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

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, the ostensible purpose of the Bill is to dispense with what are called the ridiculous and embarrassing by-elections of hereditary Peers. If they are ridiculous, which is a subjective and therefore obviously biased view, they are embarrassing only to those who introduced them. There can be no embarrassment to the rest of us for something that we did not initiate. Indeed, I have always had a sneaking suspicion that some of those who support the ending of by-elections do so because they are worried that any criticism that the by-elections attract impacts the reputation of the whole House, and thus risks their own rather comfortable seats in it. I hope that is just me being cynical and is not actually right.

The reality is that nobody is particularly interested in the composition of this House except us. Most people know or care little about how we get here, and probably no one would ever notice if the Electoral Reform Society—a sort of Lib Dem fan club, and therefore very small and inconsequential—had not managed to wind the Sunday Times around its little finger. To put that in proportion, I say that only about 1% of the British people read the Sunday Times. We are not, therefore, debating what could be called a very hot topic.

It is important to remember that what we are being asked to do today is clear up the mess of another failed Labour policy. We are all used to Labour Governments destroying the economy—it goes with the territory—but the House of Lords Act 1999 was an unbelievably badly botched constitutional reform. All Governments legislate incompetently because that is the nature of Governments but, sadly, Labour Governments also legislate vindictively, which means against groups they perceive have done them wrong. Revenge is a very unpleasant and destructive trait in a political party.

The debates over Lords reforms have, as we all know, run into the ground over the vexed question of whether to have an elected or appointed House. That question was unresolved when Labour introduced its Bill in 1999, but it argued that, once the hereditary Peers had been expelled, the question that came to be called stage 2 would be relatively simple to resolve. We now know that this argument was a deception. We were all deliberately misled. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, who is sadly not in his place, has confirmed that there was never going to be a stage 2. We must therefore assume that the sole purpose of the Bill was to extract revenge on the hereditary peerage by expelling it from Parliament. It is pathetic, really.

No thought was given to whether it would be a good or bad thing; it just had to be done to satiate Labour’s class warriors. But the price they had to pay was to leave 100 hereditaries in place and the by-elections to replace those who die and now those who retire. Those 100 hereditaries act as an open sore in the side of old Labour, which is why we are here today. No one outside this House and the Westminster bubble is remotely interested. This Bill is not about improving the House of Lords; it is about clearing up Labour’s mess. For the old Labour dinosaurs, it is about completing unfinished business—another battle in the class war that is Labour’s obsession and is of no interest to anybody else in the country today. It is last-century stuff, and a poor reason to legislate.

It is important to focus on where we will be if this Bill passes. We will become a wholly appointed House by default, one of only 15 in the world—mostly small Caribbean islands and Canada, and most Canadians are not great fans of what they have. We will also become the only legislature in the world in which the leader of the party with the majority in the first Chamber has sole power of appointment to the second Chamber. That really would be ridiculous and very embarrassing for those who vote for it, particularly Liberal Democrats, who apparently favour an elected second Chamber—although, let us face it, they have always had rather flexible principles.

We will also become the only legislature in the world that is using its second Chamber as a retirement home for Members of its first Chamber. More than once the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who is always the very model of courtesy, has made clear that we hereditaries should not take his Bill personally. I hear and understand that but, if it is not personal, I have to tell him that it sure as hell feels like it sometimes.

Similarly, I have many friends who are or have been MPs, for whom I have the greatest possible respect, so my concern about a preponderance of MPs in this House is not personal either. However, if the House ever becomes dominated by any one group, it will lose the diversity of views which is its strength, even more so if that group simply reflects the views of the current political establishment, which we saw during the Brexit debates.

The Bill is an indulgence. I imagine the House will give it a Second Reading, as is our habit, and after that, without government support, which it does not deserve and will not have, it will die and so it should. Your Lordships have better things to do than waste time on this nasty rubbish.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, on my way to the House this morning, I thought I would try to avoid any class warfare as far as my noble friend’s Bill is concerned. I know that it is customary in your Lordships’ House to compliment the previous speaker but, having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, I find some difficulty in doing so. If there is a class warrior to be commended for his contributions so far, it would be him. I will come back to him in a moment, but I just say to my noble friend that, whatever the weakness of the system of the Prime Minister making appointments to your Lordships’ House, at least there are two sons of railwaymen on these Benches. I reflect on a recent Sunday Times article on hereditary Peers that pointed out that no fewer than 39 of their ranks went to the same school. I am not going to name the school, because we all know what it is. It certainly was not West Bromwich Grammar; I assure your Lordships of that.

