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

Debate between Lord Moylan and Baroness Meacher

2nd reading
Friday 3rd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, being, I think, the last Back-Bench speaker in this debate presents certain challenges in finding something novel to say. I thought I would begin by giving your Lordships a view of the House from a relatively recent arrival, who still has, if I can put this without being offensive, one foot in the real world, or the outside world—just about—but who has developed a degree of affection for the House over the year that I have been here. I have two contradictory observations from many occasions over the last year when I have listened to your Lordships, but not participated, in what were essentially internal debates about the organisation of the House, its composition and so forth.

The first is that your Lordships are rightly proud of the very good work undertaken in this House: the work to improve legislation, which I have seen myself, and the work done by Select Committees—to mention just two examples of the justified pride that your Lordships take in the work that you do. At the same time, I notice the periodic tendency of noble Lords to beat themselves up about two issues in particular: the number of Peers in the House and its composition, which is principally to do with the hereditary Peers who are sitting here. It is undoubtedly the case that the latter is in some sense the cause of your Lordships’ frustration that the outside world is not giving proper recognition to that very good work, so I have a few words of assurance for you.

Outside this House, nobody cares how many Members the House has. Nobody cares about the composition and the role of hereditary Peers. There has been by-election campaigning over the past few weeks in Old Bexley and Sidcup, and I congratulate the new Member of Parliament; there is another by-election campaign taking place in Shropshire at the moment. I am absolutely certain that if all the politicians—those from this House and others—who have traipsed to those places in recent weeks and will continue doing so, were asked how many people on the doorstep voluntarily raised the composition or the numbers of this House, or even had a view on that if pressed, the answer would be negligible.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I understand the point that the public are not terrifically aware of the composition of the House and so on, but the journalists are and they are ruthless about this House. They ignore us and are rude about us; that is the reality.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

They influence the wider public but they also influence MPs and Parliament. It makes it very difficult for this House to be as effective as we should be, bearing in mind the quality of the people in the House of Lords.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I really do not think that we are to be driven by a small number of journalists who have a particular view on the topic, which the public do not share. If we are accountable to anybody, it is to the public for whom we legislate. We do not legislate for journalists; we contribute to legislating for members of the public, and they do not have a particularly strong view.

One of the reasons for that is that the hereditary principle is embedded in our constitution, and the monarchy is a popular feature of our constitution. Although the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, whom I have always found in our work together on the Built Environment Select Committee to be extremely courteous —and, I would say, mildly conservative in his personal habits and conduct—would no doubt want to make a radical dissociation between his views on the hereditary Peers who sit in this House, not personally but as a concept, and the monarchy, the two are related. People understand that there is an element of traditional authority in the way in which this country is run, which they accept more easily and comfortably than they do new and innovative constitutional concepts.

But, even assuming that we were ridiculous in the minds of a small number of journalists and that this really mattered, I do not understand why we would be less ridiculous if the Bill were to pass. The majority—not all—of the Members of this House who are not hereditary Peers are here because of political appointment or because they have achieved a degree of eminence in the military or in their professions. I give all credit to those; I am not knocking life Peers—of whom I am one, of course—any more than I am hereditary Peers. But what is the rational basis or logic of that as a principle of composition of the House of Lords?

I note that the Bill provokes a great deal of excitement. I even heard the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, advocating that, as a House, we should contrive to find a way to break the law—not simply to go back on an agreement but to break the existing law—by finding devices by which we could subvert our legal obligation to hold these by-elections, to force a change in the law. That is a degree of radicalism that clearly shows how strongly people feel about this. But the fact is that this is a damaging and dangerous measure. Other, more modest, measures could well be followed. Amending the succession rules of peerages to include female and male heirs or widening the electorate for replacements of hereditary Peers to include the whole House would be genuinely incremental changes, but this is a radical change.

I entirely support the Government in thinking that radical change of that character should not be undertaken piecemeal but should await a comprehensive proposal, which may indeed include an elected House; I would be perfectly happy with that. It should not be undertaken on the basis that, I fear, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, knows is much more radical than he presents it in his modest way.