House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Lord Moylan and Baroness Morris of Bolton

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, we come now to a group of amendments which deal with second-stage reform. I feel it incumbent on me, therefore, to start by tackling directly the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, in the last group where he suggested— I hope I am not misrepresenting him—that noble Lords on this side of the House who advocated for further reform beyond this Bill were either acting in bad faith or at least inconsistently in that they had not been calling for that reform before today.

I think that charge is easily understood. I can entirely understand why the noble Lord might reach that view, and it needs to be answered before we go ahead. The only answer I can offer is to some extent a repeat of remarks I made on an earlier day in Committee that, when you change one part of a complicated machine, other parts of it also change and need to be re-evaluated. As I have said perhaps twice, to turn this House into an entirely appointed House makes it ridiculous in the 21st century in a democracy.

Therefore, one is forced to think by this measure—there is nothing wrong with it—about what the future might be, and we may reach different views. However, it does not mean to say that because we have not articulated them before we are behaving inconsistently or in bad faith. I hope that gives some reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that we are taking these issues very seriously.

I shall speak only briefly to my own amendment and allow other noble Lords to speak to their amendments in this group. My own is in some ways the simplest. It looks forward to what we refer to as second-stage reform but really there are three stages of reform in the programme indicated by the Lord Privy Seal: this Bill; the other measures in the Labour Party manifesto which I regard as being under the heading “immediate” but she believes should follow, presumably, reasonably soon; and then the further commitment, which is clearly separate in time in the manifesto, to consult on altering the House of Lords so as to give more representation to the regions and nations.

My amendment simply says that the Bill should proceed only when the Government have issued that consultation document. They are committed to consultation and, presumably, the consultation begins formally with a consultation document that would contain options and questions and so forth—it is not necessarily a firm commitment—together with a draft Bill, which might have alternative sections in it reflecting that consultation document. It would show earnest on the part of the Front Bench that there really is going to be change, that the rest of their manifesto is not a hollow shell and that we are not simply going to be left, as so many of us suspect and fear, with the reform in this Bill and then nothing else to follow.

This is opening a door for the Front Bench to say, “Yes, we are serious about our manifesto, and we believe that these documents should be issued and be there for public scrutiny. The process will start—not conclude—before the Bill commences”. This is a very modest ask of the Government and I hope that the Lord Privy Seal would find herself able to show her earnest by agreeing to it. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

My Lords, I must inform the Committee that if Amendment 104 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 105 to 110 by reason of pre-emption.