I do not want to fight the class battle that the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, just outlined, but we are not about to abolish him if my noble friend’s Bill gets on the statute book. We are about to abolish only this nonsensical system of election. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, in all friendship, that we are offering not his abolition but a chance to join the human race. He can join us and become like the rest of us. I cannot claim that your Lordships’ Benches, even on this side, are a fair cross-section of society—

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

No. The noble Lord intervened on my last speech on this business, took a chunk of my time, then pointed to the clock when I tried to respond, so he is not getting away with it twice. I want to bring him into the fold to be the same as the rest of us, which is the key to his opposition. He does not want to be the same as the rest of us; the hereditary Peers like the elitism of hereditary peerages and do not want to be made “mere” life Peers. We would not lose the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, if we went ahead and abolished hereditary Peers, any more than we would lose the wit and oratory of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, who has kept us entertained over half a dozen attempts to abolish the system of hereditary Peers.

We are offering the hand of friendship. We want hereditary Peers to join us and be like the rest of us. Looking back at the education of the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, I think that he ought to be embraced by the rest of us because of what he had to go through. I read the Sunday Times article to which I referred and looked at what happened at Eton. Imagine being plucked from the bosom of the family at an early age and being sent to that school. You get up at the crack of dawn, are given a 12-bore and go out and shoot your own breakfast before starting. You have to put up with beatings—and worse, according to the tabloids—of sadistic teachers. When you get to maturity, you dress up in a quasi-military uniform and are photographed for posterity, earning your honours battling your way through the wine lists of expensive restaurants, sorting out a few waiters while you are doing it. When you leave, at the end of this long, expensive and painful schooling, you end up in a dead-end job—a stockbroker, banker or hedge-fund operative, whatever that may be. There are no long-term prospects in jobs like that.

Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft—who after a previous debate assured me of his own grandfather the first Lord Mancroft’s humble background—ended up a master of fox-hounds. Again, there is no future in a job like that. It is one of the reasons why I want him and his colleagues who went to this particular school, all 39 of them, to join the rest of us. When he does, he can reflect on those of us who were elected into the other place. Last time we debated my noble friend’s Bill, he had a few harsh words about former MPs dominating, as he put it, your Lordships’ House. He said that they come up the corridor, make speeches and want to do things—how dare they? At least, if he becomes one of us, he can convince us that perhaps the way forward is not to do things and not to make speeches in your Lordships’ House. We can mix together and become equals. That way, perhaps we can learn from him how better to conduct ourselves while we are in this House.

There are no advantages in the present system. It brings your Lordships’ House into disrepute. I do not know whether my noble friend’s Bill will reach the statute book on this occasion; I strongly suspect it will not, because of a lack of time. I hope he will persist and stop the nonsense of hereditary Peers being elected. He has amply outlined the paucity of the electorate for the future. No noble Lord who wants a proper future for this House, however it is organised or reorganised, would pretend that the present system is ideal, but all the alternatives present various difficulties. I do not envy any future Prime Minister who decides to embark on a wholescale reorganisation, but at least we can move forward in a small way if we accept my noble friend’s sensible proposals today. I give them my wholehearted support.

Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 25th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mancroft (Con) [V]]

My Lords, we are all lobbied nowadays and I am sure that from time to time your Lordships have been bombarded with vast numbers of strikingly similar emails which are collectively less than convincing. But rarely in my time in the House have I received quite so many communications of different sorts in such a short period that have been so measured, and which have come from all quarters, as I have about the language in this Bill.

This is not a party political matter, or even really a political matter at all; I was going to say that it is about tone, but of course it is more than that because it strikes at the heart of who we are. Life is often about achieving balance between different priorities, all of which are important in their own way. I recognise that the rights of trans people are important, and perhaps the fact that they are a tiny minority and often remain hugely misunderstood adds to that importance. But I share the view of other noble Lords that in this instance, the rights of mothers trump those of the trans community.

