House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Well, let us agree to differ on that.

The Gordon Brown proposals are out there, and there are a range of other matters that we could begin to pull together very quickly; we do not need to start again. I find the reference to the Council of the Nations and Regions interesting. In two or three weeks I have a Question on how precisely the new Council of the Nations and Regions will fit in to our constitutional arrangements, because I am not at all sure that I or the Government yet understand how it will fit in.

We need to level up the way our politics are done. I have spent most of my political life in Yorkshire. We now have a situation in which Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have some voice in London, but the English regions and the English principal councils do not. I am not entirely sure that mayors elected on perhaps 29% or 30% of the vote on a 25% turnout will have that much legitimacy to represent their areas to the central Government. The question of how far the second Chamber should be constituted so as to strengthen the representation of areas outside London in the centralised governance of this country is very important, so we need to move on to that.

We shall say from these Benches to the Government Front Bench, several times, that before we clear this Bill we need some assurance as to where we go from here and when we might start to move from here. This is an interesting, slightly idiosyncratic set of proposals, but one could perhaps throw it into the mix.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that this is an ingenious, but perhaps at points impractical, solution. But it does address one of the more eccentric features of the by-election procedure, not least the use of single transferable vote. Of course, the only Members of the UK Parliament elected by single transferable vote are the hereditary Peers elected in by-elections. I am not sure whether that is the proposal for the by-elections in my noble friend Lord Lucas’s amendment, but I am speaking of the nature of the electorate—or selectorate—for the by-elections. The 92 under the present reforms are largely elected by the hereditary Peers of each party and group, save for the 15 places that were occupied by Deputy Speakers in 1999, when the vote was by all Members of the House. As I understand the proposal from my noble friend Lord Lucas, the Deputy Speaker solution is proposed for these by-elections.

I must say, as a sideline, that I particularly enjoyed voting in one of those by-elections, when the House had to choose between the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and Earl Lloyd-George. I do not think I am breaking any confidences by saying that I voted for Earl Lloyd-George because he demonstrated a particular fondness for the creation of hereditary peerages, although perhaps not always for the best reasons.

Be that as it may, this amendment highlights the core of the mischief of this Bill, in that it means that one of the few avenues of getting into this House that is not controlled by the selection of the Prime Minister—whereby everybody in this House has to be sharp-elbowed enough to catch the eye of the Prime Minister pro tem —is being closed. I commend my noble friend Lord Lucas on proposing a solution that keeps open another avenue into this House.

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened to parts of this debate, and I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, was saying: this takes this debate down a different course. We are now discussing the “what ifs” and what could happen. It shows something quite serious about the Government’s thinking. Not in this Bill but in the manifesto, they talk about other things that are planned for the future. Yet there is no White Paper, or even any Green Paper, on the Government’s thoughts on the nature of the House of Lords that they want.

All we are being offered is what is in the Bill—that is it. There is no promise of anything in the future, no careful thought, no publication of a White Paper and not even a timetable for those things. There is no promise that anything will be published before the next general election. We could go through the whole of this Parliament—those noble Lords who will still be here—wondering when the next stage of reform is going to take place. There does not need to be anything because the Leader of the House has not yet convinced her colleagues that they should explore their thoughts and study the bookshelves of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, to look at what has happened in the past and come forward with those proposals.

My noble friend Lord Lucas has tried valiantly to build on the existing by-elections, if I can continue to call them that, by having them filled by members of the public. My noble friends Lord Trenchard and Lord Lucas have thought about alternatives. I do not expect the noble Baroness to accept any of these amendments in any shape or form. When it comes to democracy, I know that we have an amendment later on in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Newby and Lord Wallace of Saltaire, which I am supporting, so I will keep back my more general comments about a more democratic mandate. This follows the preamble to the 1911 Act, which the Government, for the time being, seem to have turned their face against, which I very much regret.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, following the constitutional crisis of 1911, the Constitutional Year Book of 1912—then an annual book of political writers and speakers—expressed at page 84 the prevailing nature of appointments to your Lordships’ House in the following terms:

“The unlimited power of the Crown to add to the House of Lords has at times been looked upon as dangerous to its independence. As long, however, as a peerage is necessarily hereditary, the permanence of the creation and the necessary succession of an heir who be wholly independent would restrain a Sovereign or a Minister, save in the most exceptional cases, from any lavish exercise of this power.”


