substantial payments, so it is a little hypocritical now to pretend otherwise. They say that they would have played the hand better and haggled harder, but I wonder: would they really have found global isolation splendid? Would they really have been ready to see the US lose patience and do a direct deal with the Mauritians? I do not think so.

I like the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and I think we all admired the way he introduced it. However, I hope that the House will reject the Opposition’s Motion; I am afraid that it is irresponsible. If we passed it, we would puzzle our friends—particularly in Washington, Delhi and Mauritius—and the rest of the world. To what purpose? I would like to see CRaG changed—it needs reform—but voting against the treaty tonight will not stop its ratification. Doing so would be bad for the country and bad for the House, demonstrating both irresponsibility and impotence.

One Hundred Year Partnership Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Ukraine

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the committee for its report and thank the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for his masterly introduction of it. I cannot live up to the advance billing that I was generously given by the noble Lord, Lord Marland, I am afraid.

I do not intend to say very much but I would like to comment on the slightly mechanistic, transactional view of UK interest that I derived from the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, and the noble Lord, Lord Marland. Fifty years ago, if you travelled in Spain and someone wanted to wish you good luck, they would wish you war in Crimea, because war in Crimea blocked the grain exports from the breadbasket of Europe—it is now called Ukraine—and raised the price of grain in rural Spain, thus making rural Spain prosperous. Ukraine is a phenomenally rich country, potentially. Its mineral wealth is largely concentrated in the Donbass. The President of the United States may not have noticed that, actually, it is in the bits he seems content to see given away, rather than in the north or the centre. Its agricultural land is the best in Europe for cereals—except, possibly, that of East Anglia and the San Juan Basin. So investment in Ukraine’s stability is investment in the future. It is a bit transactional to score it—12, was it?

[Lord Marland (Con)]

It was 12.8.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

It is an investment in both liberty and the values in which we believe. It is also, if you want to look at it transactionally, an investment in a potentially strong economic partner for the United Kingdom.

I strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Fox, that the title of this treaty is a little pretentious. I can think of only one precedent for as hubristic a title of a treaty signed by Brits. In 1809, the East India Company signed a treaty of perpetual friendship with Ranjit Singh, the then leader of the Sikh community in India. Neither the East India Company nor the separate Sikh state survived 100 years after their perpetual friendship treaty. I also agree with those who say that the content of the treaty is a little thin, but it is very important that, unlike the East India Company and the Sikh state in India, Ukraine should survive. It is important to both our security and the security of all of Europe.

I would like to make one macro point and one micro point. My macro point is that Putin says that Ukraine is not a legitimate state; that, therefore, its national sovereignty cannot exist; and that it is Moscow’s mission to obliterate it. We should take him at his word. He would not be satisfied with a settlement that gave him the Donbass. I think that the correct analogy for today is 1938. At Munich, Hitler got one-third; six months later, he was back for the other two-thirds. He was not satisfied then, and I do not believe Putin would be satisfied now. Hitler came back for Poland nine months later; the Poles, the Finns and the Baltic states are quite right to be worried now. So, despite the thinness of the content and the hubris of the title, I welcome the treaty as an additional confidence-building measure for the Ukrainians and a framework for future co-operation with us. All the detail still has to be filled in, but that is a job worth doing. It is strongly in our interest.

My micro point is about the preambular reference in the treaty to the

“United Kingdom being dedicated to supporting Ukraine’s irreversible path to NATO membership”.

“Irreversible” is quite a strong word. I was not altogether sure of the wisdom of NATO’s 2008 offer of membership to Ukraine and Georgia—nor, indeed, of the Vilnius 2023 or Washington 2024 language, which introduced the concept of irreversibility—but it is out there now and President Zelensky will no doubt want it repeated at the June NATO summit. Given President Trump’s clear scepticism—I use no stronger word—about Ukraine’s NATO membership, pressing for it at the NATO summit would be all too likely to lead him to denounce it, so disproving irreversibility at a stroke.

The drafting of the report’s paragraph 28 is a little obscure—particularly the last sentence—but paragraph 29 is judiciously silent on irreversibility. I hope that the Government are following its example and advising President Zelensky that the least said about irreversibility at the NATO summit, the better: no repetition, no denunciation. Let the summit instead concentrate on the immediate and manifest need for Europe to up its game, spending more on defence and spending it better; building up its support for Ukraine; and ensuring that the United States does not withdraw its support. If you want peace, prepare for war.