Legislating gives us the opportunity to take a little more time and to get things right. We do not always achieve that, but the manner in which legislation passes through both Houses, in particular through this House, gives us a breathing space to make corrections where they are needed. Today is a great example of what can be achieved when the Back Benches are united and well led, and when we have a Minister who is prepared to listen to the arguments and recognise a good case—and then, perhaps more important, is prepared to fight our corner with his ministerial colleagues. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank my noble friend Lord True for the careful way in which he has addressed the debate both on Monday and today, and for the robust representations he has made on behalf of the House to his governmental colleagues. I also thank my noble friend Lord Lucas and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for their tremendous input through their amendments, in particular my noble friend Lord Lucas for achieving the amendment that has won the day.

Most of all, however, I want to thank my noble friend Lady Noakes for her leadership in this matter. It was her tremendous speech on her amendment to regret on Monday that opened the way to this debate and argument being moved forward to a successful conclusion. For that, the whole House will want to thank her.

European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I start by adding my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Cavendish of Furness on his splendid valedictory speech.

Despite what we were repeatedly told by those experts both within and outside this House—that there was not the remotest possibility that the Government could reach an agreement with the EU before 31 December—the Prime Minister and his negotiating team have succeeded in doing just that. In the time allotted to us, I am unable to provide much comment either on the details of the agreement, which, as your Lordships know, runs to 1,200 pages, or the Bill before the House today, which runs to some 80 pages and which I saw for the first time only yesterday.

In my experience, the exact effects of agreements or contracts of this kind are very rarely possible to discern in advance, and the problems usually emerge only following implementation. I am therefore surprised, and even a little cynical, about the detailed analysis provided by those who in the old days were called remainers, who seem not only stuck in the past but have a unique ability to predict the future—but their predictions are only of doom and gloom.

From where I sit, any deal that takes us outside the single market and the customs union, that provides for trade without quotas or tariffs, that excludes us from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, that provides protections for the UK’s internal market and Northern Ireland’s place within it, and, at the same time, provides for future co-operation on law enforcement and emerging security challenges, sounds like a pretty good deal. It also sounds remarkably like the Canada-plus deal that the Prime Minister asked for last year but which Mr Barnier told us was no longer available.

What it is, undoubtedly, is an extraordinary political triumph, and I can do no more than offer my congratulations to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and his negotiating team, led by my noble friend Lord Frost. Like me, the British people can now look forward with confidence to the independent future for which they voted.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this Bill to address the inconsistencies in the composition of constituencies. I shall keep my remarks as brief as I can in view of the inordinate length of the speakers’ list.

It is ridiculous that in a modern, vibrant democracy, we still operate elections to the House of Commons based on data from 2000, and 2001-03 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Your Lordships will be aware that the attempts to address this in 2011 were postponed until 2013, and in 2013 until 2018, because it seemed unlikely that the other place would approve any changes both to the size of constituencies and, more importantly, to their overall number.

Of course, the electorate deserve not just to be properly but fairly represented. As with any rules, there are exceptions—such as the Isle of Wight, Orkney, the Shetlands and now Anglesey—to be taken into account, as the Bill quite rightly does. However, the differentials between seats have become too great over the passage of time, and it is quite clear that change has been resisted, particularly by Labour, to seek electoral advantage. I suppose that that is not as bad as trying to seek electoral advantage by altering the whole system in your favour, as the Lib Dems unsuccessfully tried to do—which seems neither liberal nor democratic, but I suppose one should not be too surprised about that.

The significant change in the Bill from the proposals made in 2011 and 2013 is of course the reversion from 600 to 650 seats. I have listened very carefully to the debate but I still have no idea what the right number should be. Perhaps one of the next 42 speakers will enlighten us. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that it is not exactly a revolutionary change, but it is clear to me that the Government have made this significant concession to ensure that the Bill is enacted and the electorate get the fairer representation they need. The Government have justified the change in that policy by citing the increase in the workloads of MPs following our departure from the EU. I hope that the Government recognise that that increase in work at one end of the Corridor will inevitably lead to an even greater increase in work in your Lordships’ House, which already habitually sits for longer hours and more days than the Commons—as evidenced by our sitting today while our honourable and right honourable friends frolic on the beaches.