While, to our modern ear, this sounds very much of its era, I suggest it contains a vital kernel of truth, which remains wholly valid today. As my noble friend Lord Roberts of Belgravia pithily put it, they were cronies of the previous Monarchs and Ministries whose successors are not beholden to anyone living.

To place this 1912 analysis in its legal context, your Lordships’ House, in the Wensleydale Peerage case of 1856, held that the Crown no longer possessed the right of creating a peerage for life which conferred a seat and vote in this House. Interestingly, a life peerage without a seat and vote in this House, was seemingly valid—something which is perhaps worthy of an exploration given the comments earlier in today’s debate.

All this had, of course, evolved by 1911 with the admission of Law Lords to your Lordships’ House by statutes passed in 1886 and 1887, by which those judges held the rank of Baron for life. The Life Peerages Act of 1958 ultimately reversed the effect of the Wensleydale Peerage case. However, at the time of the passage of that Act, and until the 1999 Act, life Peers were greatly outnumbered by those here through the lottery of heredity.

The fundamental truth, which echoes down to us from this statement of 1912, is this: the power of membership of this House should not solely be in the hands of the Executive and, more specifically, in the hands of the Prime Minister of the day. Let us be in no doubt: this Bill will bring about a fundamental shift to our constitutional arrangements, as already observed today by, among others, my noble friend Lord Norton and noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy. The Prime Minister alone, as a result of this Bill, will have the sole power of patronage under the 1958 Act. The only group in this House not subject to that power will be the 26 Bishops of the Church of England.

From the date of commencement of this legislation, these other avenues of entry to this House, entirely separate from the world of political patronage, will be locked and barred. As a consequence of this expulsion, we will become a House composed only of those political or sharp-elbowed enough to be able to catch the eye of a Prime Minister. This Bill will thus deprive the House of much experience and expertise of those from outside the world of politics and its penumbra. The House will be a much weaker place for it. As the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham, rightly pointed out, public opinion is not likely to look favourably upon a House composed solely of those appointed by comparatively recent Prime Ministers. As the noble Lord observed, it is we, appointees, who are likely to be viewed as the rump.

As my noble friend Lord True said at the outset today—and repeated by others—in passing this Bill we will be snapping the threads of history, so well described by my noble friend Lord Roberts. This in turn reflects the Labour Government’s cavalier approach to our constitution, as embodied in these proposed expulsions from our Parliament of many valuable colleagues on the grounds, as noted by my noble friend Lady Mobarik, of their accident of birth.

NATO and European Political Community Meetings

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not think I can make an announcement about an announcement. However, I can tell the noble Lord that it is a commitment to 2.5%. We will get the outcomes through the strategic defence review. I think the House will want more information about not only the amount of money that is spent but how it is spent. When the strategic defence review reports, we will report back to the House.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal said in her remarks that the best form of deterrence for illegal migration was to return those who had no right to be here. Since 2018, the five largest nationalities crossing by small boats have been from Albania, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The previous Government set up a highly effective return agreement with Albania. There is no agreement with the other four. Do the Government intend to remove people from those countries, and if they do, where do they plan to remove them to?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I think the noble Lord slightly truncated my comment. I said that the greatest deterrence was the feeling that they were going to be caught, and that if they were caught and were not entitled to be here, they would be returned. It was slightly broader than what he said. Having bilateral agreements with countries, whereby people can return to safe countries, is certainly part of the plan and the mix of how we deal with this issue.