House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Magan of Castletown Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Magan of Castletown (Con)]

My Lords, already in this debate, it is clear that this House is more than apprehensive about passing into law this particularly dishonourable proposal to defenestrate the remaining hereditary Peers. One of the glories of our unwritten constitution is that it allows pragmatic solutions to be found to the perceived problems and conflicts of the day. The House of Lords Act 1999, through the Weatherill amendment, was just such a pragmatic, wise, effective and, ultimately, most successful compromise. No longer was membership of this House a birthright: our election process then ensured that only the best-qualified hereditary Peers passed the test to become elected Members of this House. The election process was byzantine, but it was fair and it worked. Consequently, as has already frequently been stated in this debate, the contribution over many years of the excepted hereditary Peers has been of an exceptionally high order. This pragmatic development of 25 years ago has stood the test of time. It has indeed proved to be a most judicious and successful compromise, which has earned great respect across the whole House.

What we therefore now have before us is simply a highly controversial, venal, ill-thought-through and deliberately destructive piece of constitutional vandalism, setting a radical and extremely dangerous precedent. This new Administration—already very rapidly losing total credibility—are fixated, for no rational or explicable reason, on trying to force through into law some of yesteryear’s hackneyed dogma, which is only a small part of their declared manifesto commitment.

However, the country has moved on, and the world has moved on. House of Lords reform is in no way a high priority for hard-pressed, working people. While the country’s current economic condition and competitiveness is declining rapidly and alarmingly, this new Administration seem intent only on giving priority to this rough-and- ready, piecemeal, mean and very damaging legislative proposal. This new Administration should be positive and constructive; they should listen to the advice of this House and not persist with being wantonly destructive. As has already been proposed, why not retire 150 Members who hardly ever turn up in the House, who do not attend or participate in debates and who do not vote? They surely should be the first ones to go. Why throw out very hard-working and effective Members, so frequently working very effectively for the best results in the national interest in a conciliatory, constructive and considerate cross-party basis? This is one of the most admirable features of the great work of this House. The excepted hereditary Peers play a vital and central role in this process.

What is intended to fill the massive, self-inflicted damage to the country’s legislative effectiveness? The Prime Minister has spoken of

“replacing the unelected House of Lords with a new, smaller, democratically elected Second Chamber”.

This is clearly another wholly disingenuous utterance. For starters, we know that the other place is never going to cede or water down its legislative primacy. Let us be clear: it is not possible to camouflage in any way what is simply a grossly irresponsible attempt at wrecking legislation with totally disruptive intent. This intemperate and reckless measure will be strenuously resisted, and it is clear that deep-rooted amendments will have to be tabled. This legislative proposal deserves a rough passage.