I therefore hope that the Government will ignore the currently fashionable but woolly-headed idea that this House is too large. A House whose membership is largely part-time obviously requires more Members than a House of full-time Members if it is to fulfil its role, particularly if its workload is greater. That is just simple logic. However, I suspect that that change in the Government’s policy in relation to the size of the House of Commons may have had rather more to do with the realisation that turkeys do not vote for Christmas. Perhaps the Government will remember that when they turn their attention to the future of this House.

House of Lords and Machinery of Government: Consultation on Changes

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I can only repeat what I said yesterday: that in any decision about the future operation of Parliament, the convenience of parliamentary procedure is obviously one of the factors that would have to be taken into account.

[Lord Mancroft (Con) [V]]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree with me that it is important that your Lordships’ deliberations should take place as close as possible to the people? Would he also agree with me that it is even more important for those who actually represent the people to be located even nearer to them than this House? Could he tell your Lordships what plans the Government have for the future location of the House of Commons to ensure that it is situated as close as possible to the people?

[Lord True]

My Lords, I do not think I am going to be drawn on that one. I think that the Companion says that one is supposed to speak respectfully of the other place. However, I say to my noble friend that my right honourable friend Boris Johnson brought the other place close to the people by his devastating victory in the December election last year, which delivered a majority of 80 to the real people’s party.

Covid-19: UK-wide Discussions

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True [V]]

My Lords, the purpose of the devolution settlement is to enable the devolved Administrations to respond as they believe right to local needs. I repeat that I believe that there is a high level of co-ordination, co-operation and understanding between all authorities involved in fighting this crisis.

[Lord Mancroft (Con) [V]]

My Lords, in recognising the need to co-ordinate between the Government and the devolved Administrations, does my noble friend recognise that the requirement for two-metre social distancing above all else is preventing us reopening our economy? Can my noble friend tell the House what research the Government have that leads them to a different conclusion from the World Health Organization and most European Governments, which recommend one or 1.5-metre social distancing? What steps are the Government taking to reduce this from two metres, and when?

[Lord True [V]]

My Lords, the Government are guided by science at all stages of the crisis; the advice we have given has been on that basis. The advice is constantly under review by SAGE, but I can give no guarantees as to when or whether any change will be announced.

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.

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

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 7th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook]

My Lords, we have had an interesting debate. It was not entirely connected to the amendment but that was not my doing. Having increased the number from 90 to 92, I wonder whether there is any implication for the Royal Family.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

I have listened to this exchange. I do not know about other noble Lords, but I am not clear on where exactly we have got to on this. My noble friend might well take the advice of the Benches opposite. I do not think that any of your Lordships is clear what the amendment or the Bill achieves and whether they cut across each other. If my noble friend will forgive me, the obvious solution is for him to withdraw his amendment at this stage but bring it back on Report, by which time the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, could have clarified the position. I hope that helps your Lordships.

[Lord Jones of Birmingham]

May I add to that? When you are in a hole, stop digging.

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

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, there are two main premises to this Bill. The first is that the hereditary Peers’ by-election is a ludicrous and, to some, embarrassing measure that is past its sell-by date, and the second is that this is one small piece of incremental reform that your Lordships can enact without too much fuss, to modernise the House, and show the world how relevant we are. It is true that the by-elections are a bit odd, and may look even odder to outsiders, but they are no more half-baked than some of the other reforms that the Blair Government made such a mess of. There are lots of oddities in our constitution, but it is important to look at them not in isolation, but in the round, as a whole.

The more I look at your Lordships’ House in the whole, the more I have to conclude, reluctantly, because I am fond of it as it is, and even fonder of it as it was, that it does not work as well as it could. Sitting through our interminable debates on reform of this House, I have heard so many speakers tell the House and themselves what a very good job we do. Sadly, I am afraid that I do not agree. We do not do a bad job, but it is not as good a job as we could do or used to do. Our general and Back-Bench debates, which were often of such extraordinary quality and depth that they really were listened to around the world, and influenced thinking and policy-making at the other end of the Corridor and beyond, are now all too often pretty turgid stuff. Overlong speakers’ lists result in speeches so short that they are almost meaningless or, worse still, a series of individual statements, bearing little relation to previous speeches, and often followed by a ministerial wind-up on what often appears to be a completely different subject.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Does the noble Lord agree with me that it would be appropriate for Members to pay attention to the Companion, which states that speeches should not be read?

