House of Lords Reform

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I surprise myself by taking as my starting point agreement with the noble Lords, Lord Newby and Lord Foulkes, that in a democratic society there is always a case for a democratically elected legislature—and that is to understate the matter, I would have thought. Legitimacy in a democratic society is derived primarily from election but, for a conservative, legitimacy can also be derived from history and from tradition. It might sound a little quixotic to say that, but large numbers of people in this country completely understand it; that is why they have as much respect as they do for the monarchy.

It is the presence of hereditary Peers in this House that maintains that strand of legitimacy. Being appointed gives you no legitimacy at all. For the majority of people, it just looks like cronyism and, if I may say so with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Birt, who has just spoken, and to others, that is not addressed by having a statutory HOLAC. If that is not elected—if it is not in itself a form of electoral college—where does the electoral legitimacy reside that justifies its appointment of the people whom it would appoint to the legislature? One ends up in an infinite regress. There is no legitimacy.

Those who say you cannot have two democratic Chambers seem to have missed what has happened in at least 100 countries that I can think of. Even the United States manages to pass a huge amount of legislation, and that is a country where people deliberately designed the legislature to have a degree of conservatism, shall we say—a degree of holding back. That needs to be our starting point. Why should we not be a democratic House? Where does our legitimacy derive from?

There is a large measure of agreement among us on the need for reform. The passing of the hereditaries has always been part of that—there has been a consensus about that for the last 25 years—but that is not what this argument is about. This argument is not about the passage of the hereditaries as such; it is about the context in which that happens. That context is meant to be, and has been pledged to be, a reform of this House. I am not going back to what Tony Blair may have said to somebody in a corridor or behind the Woolsack or whatever in the past. I am going to this Labour Party’s manifesto.

The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said there were six proposals in it; I have identified seven. They come under the heading: “Immediate reform of the House of Lords”. Those are the words in the manifesto, a copy of which I have been careful to bring with me in case there is any dispute about it. They are removing the hereditaries. There is mandatory retirement at 80. There is a revision of the code of standards. There is the removal of disgraced Members. There is a requirement for participation. There is a reform of the appointments process and a commitment to addressing national and regional balance. All of those come under the heading of “These things will be done immediately”. They are not being done immediately. That is the problem. The democratisation of the House, which is also mentioned in the manifesto, is something that they say will be consulted on. It is not to be done immediately but the seven things I have read out are—and they are not.

This Government, in my view, have no mandate to introduce one of them outside that context—to revert to the argument that getting rid of the hereditaries is what it is all about when in fact it is not. For the last 25 years, it has always been about the reform of the House of Lords and removing the hereditaries only in a context that provides a new form of legitimacy. We all know in practice that nothing is going to be done about those things. We know that they are being kicked into the long grass and we are very unlikely to see them again, except possibly for a few administrative matters which can be dealt with fairly easily.

We have had arguments over the last century about reform of the House of Lords and I join others in saying this or something along these lines. In 1910 and 1948 constitutional conferences were held between both Houses of Parliament on precisely this type of question. We should do that again. Neither conference succeeded but they had the great merit that they informed the legislation the Government then brought forward so that it was much more acceptable and turned out to work. We need to see this in its proper context. We need to find a compromise. A conference of that character would be the best way forward while the Bill is withdrawn.

House of Lords: Composition

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I recall the Countess of Mar from some years ago, and there may have been one other Member of the House of Lords who was a female hereditary Peer. There is none currently and, as far as I am aware, none is eligible for election in the hereditary Peers by-elections.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

May I return to the extraordinary decision to use the standing orders of this House in order to avoid our statutory obligations in relation to the holding of excepted Peers’ by-elections? When I raised it before, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House said that she was confident that that move did not breach the law. However, it has since been suggested to me that the legal advice she received was more ambivalent on the matter. Is she willing to publish the legal advice on which that extraordinary decision to avoid our statutory obligations was based and, in doing so, show respect for the rule of law?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

When that decision was taken, it was entirely and completely within the rule of law. The legislation states that the House should hold by-elections. How it holds them is a matter for this House. I was approached by Members from across the House, including from Front Benches, who said that they wished that those by-elections would not take place during the passage of the Bill. Therefore, the House made the decision, under its Standing Orders, to pause the by-elections for a period of 18 months. That is entirely within the law and was done with the full agreement of this House.

Business of the House

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Leader of the House for explaining the rationale of this Motion, which, as she said, reflects the recent discussions and agreement reached in the usual channels. On behalf of my noble friend Lord True, I am happy to give my approval to the Motion as the right and sensible course to take. As the noble Baroness is aware, the spirit of the discussions in the usual channels has been open and constructive, with good will expressed on all sides. I welcome the Government’s willingness to continue engaging in the same constructive spirit and in a way that enables us to work through the implications of their proposals for this House in the round and in their totality. The 18-month timeframe proposed in the Motion will enable us to do that. On that basis, I join the noble Baroness in commending it to the House.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am slightly concerned about this. I am not a usual channel and the conversations that have taken place with such amity and warmth seem not to have reached me. I was unable, I am afraid, to be present for the debate on an humble Address on Tuesday, but I have read it carefully in Hansard and great attention and sanctification were given to the principle of the rule of law.

We have a statutory obligation to hold these by-elections. To proceed by using standing orders to eviscerate, in effect, that statutory obligation, which is what we are doing, seems to cast a very early question on this commitment to the rule of law that we have heard about. Understanding fully, of course, that this Motion will pass, I ask the Leader of the House why 18 months has been chosen and what that portends for the Government’s legislative timetable in relation to the reforms they wish to bring forward. We have no excuse here as we did before in relation to Covid; we are not in the middle of a major global health emergency, which was what justified the use of standing orders before, so can the noble Baroness explain to us what the Government’s plans are that make 18 months the appropriate time? Why could it not be six months?

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I never quite thought this day would come. We have had endless Private Members’ Bills and numerous discussions on the Floor of the House, and now we have recognition, which I am delighted about, from the usual channels that to hold two further hereditary Peers’ by-elections at a time when Parliament was considering ending such elections would make us even more of a laughing stock than these by-elections do in any case.

I have to say it slowly: this almost certainly means the end of hereditary Peers’ by-elections. That is wonderful as far as I am concerned. It means an end to the clerk having to moonlight as a returning officer; it means an end to me having to give observations on the political significance of a particular by-election as and when it is declared; and of course it means that I shall not fulfil my ambition, which was to become the House’s equivalent of Professor Sir John Curtice in relation to by-elections. I should say as well, just as a general observation, that it means an end to elections that are men-only elections and an end to elections such as one where there was an electorate of three and six candidates—unknown in the western, eastern, northern or southern world, as far as I know.

So the time has come at last, in a puff of smoke on a damp Thursday morning, when these wretched by-elections will come to a conclusion. I simply say to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan: know when it is over.