House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, that we are extremely unlikely to see any further opportunity of Lords reform in the lifetime of this Government. It would be the first Government that had ever managed to achieve that in my 35 years in this House, and I do not see why the rules should have changed again, so it is really important that we get the discussion done now and move things forward a bit.

I like the amendment in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, very much. It has the virtue of creating a big change at the end of a Parliament, just when you need a big change so that you can alter the balance of the House a bit and bring in Ministers. In my experience of this place, I think that 20 years is the right time; 15 years feels too short. It takes a good long while to embed yourself, and then one does have a decent, useful life after that, so 20 years feels better to me. I agree with the noble Viscount that we should go for a proper way of remunerating Members of this House. The sooner that pensionable, taxable remuneration comes in, the better. There is no excuse for the current system.

I can comfort the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes: if she ever feels powerful in this place, she will be immensely lucky. We are like waves breaking on the rocks of the seashore. Most of the time, we just bounce off. Occasionally, we manage to shift a grain of sand, and very occasionally, somehow, we all come together and shuffle a rock down the slope and into the deep, as with the unlamented Schools Bill in the last Parliament, or as my noble friend Lady Owen has achieved with her ambitions in this Parliament.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, the problem with any debate on House of Lords reform is that it very quickly descends into self-interest. As a relatively youthful Member of your Lordships’ House, who is already more than one-third of his way through what would be a 15-year term, it may not surprise your Lordships to hear that I am not especially attracted to this idea. By contrast, I am sure that some octogenarian colleagues on the Government Benches, some but not all of whom are in their places today, are perhaps keener on this potential reform than they would be about implementing that part of the Government’s manifesto which relates to a retirement age, but I think that it has been worthy of separate consideration.

When my noble friend Lord Remnant was speaking, I was struck by the fact that age is of course a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, which the last Labour Government brought in, whereas length of tenure is a question of good governance. My noble friend spoke from his own experience in the private sector in making his points. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, that I have asked for one of my later amendments to be grouped with the others in the next group, so I am keen to make good progress.

I note that both the Minister responding and I are in what I suppose would be called in the terms of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, our primary working years—I am glad to see her in her place responding. I was struck by the question of the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, “What then?” not so much from the employment rights angle, although noble Lords have raised some pertinent points about the way that active Members of your Lordships’ House are remunerated, but more from the point that, if we were to be ushered out at the end of a term, those of us who have come in at a younger age would be thinking about what comes next in terms of our careers. In government, we have put in place a sensible mechanism, through the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, to make sure that Ministers are not abusing their position to line up their next gig. I would worry slightly that, if we were to have limited terms here, people who were looking to serve in your Lordships’ House and then leave and do something next, in the next chapter of their career, would be thinking about “What next?” and lining up some lucrative opportunities, whether in financial or political ways.

My noble friend Lord Attlee rightly drew attention to the fact that we have less interest in media coverage or the clips that we might put on social media. I often say, when talking to friends outside the House about our work here, that we do not, unlike another place, play to the Gallery. That is mostly because there are very few people in the Gallery watching debates in your Lordships’ House, but I think that a lot of us are dispassionate, by virtue of the fact that we have taken an oath, as the noble Lord, Lord Desai, reminded us, to sit here and give our dispassionate views for the rest of our service here, and that is something that is worth holding on to. I am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, for bringing this amendment before us for consideration and for highlighting its origins in the royal commission chaired by my noble friend Lord Wakeham under the last Labour Government.