[Lord Mancroft]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his comments, as I always am. I will pass them on to all noble Lords who may be tempted to read. Sadly, I am so blind I cannot really read any of it at all.

[The Earl of Erroll]

It is Questions that should not be read, not speeches.

[Lord Mancroft]

My Lords, I do not wish to get involved in that debate. The one initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is much more interesting.

Nowadays we also have unedifying and tetchy Questions—the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, may know a little bit about that—which seek and elicit little information of any use to anybody, but serve only to allow the usual suspects to grandstand, and junior Ministers to practise repeating the same bland, Civil Service jargon.

More importantly, it is difficult to conclude that we revise legislation as well as we used to, with a never-ending stream of Second Reading speeches in Committee, and too many important matters decided on Report on the Whip, without any reference to constructive input from the Back Benches. This is not, as some suggest and have suggested again today, because the House is too big. As we all know, it is actually rather smaller than it was 50 years ago. It is not a problem of quantity, but rather of quality. That is not directly because the number of hereditary Peers was reduced—by 90% on paper, or 45% in practice—but is a consequence of their departure en bloc. If the existence in the House of 92 Peers who owe their seats to their birth is an anomaly, it is not actually an outrage. I do not find that most people around the country are particularly horrified or embarrassed by it; they do not really think about it very much. What is an outrage—a genuine constitutional outrage—however, is that the Prime Minister who has the majority, or at least the control, of the other House, retains virtually sole power of appointment to it. That is a matter worth shouting about.

The red-top newspapers complain that this House is an old people’s home. They are not far wrong although they do not seem to have worked out that that is because your Lordships’ House has increasingly become a retirement home for Members of another place since the Life Peerages Act was introduced in 1958. In the old days when this House had 1,200 Members, 10% were retired Members of Parliament. Now we have 800 Members, of whom 25% are former Members of Parliament. There is nothing wrong with Members of Parliament individually—I even have a few friends who were MPs—and they are perfectly suited to the House of Commons. However, in your Lordships’ House, and in too great a number, they are an absolute menace: first, because, by their very nature, they want to do things and change things when they would be far better employed just paying attention, and, secondly because they think that being a Member of this House is a full-time job, so they turn up all day, every day and think that they ought to speak in every debate even when they have nothing original to say. That is why this House appears to the uneducated outside observer to be full to overflowing.

This House is often—erroneously in my view—referred to as a House of expertise. Of course, it is not. What it was when I first came here was a House of Members with a wide range of experience and independence of mind and attitude. That is why the Whips could not dominate it as they do the House of Commons. Where you have a group of experienced and independent-minded people, you will inevitably find that they have one or two areas of expertise, and that is what the casual observer saw and often remarked upon.

Members of Parliament by their very nature, after years of subservience to the Whip, are less comfortable with exercising their free will, which is so frowned upon at the other end of the Corridor. Their skill is not in revising legislation because, unfortunately, the House of Commons no longer deals with legislation, but rather in adversarial party politics, which is what we do not do here, or at least used not to. That is why the conduct of business has become so unruly and discourteous, aping the manners of another House.

I accept that MPs find this House more comfortable but it is not about their comfort or indeed my pleasure. It is therefore essential for the health of our system of parliamentary democracy that this House corrects and completes the reform that has led to this disastrous state of affairs. Some argue that incremental reform is better than none at all but it is clear to me that, whether deliberate or accidental, incremental reform of the type that this Bill seeks to achieve would make proper wholesale reform much less likely. That is not in the interests of this House, of Parliament or of the British people. I will therefore oppose this Bill.

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[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate and massively grateful to those who have supported my position.

I do not know whether to take the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Young, as a clear rejection or as a possible consideration at a later date, and I am sure that that degree of ambiguity was fully intended by him in his remarks. However, I just want to emphasise that this Bill is not about reducing the size of the House. That would be a small net benefit of this Bill, but that is certainly not its objective—if it was, it would be a pretty poor tool.

