House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Reay Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Reay (Con)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom constitution recognises two broad classes of Peer: the Lords spiritual and the Lords temporal. I do not often think of myself as a Lord temporal, but perhaps I should, as it has a certain to ring to it. It even has echoes of Doctor Who and the Time Lords—it might impress my children. There are four categories of Lords temporal: the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain, both royal offices and both hereditary; life Peers; and, finally, hereditary Peers, elected under Standing Orders—I repeat that they are elected, not appointed, and in a number of cases, including my own, elected by the whole House.

It is a source of political and personal sadness to me that this Bill seeks to remove altogether that latter category—in other words, to cancel their elections and to do so not merely prematurely, in flagrant breach of the agreement as enshrined in the law of 1999, but as soon as the end of this parliamentary Session. As for the cancellation of elections—our own elections—how strange, as my noble friend Lady Meyer suggests, those words sound in the mother of Parliaments. How strange, discordant and dismaying.

There is a small consolation, I suppose, that, if the Bill passes, I will spend a short time only on a constitutional death row as an altogether new kind of Lord temporal: a Lord temporary, a dead Peer walking—titles which I fear will not impress my children at all.

The truth is that, however things are dressed up, with no matter how many friendly smiles and whatever warm or weasel words, we are to be bundled out of this place with something that looks a little too like contempt for comfort. Moreover, we are to be bundled out not, say, by a burly bouncer at closing time, or because we have become drunk and disorderly—if only, perhaps—but by an institution and by people we know well, who know us and the nature of our service, its seriousness and quality, and the strength of our participation. This means that things will inevitably feel personal; they will feel personal because they are personal. That is a source not only of sadness but of real disappointment.

There is no public clamour for our instant removal; the Labour Party’s election manifesto made no such commitment. It is also inconsistent with the spirit of the Government’s Employment Rights Bill. We may not be employees but we are people. Frankly, it is not a great look for a governing party to remove from this House, in needless haste and in the absence of wider reform, large numbers of its opponents. It is not a great look, not a great example, and not a great precedent. Who knows who will be next?

The excuse is the strength of feeling to which the issue gives rise in the Labour Party—the passionate intensity with which it rejects the hereditary principle. I feel differently. I accept without hesitation that the hereditaries should depart when this House is fully reformed, and I accept the reasons why. But, at the same time, I do not underestimate our value—as legislators, of course, in a revising Chamber, but also, so to speak, our human value. Democracies are inherently imperfect and in constitutional arrangements, as in life and in love, rationality is not, thank goodness, or should not be, the be all and end all. Strict rationality, dry reason and narrow logic can actually be the foes of the body politic, not its friends—not the tiger in its tank but its kryptonite.

We live in a time of great—I would say revolutionary —cultural change. It is a time to remember that healthy, happy countries, with a coherent sense of themselves, have a past as well as a present and a future, with a soul and beating heart as well as a brain. It is a time to remember the importance of British culture and British political culture, and the growing importance of our historical and ancestral roots, and of watering and respecting those roots. This is one reason we have, and today need more than ever, a monarchy. Is it also the reason the hereditary Peers have survived for as long as they have?

Parliament has many roles. One of those roles is to represent the British people where it really matters and to reflect them back to themselves; to represent their character, fears and desires, hopes and dreams, and humanity, and to give expression to their inchoate feelings—feelings which are no less real or important, perhaps especially at times such as these, for being hard to articulate.

This House is a revising Chamber but it is also, or should be, part of the national conversation. One of its jobs should be—above all, at a time of cultural upheaval—to help elucidate, elevate and lead that conversation. Because they are neither politicians nor appointees, the hereditaries have had, and still have, a valuable role to play in this mission, as have the Lords spiritual and as did, once upon a time, the late lamented Law Lords. In a sense, perverse though this may sound to some, it is by virtue of our very ordinariness. This is neither the moment to remove us, nor the way.