House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Lord Newby and Baroness Lawlor

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord will not be surprised to know I do not agree with him. We discussed this before and my view, oft repeated, is that we should, wherever we can, proceed without legislation. We can do that with a number of the issues we are debating. As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, pointed out, the minimum age at which a person can be a Peer was never legislated on—admittedly, it was a bit ago that that was introduced. We need to look at whether it might be possible to introduce a retirement age without fresh legislation. Either way, I do not want to commit to giving the House of Commons the whip hand over what we do about our own rules when we can change those rules ourselves.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I am intrigued by my noble friend’s amendment. Yes, it would make good some of the failings of the Government, who have not honoured their 1998 pledge to bring forward their proposals for reform before they remove the hereditary Peers. Nor have they delivered on their promise in the manifesto of 2024 to bring forward proposals for reform on composition, in terms of retirement age, participation obligations and so on. It would perhaps be a good way of making good the problem we face, which is the removal of over 80 of the Peers who are most effective in scrutinising the Government and holding them to account. One cannot help but agree with those who see this Bill as vindictive for that reason, and a partisan attack on the ability of this House to fulfil its constitutional function.

However, dare I part company with my noble friend Lord Blencathra? I feel it is a very bad move to have government by committee—even a Select Committee of this House. By their very nature, committees do not have a sense of the feeling of the whole House, or indeed of the country, which is more important. For this reason, I would worry about such powers for a Select Committee.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Lord Newby and Baroness Lawlor

Committee stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. The exceptions to whom his amendment would apply are people who contain and are characterised by many qualities, but I mention only four here: experience, knowledge, constancy and loyalty to this Chamber, and a non-political aspect. This may seem strange coming from the Conservative Bench, but for many of us who have not been part of a party-political machine, it is very important to see how a non-political Front Bench can work to reach out across the Chamber to all sides of this House. It is these qualities of experience, knowledge, constancy and a type of non-politicalness which allows this House to do the work it does, and which brings it respect right across the world, as has been mentioned today. I commend my noble friend for tabling this amendment, and I hope it will be listened to with sympathy.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I think this amendment shows the problem that we were discussing earlier with the groupings, because we have actually been discussing, along with this amendment, Amendment 9 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord True, and they both deal with the question of the future of those hereditaries who play a major part in your Lordships’ House.

The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, told us what he finds extraordinary. I think the vast majority of the country would find it extraordinary, if they realised it, that 10% of the legislature derives from fewer than 800 families in the country. Most people do not really realise that; if they did, they would be very surprised and most of them, frankly, would be appalled.

I looked at the hereditaries as a group one wet, sad afternoon. I divided them not into sheep and goats but into three: those who were active, those who were partially active, and those who were inactive. In response to the list of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, of those who are very active, I could, but will not, read out to the Committee a list of equal length, if not longer, of hereditaries who are virtually inactive. This is not a criticism of them more than it is of any other group. However, it is the case that some Members in the hereditary group are very active and well respected, but, like in all other groups, there are others who, frankly, are not.

Therefore, if we are looking to what should happen next and whether we should seek to retain some of the expertise that the hereditaries have, surely the way to do it is not as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Soames, nor by the noble Lord, Lord True, but to encourage the parties to appoint those hereditaries who are very active and eminent in their groups to life peerages as those numbers come up. I hope very much that we will do so in respect of the Liberal Democrats—we have fewer hereditaries than some of the other groups—but that seems to me to be the logical way of doing it. It is what we did, to a certain extent, in our party after the vast bulk of hereditaries left in 1999. That is the precedent that we should seek to follow now, rather than having a broader category of exemptions, as the noble Lord suggests, or a complete continuation along the lines previously proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, which the noble Lord, Lord True, is about to suggest.