In the 17 or 18 years since the passage of the original Bill, 32 new hereditary Peers have arrived, not by any means all of whom have replaced Conservative Peers. The inference of the contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord True, was that this Bill would somehow lead to a massacre of Conservative Peers. It would be a very slow process of attrition and I think it would be about another 40 years before the job was done which, having myself been here for a little while now, is about the pace at which this House likes to move.

What has been noticeable about the debate, and I shall read it carefully to make sure that my initial impressions are correct, is that the challenge that I put out during my opening speech, which was to hear some positive arguments for the by-elections in terms of how they enhance the House, has not been answered. Of course good people have come here by means of the by-elections—that is not in dispute any more than is the fact that good Bishops have come, as well as good life Peers. But as for by-elections being a mechanism for putting people into a House of Parliament in the 21st century, no one has offered any positive arguments in favour of retaining the system apart from, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, who was clearly nostalgic. I understand his nostalgia for a time when virtually everyone here was hereditary and of course most of them voted Conservative. I can understand why that would appeal to him. He described some wonderful debates to us.

[Lord Mancroft]

My Lords, I was not displaying nostalgia; I was reflecting upon the very real fact that the nature of the way the hereditary Peers operated was that, because they were hereditary, they had a degree of independence which was extremely desirable. I was reflecting on that point and it is not a nostalgic one at all. The fact is that the composition of this House today has by its very nature lost to a significant degree its independence from the existing political establishment, to the detriment of both this House and of Parliament.

[Lord Grocott]

I advise the noble Lord to stop digging. This wondrous independence and spirit of quality and intellectual debate invariably resulted in a House that always supported Conservative Governments and caused no end of trouble to Labour Governments. I will leave that one there.

I could not improve on my good friend Lord Snape. He has lost none of it in 50 years; he really can turn it on when he needs to. I was always deeply respectful of him. He reports the fact that I was his Chief Whip, but he was my Whip in the 1970s, when he reportedly put next to my name “WWWW”, which meant, “Works well when watched”.

House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, the noble Lord is correct in terms of the technicalities of what was in the coalition agreement of 2010. However, it was argued and voted on overwhelmingly by this House and the other place in 2013 that there were many reasons why the Boundary Commission proposals should not go ahead at that point, one of which was the failure to make progress on Lords reform. Reducing the size of the House of Commons from 650 MPs to 600 MPs was not appropriate when we did not reform the House of Lords and make government more accountable in that way.

So now we have to look again at the other measures that were proposed in the Steel Bill, including the ending of by-elections to replace hereditary Peers. Parliamentary by-elections to elect MPs have been a major feature of my political life. However, I cringe with embarrassment at the holding of by-elections in this place in which as few as three Members of your Lordships’ House, who initially inherited their positions here based perhaps upon what their ancestors did centuries ago, choose to elect someone to help formulate the laws of the land from a shortlist of as few as three other people who can be considered by virtue also of what their ancestors may have done.

All of us enjoy showing family, friends and guests around the House, particularly, I would suggest, those from overseas. Some of them come from established democracies and some of them come from places struggling to establish democratic principles. But none of them can understand the archaic way in which we are still choosing some of the people to sit in the second Chamber of our Parliament—supposedly the mother of parliaments. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, not a single woman has ever been elected in this way, as most hereditary peerages descend down the male line.

A year ago, the Guardian published a letter from me saying:

“The election by hereditary peers of the ninth Duke of Wellington (Report, 16 September) to the House of Lords by 21 votes over the Marquess of Abergavenny and the Earl of Harrowby (six votes each) is incomprehensible by any democratic standard”.

On 3 December 2010, in an earlier debate on this subject, I said that,

“the farcical process we have in this House of holding by-elections to elect hereditary Peers brings the House into disrepute. These by-elections have little more resemblance to democracy than the campaign run by Lord Blackadder when he ran the by-election campaign to elect Baldrick in the rotten borough of Dunny-on-the-Wold, where Blackadder was the only elector”.—[Official Report, 3/12/10; col. 1696.]

I was wrong, of course, to describe Edmund Blackadder at that point as a Lord; he was merely a voter in that incarnation—albeit the only voter. In that series, Baldrick was later appointed to the House of Lords by Prince George. But if they had both been appointed in real life, their descendants might now be standing as rival candidates, hatching cunning plans to win by-elections in order to get back into this place.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is amusing the House tremendously but he is talking about a work of fiction. I know that the Liberal Democrats have difficulty distinguishing the difference between fact and fiction, but if the noble Lord could stick to fact, I think that the House would find it very helpful.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, having tried to describe to visitors the current system of electing hereditary Members to this place, I know that they think that is a work of fiction.

