House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

I really do think that I would try the patience of the House if I even attempted to respond to the noble Lord, so I will not do so, except perhaps another time in the bar.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, while it is attractive and interesting to look back at the past and see what happened—what the noble Lord, Lord Snape, has been saying is interesting—

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Will the noble Lord please declare his interest?

[Lord Mancroft]

I think that the Standing Orders do not require me to declare an interest given that most people in this House know I am a hereditary Peer—and I am delighted to be one. What I am not is a placeman of a Prime Minister.

That is the issue which divides the House today. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde has quite rightly said that no one is defending the hereditary peerage in the way it was defended in 1908 and 1911. That is not the attempt; rather, it is the inadvertent effect of this Bill, which is of concern to many of my noble friends and indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who referred to it earlier. By creating an appointed House without an appointments commission, we create a monster whether we want it or not. I say this with great respect to noble Lords throughout the House, however they came to be here.

The joke that is repeated in the newspapers is that this is the second-largest Chamber in the world after the Beijing second Chamber. That is probably correct, but it is pointless and irrelevant. What is much more important is that, if we were to go down the route the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is seducing us to follow, we will have done something that is unique in the world. We will have created a second Chamber that is virtually a retirement home for the Members of its first Chamber. In other words, we would create a second Chamber which is the poodle of the political establishment of the day.

At the moment, we are going through one of the most difficult periods in our political development—certainly during my time in this House. The passage of Brexit and our departure from the European Union is causing huge problems, the biggest of which is the separation between—

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords—

[Lord Mancroft]

If the noble Lord will kindly allow me to finish, I will give way to him. As I say, we are seeing the separation of the majority in both Houses of Parliament from the majority of the people. Both may mildly have changed their minds in the meantime, but that is what has happened. We have a Parliament which is completely cut off from the way the people are going. If we go down the route that the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, takes us, we will move even further in that direction. That is why I am opposed to it.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords—

[Lord Mancroft]

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, trumps the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, I recall almost exactly the same speech being made in almost exactly the same terms by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, in Committee. It might be helpful to remind noble Lords that paragraph 8.138 of the Companion states:

“Arguments fully deployed either in Committee of the whole House or in Grand Committee should not be repeated at length on report”.


I think it will facilitate our discussion for the next 40 minutes if all noble Lords would adhere to that principle.

[Lord Mancroft]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for reminding me of that, but I am afraid that he was referring to the speech I made on last year’s Bill. I did not speak at the Committee stage of this year’s Bill.

[Lord Northbrook]

My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have participated in the debate on this amendment, including the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, my noble friends Lord Howard of Rising, Lord Strathclyde and Lord Colgrain, and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I did not agree with his views, but they are interesting as usual. We have had civilised discussions with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood. I opposed his Bill and I am just trying to amend the existing system. I thank also my noble friend Lord Mancroft. There has been sufficient interest in this amendment that I should like to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis]

I have read this amendment twice, and I do not understand how it works. However, I shall address the big issue underlying it, which is the size of the House. Being today in the business of calling a spade a spade, I might as well carry on doing it because it is in my nature. This obsession with reducing the size of the House is entirely beside the point. If we are to have a large appointed House and its purpose is to function at least reasonably effectively and to keep its membership up to date, it is sensible to make new appointments. Choking off new appointments is basically a preservation activity by existing Members to see that the House is not increased in size by new Members, which would create a greater sense of illegitimacy because the number will be large. To be completely frank, that is not pursued out of any great constitutional principle. It is purely an act of preservation by existing life Peers who do not want to make this House look any more illegitimate than it does at the moment. The best thing to do is against the interests of the House in the short term because it would deprive us of new Members who might—how can I phrase this delicately?—be of an age where they would participate actively and fully in the work of the House, which some noble Lords tend not to as they—I probably ought not to pursue that line of argument because it will not be popular with some noble Lords.

The point is that the Burns report is being, and has been, used—it is the latest in-vogue thing in your Lordships’ House—to pretend that reform is being done while in fact no reform is being done. That idea is as old as the hills. In this House it is always important, to pursue a sense of legitimacy and progress, that some reform is sponsored. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has a special working group looking at very modest, tinkering reforms for this House so that he can pretend that he is in favour of progress, although, when he is present, he opposes substantial reforms.

[Lord Mancroft]

I think the noble Lord means that my noble friend Lord Cormack and his noble friends are preserving the status quo: the comfortable state of the House, which neither the noble Lord nor I approve of.

[Lord Adonis]

I entirely agree. In so far as I understand what the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, does, I would not make any concessions to the Burns commission. While the House of Lords exists in its current absurd state, it is clearly sensible that new Members be appointed to it, and, frankly, more younger Members would be a good thing, as that would bring the House more into contact with life outside.

What is being engaged in at the moment is displacement activity. The real issue is not whether this House has 600, 700 or 800 Members; it is whether it is appointed and hereditary, and therefore fundamentally illegitimate, or whether it is elected, either directly or, if we had a proper federal system, perhaps like the Bundesrat in Germany, indirectly, and therefore directly relates to the people and/or the devolved institutions of the country, which are themselves elected. All this displacement activity, talking about Burns, about removing the hereditary Peers, about by-elections and, if I may say so to the noble Lord, about hereditary Peers commissions—that was a new idea to me; the latest one today—or about all the other tokenistic reforms that are put forward, is entirely beside the point.