Conflict in Gaza

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My noble friend is right. In previous Statements, I have made clear that we are focused on educational support and on women and girls. I took the opportunity in New York at the Commission on the Status of Women to focus on how, in all the peace processes, we can ensure that the women, peace and security strategy is fully adopted. It is vital that we recognise the urgent situation, particularly its impact on women and girls, and particularly on pregnant women, so my noble friend is absolutely right.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

Could the Minister address the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis? Do we believe that the ceasefire is saveable? It looks dead; is it dead? Can it be resurrected? As I understand it, it was a three-stage ceasefire. The Government of Israel decided not to move to the second stage on the agreed timetable, Hamas having turned down their alternative suggestion of elongating stage 1. That looks to me like a battlefield for a diplomatic negotiation. What are we saying to the Qataris? Do they think the ceasefire can be saved? Do we think it can be saved? Are we suggesting to them ways of saving it?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The straight answer to the noble Lord is that we believe it can be saved because we believe it is there to be implemented, which is why we are making every effort to call on all parties to resume the negotiations. I am not going to be hung up on each stage and the timing of that. We have a clear commitment and undertakings that were given. Our effort and focus are on ensuring that they return to the negotiating table. We are absolutely committed to that.

Ukraine

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point. It is the purpose of the strategic defence review to look at all those issues and bring them to government. There is also an issue around defence procurement and always ensuring that we get the best value. I used to represent a constituency that had a defence industry and I am well aware of the problems that have existed with procurement. By reviewing procurement and being informed by the strategic defence review, we will do our best to get these issues right.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I warmly welcome the tone of the Leader of the Opposition Benches tonight, and what the noble Baroness, Lady May, said. The Prime Minister’s measured public tone deserves applause; I join those who say that he is handling this crisis very well. The measured public tone entitles him to send private messages, and the bit of his statement that I most liked, I think, was that the Ukrainians must be at the table when their future is negotiated.

Thirty years ago, American peacekeepers negotiated at Dayton, very successfully, a solution to the Bosnian war. Richard Holbrooke was brilliant. All parties were there in Dayton, Ohio. We were there—the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, who is not here tonight, was there. The warring parties accepted US mediation: there was an understanding among them that the US and its allies would be there to enforce the deal and ensure that all parties respected it. That was what enabled parties to come to an agreement. It would be very good if the Prime Minister would encourage the President of the United States to maintain open channels of communication with Kyiv. That is rather important. We should not criticise the President for talking to Moscow. That is a perfectly sensible thing to do. What he said to Moscow, of course, I do not know.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his experience of these issues; we would all do well to heed him. He is right: a peace negotiated without Ukraine at the table will not endure and be sustained. He is also right to refer to a security guarantee, which has been part of the issue in negotiations. The important thing is that everybody strives for peace. It is clear that there are different ways and different views on how that can be achieved. The two crucial points that the noble Lord mentioned—Ukraine at the table and a security guarantee—are the only way to have something that will endure.

Syria

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The noble Earl is absolutely right. We are concerned about increased tensions, particularly in northern Syria, and the impact those may have on civilians and stability in the region. So we are in regular contact with Turkey and the Syrian Democratic Forces. Our priority is constantly to focus on de-escalation.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

Would it not be easier to monitor and, one would hope, influence developments in Syria if we were to reopen the embassy now?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

What we need to do is constantly evaluate the situation. As I have mentioned twice already, we have a special envoy there—she was in Damascus last week—and we will continue to evaluate the situation so that we can ensure that, when that transition into a more permanent solution or more permanent Government happens, we will consider what the noble Lord asks for.

UK Strategy Towards the Arctic (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, a fellow Glaswegian and therefore inured to Arctic weather, and to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde, on this admirable report and his splendid introduction of it. I have only two criticisms of his report, and one of them is totally unfair, so I will start with the other one.

The report says that we have

“insufficient key military assets, such as submarines, maritime patrol or airborne early warning aircraft, to support this increased focus on the Arctic”—

which we should have—

“alongside the UK’s growing interest in other regions such as the Indo-Pacific”.

That is obviously true, but it is also a huge understatement. It is not just the posturing about the Pacific that creates the credibility gap. I believe that, as with the Joint Expeditionary Force, on which the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, spoke, which we are supposed to lead but our role is disappointing our partners, we lack the deployable assets to play the part we should be playing, and NATO expects us to play, in the High North. We still talk a good game, but our firepower does not match the rhetoric. In this, as in so many other ways, we need to learn from our front-line friends, the Finns, with their 1 million trained reserves and their society alive to the threat that Putin poses.