More seriously, it is now 106 years since the Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith promised that the hereditary principle would be replaced by the popular principle in determining the composition of this House. That was agreed then by both Houses. However, having listened a few moments ago to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, I was reminded of the view that perhaps only in this House could over 100 years be considered too short a time in which to consider such a principle. But not for me and my party. And we certainly consider that the 17 years since the Weatherill amendment introduced as a temporary measure the concept of by-elections to top up the number of hereditary Peers has been too long. We on these Benches did not agree with that amendment in the first place and would have preferred to see the Parliament Act used, if necessary, and so we are not bound by any such agreement.

We recognise that some of those who are here by virtue of the hereditary principle continue to make a significant contribution to the work of this House and to government. This Bill does not threaten their position in any way. We also believe that passing the Bill will do little good in terms of limiting the size of the House if the system of prime ministerial and party leader appointments continues in the way that it has done in recent years.

We were promised a further phase of reform following that of 1999—the year I joined this House. As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, the Labour Government’s Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill 2010 promised to end the practice of holding by-elections to keep up the numbers of hereditary Peers. But that provision was, sadly, removed during the so-called wash-up period immediately prior to the 2010 general election. The ending of such wash-up periods when elections are called outside a fixed-term cycle was, in my view, a good reason for passing the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.

The history of debates in this House about the future of by-elections for hereditary Peers has not been a happy one. Let us put an end to them now by passing this Bill and bringing an end to a process which does no credit to this House, to Parliament generally or to British democracy.

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[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I have studiously resisted the temptation to take part in debates about reform of this House for all the 30 years I have sat here. My noble friend Lord Robathan commented on age. Despite having been here 30 years, I think, looking around the Chamber, I am possibly the youngest speaker in the debate—the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, might be slightly younger—and possibly even the youngest person in the House today, so maybe my 30 years have been wasted, I do not know. I am driven to break my Trappist vow of silence because I am completely fascinated to know what motivates the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to drag this hoary old potato out of the depths of the mud and give it another trip around the park.

Clearly, as your Lordships have been discussing, the primary concern relating to the House of Lords today—as the noble Lord the Lord Speaker, who has just left the Woolsack, so helpfully reminded us earlier this week—is numbers. The measure before us makes no meaningful impact on numbers. If the argument is that the by-elections were originally intended, as the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, quite rightly said, as a temporary measure, that no one at the time imagined they would continue for 17 years and therefore it is time to get rid of them, that is a reasonable point, but not in isolation.

The 1999 Act in its entirety was only a temporary measure—the first part of a two-stage reform. But as your Lordships all know better than most, that second stage has never come because the Executive and the legislature cannot agree a solution that does not disadvantage either of them. So if you are one of those who has come to the conclusion that continuing election of replacement hereditary Peers has passed a time when it is valid, if it ever was—some obviously do not think it was—then it is difficult too not to conclude that the entire 1999 Act is in need of replacement also. That is the position I have reached. The agreement reached in 1999 was not, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, suggested, binding on Parliament. Of course you cannot bind Parliament, but it was an agreement between people representing two of the main parties in Parliament. As such, for what it is worth, that agreement still stands. But as I said, I have reached the conclusion that the entire 1999 Act needs complete change.

There are two phrases I hear repeatedly in this House. The first is that the National Health Service is the envy of the world and the second is that the House of Lords is doing an absolutely marvellous job. I have to tell your Lordships that while the National Health Service may well have been the envy of the world, I do not hear that envy expressed on my travels as often as it used to be. As a Member of this wonderful House—it is a wonderful House—for 30 years, and a student of it at my father’s knee since I was old enough to learn and understand, I have come to the reluctant but growing conclusion that we do not really do our job as well as we used to either.

Our scrutiny of legislation is noticeably less effective than it used to be—as, indeed, are the Bills we are forced to scrutinise. That is in part because of the excessive use of Grand Committees, which discourages noble Lords without direct interest in a particular Bill from participating either in Grand Committee or when the Bill returns to the Floor of the House, where their participation is so often an important part of the process. The amount of time we spend each Session revisiting issues that were legislated upon the year before is, of course, primarily evidence of the Government’s legislative incompetence, but I am afraid it is also evidence of our failure to scrutinise as effectively as we used to.

Our set-piece debates on the great issues of the day used to attract worldwide attention. Believe it or not, I have at home an old scrapbook full of press reports of debates in which I made rather indifferent contributions when I was just a lad, if your Lordships can imagine such a thing. I even have one that was reported in the New York Times. That would not happen today. Our debates now seem increasingly to be a string of overlong, repetitive and unrelated statements, bearing precious little relevance to the preceding speeches, thus not constituting a true debate at all. Too often they bring little new insight to the subject being debated, and are consequently rarely reported, and ignored by commentators and Governments alike—sad, but true. While the hereditary peerage has and had many faults, by its nature it was able to bring a degree of independence to debates that is lacking in a House increasingly dominated by a professional, and thus often self-interested, political class in one form or another.

One of the unintended consequences of the 1999 Act was that, while the standing of the political class as a whole has deteriorated in the public esteem, the hereditary peerage, oddly enough, is enjoying an unexpected revival in its reputational fortunes, which I, for one, am enjoying—and do not deserve, probably. We may not have been right, and we may often have been wrong. We may not have been particularly liked—I do not think we were particularly disliked—but it was and is widely assumed that we tell the truth, whereas today’s political establishment is simply not trusted. One of the most unpleasant features of the recent referendum debate was the patent rubbish spouted on both sides.

So the size of this House is a problem that the Bill does not address. It is not the rate at which Members leave this House that is the problem, but rather the manner in which they arrive. Accelerating by a few years the departure of a few hereditary Peers who are bound to leave at some point no more solves the problem than does the option of retirement, sensible though that is for reasons of humanity. If your Lordships find the concept of hereditary legislators so democratically offensive, as the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Rennard, and one or two others clearly do, then is the flooding of the Liberal Democrat Benches since the end of the coalition Government and the arrival of 16 new colleagues at the whim of an outgoing Prime Minister any less democratically offensive? Though we all understand the reasons for both, none of that can be acceptable in the 21st century. Yet, the Liberal party and the rest of the House appear to have accepted it.

I am happy to declare an interest here; I am a beneficiary of Stanley Baldwin’s Resignation Honours, but that was 80 years and three generations ago. It may well have worked then—obviously I think it did—but the world has changed since 1937.

The Life Peerages Act 1958 breathed new air into this House. It worked in part because no amount of patronage could swamp the sheer number of hereditary Peers, which thus acted as a deterrent to any Prime Minister who attempted to do so. With the departure of 90% of hereditary Peers, the Life Peerage Act itself, or more specifically the untrammelled power of appointment it contains, became the problem because it constitutes power without responsibility or accountability.

To provide a revising Chamber suitable for today—as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, pleaded for and with whom I agree—to work in the new Palace to which those whom the grim reaper has not removed will return in 2028, this House needs root-and-branch reform. What manner that reform may take will take interminable debates in this House for many days, weeks and years to come, but not, I hope, today.

My concern is that by tinkering at the edges, slowly removing, at God’s pace, the 10% of the membership of this House that, by the way, has collectively the best record of participation whichever way you like to measure it, the Bill makes any major reform much less likely. Although I am extremely happy to acknowledge the very good intentions of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, I am afraid that the Bill is nothing more than an enabling Bill, by which I mean it enables the Executive, the other place and the political establishment the luxury of not having to give serious thought to Lords reform for yet another Session, the second of this Parliament. That may be very comfortable for some Members of this House, including me, but it is not in the interests of the body politic or the British people. For that reason, and that reason alone, I cannot support the Bill.

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[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I assure my noble friend that after every debate in this House that I take part in I go back to whichever department I am speaking for and ensure that all the points that have been made are taken in. I will certainly do that today.

[Lord Mancroft]

My Lords, I apologise very much for interrupting my noble friend again; she is doing a splendid job. When she passes on the message about your Lordships’ concern about the quantity of new Members of this House, could she at the same time pass on our concerns about their quality?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I think my noble friend has already done that because his remarks will be in Hansard. I am sure they will take note.