The unfair criticism of the report is that it nowhere discusses the largest immediate risk to the High North remaining an area of international co-operation and low tension, the risk to which the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, drew attention, which is that America grabs Greenland. The report’s authors might reasonably reply that when they completed the report, 13 months ago, no one saw Trump back in the White House, but, in 11 days’ time, he will be back, and he has this week refused to rule out taking Greenland by force. He said on Monday that if the Danes declined to let him buy it, he would put punitive tariffs on their trade. On Tuesday, he explained that the US needs Greenland for its national security and said:

“People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it”.


This last point is one known in diplomatic terminology—I apologise for using a technical term—as cobblers. Danish sovereignty over Greenland has been unchallenged since the Treaty of Kiel 1814 and was formally accepted and acknowledged by the United States and the United Kingdom in 1916.

However, I do not think Mr Trump is joking. He has form. He has to be taken seriously and, in this case, probably literally. Five years ago, he ordered the National Security Council under John Bolton to arrange the purchase of Greenland. Fiona Hill, who is now assisting the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, in his review, was personally involved in discussions with the Danish Government, who demurred. When the row went public in August 2019, Secretary of State Pompeo was able to calm things down, but the President was so cross, he cancelled a state visit to Copenhagen. I suspect that he has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. This time, he will not have Fiona Hill or Mike Pompeo to rein him in.

Whatever his motive, I think Mr Trump is not talking about military issues when he says that the US needs to have Greenland for national security; I think he is thinking in commercial or economic terms. If he was interested in making greater military use of Greenland, he could renegotiate the 1951 defence agreement, which is already strikingly permissive. The United States pays no rent and does not have to seek permission for any overflights or landings. I suspect that what he is after are the rare earths and the uranium, or the oil and gas, which are all now becoming much easier to exploit as the ice melts. I suspect that he is thinking also about China. China already has the biggest outside investment in Greenland, and Greenland exports more to China than to anyone else other than mainland Denmark. The noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde, rightly drew our attention to growing Chinese interest in the High North. Whatever his motive, I agree with President Macron, Chancellor Scholz and President Tusk that the forced transfer of sovereignty is no way to treat an ally. Like the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, I hope that our Government will find a way of making the same point that they have made. We owe it to the Danes to show them that we stand with them. On 18 October, a UK Minister, Mr Doughty, told the Arctic Circle Assembly that the UK

“will not tolerate attempts to wreck regional stability”

in the High North. He probably had Russia in mind, but sauce for the goose.

NATO Secretary-General Rutte has a big job on his hands in the next four years, with a dominant ally likely to interpret the concept of alliance rather eccentrically. Fortunately, we have an ex-Secretary-General, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, calling on the help of Fiona Hill, with her close-up experience of eccentricity, to advise us now on how we should best cope with it and its consequences as we reassess our priorities. I hope we build our shrunken forces.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, it is well known that the Scots are the best and the Glasgow Scots are the best of the best, as the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, has proved again. I look forward to hearing more from the noble Lord, Lord Brady, and the whole House will greatly miss not hearing any more from the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, who is a great northerner, a great parliamentarian and a very good European. We will all miss her.

Two hundred and thirty-two years ago today was a pretty bad day for the hereditary principle too. It was then that the trial started in Paris of King Louis XVI. That did not end well for him. I knew that historical analogies were compulsory today when I heard the imaginative interpretation of Runnymede from the noble Lord, Lord True, and I knew that bad taste would be entirely in order when I listened to the admirable speech from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom.

The Leader of the Opposition in his elegantly cynical speech urged the Government to abjure “flinty inflexibility”—I think I have his words right—and accept multitudinous amendments to the Bill. I got the impression that he might be drafting several himself. Indeed, I hear rumours that his amendment factory is working night and day. We have had in this debate some clues as to the possible scope of those amendments: the size of the House, the appointments system, HOLAC, required participation ratios, age limits, fixed terms, the fate of the Lords Spiritual and even, of course, the perennial issue of whether we should go electoral and not appointed.

I call the Opposition Front Bench’s position a bit cynical because they know full well what happened in 2003 and 2012 and know that sweeping amendments here would fail in the other place. There is actually quite a lot of cross-dressing going on here today. Our not very red, not very revolutionary Government are arguing for a cautious, painstaking, step-by-step, incremental approach. It is rather conservative, not very Keir Hardie, but the Opposition, by contrast, are disguised as Robespierre and Danton—absolutists. This Bill does not go nearly far enough for them. There must be no reform until there is full reform, with the end state defined in advance now. It is all or nothing and I call that a tiny bit cynical, because while they say they want all, they actually want nothing; despite the revolutionary garb, the aim is stasis. It is not entropy but atrophy.

Seriously, how would this House look to the outside world if the Opposition got their way? The Bill was clearly spelled out in the manifesto. The other place passed it by a majority of 262. If we delay it—or worse, amend it—and so take on the other place in a bout of ping-pong, we will be seen as self-serving and undemocratic. No, it would actually be anti-democratic: dying in the last ditch to preserve the hereditary right to legislate.

I want further reform. I set out my set of suggestions at excessive length in our debate a month ago, and I will not repeat them now; but actually, they are not germane to this little free-standing Bill, which we must pass. It will be sad to see friends go, but some will surely stay, rebadged to match the rest of us. To seek to wreck this Bill by expanding it in ways that we might like but the Commons would not, would be to do serious damage to public perceptions of this place. If we care about its reputation; if we care about its standing—and I hope we all do—we must pass this Bill quickly and unamended.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I cannot match the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for ingenuity—very few of us can.

As I listened to the noble Lord, Lord True, and indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—if he would care to listen—I was struck by the thought that it might be quite difficult to persuade the public outside that, because of something said in this Chamber 25 years ago, the mandate of the Labour Party set out in its manifesto should be put to one side, and nothing more can be done to reform the House of Lords because some commitment was given by somebody 25 years ago in this House. I think that would sell with some difficulty in the Dog and Duck.

[Lord True (Con)]

Pacta sunt servanda.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My concern is that the Bill has to pass. Obstructing it would be to obstruct the result of the general election. I am convinced that it will pass. It is a pity that we will lose so many of our friends, although I have a hunch that some of them will be miraculously reincarnated as life Peers on New Year’s Day—I certainly hope so.

I have three points to make. First, the Government are right to want to pause and draw breath after this first Bill. It seems sensible because the country needs a national debate.

The role of the Lords is not clearly understood. China and North Korea get by without a second Chamber but I think that most of us, and certainly most democracies, seem to think that there is an advantage in having an institution to keep a check on what a majoritarian Government can do in the primary assembly, to improve their legislation and to look out for regional concerns. I agree, but that case has to be made to the country because right now, it is not widely understood.

If we are honest, we also have to admit that we as a House could do our job better. These debates tend to be full of self-congratulation. Of course, it is a tremendous privilege to be here, and we do work hard—on primary legislation we do a much more thorough job than does the other place. But our scrutiny of secondary legislation is, like the other place’s, superficial and spasmodic, and we are too London-centric to cover the regional dimension optimally. To me, that points to wanting a House with more expertise relevant to legislation and drawn from a wider pool.

What does that mean for composition? Like the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, I am wary of direct elections. I lived in the United States and saw how having two Chambers which see themselves as equally legitimate all too often results in deadlock. That would be a more serious problem in a parliamentary than a presidential system. It is also the case that politicisation tends to squeeze out expertise, and we need expertise.

Indirect elections could be an answer. As a Scottish unionist, I like the Bundesrat model, at least for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; how best to provide for English regional representation is not for a Scot to tackle. But seats are allocated in the Bundesrat on the basis of degressive proportionality, favouring the smaller and more distant states, and copying that would reinforce our role as the cement of the union. But our legislative performance would not necessarily be improved at all.

So, are we stuck with an all-appointed House, as in Canada? Not necessarily: hybridity could be a good thing. Certainly, if our main task is to write good law, it will be a pity for us if we lose the expertise and experience of those who have had to apply the bad laws we have written.

My last point is this: let us at least correct the most glaring anomaly in the appointments system, as highlighted by Mr Johnson’s insouciant exuberance about convention. Most countries have honours systems but very few conflate recognition of past service with qualification for future work on legislation. Some of us are unqualified, frankly, and the House is mocked for its excessive notional size. The answer is simple, surely: follow precedent. Most Peers already have no right to sit here. If there are to be more life Peers, let us have two categories: those simply honoured with a title; and those who are willing to do, and well-suited to doing, a legislative job—and found to be such by the appointments commission, with a wider remit. Category 2 could be drawn from all parts of the kingdom. Degressive proportionality applies. There could —indeed, there should—be a ceiling on their number with a retirement age or term limits, after which they would transfer to category 1, but let us not drain away the current expertise until we have found a way of ensuring that we tap into more, and do so more systematically.

So, here are my four points.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I am concluding. First, we need an informed debate led by a government Green Paper. Secondly, the House should be more fit for purpose, perform better and better reflect national and regional disparities—that should be our aim. Thirdly, it is high time that we distinguish between recognising past service and conferring a future right to legislate. Fourthly, this issue should not be rushed; it is dangerous nonsense to suggest that, until it is settled, the Government cannot do what their manifesto promised.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, on the basis of how quickly we are currently getting through Members’ contributions, we are likely to sit until 11.30 pm. If that is what Members wish, so be it, but I note the advisory speaking time of five minutes.