House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to make two brief points. First, with regard to what has just been said by the noble Baroness, I strongly support the idea of time-limited persons in this House, whether they are Ministers, appointed for a particular short term or—my own favoured proposal—for fixed terms of, say, 10 years, which addresses some of my noble friend’s point.

Amendment 90C, which my noble friend Lord Brady does not intend to move, would be seriously bad news. If this House is to perform its function as a revising Chamber by scrutinising legislation, it is essential that the Government of the day are represented by competent Ministers who can answer questions from the Opposition or their own Benches. If my noble friend’s amendment, which he does not intend to move, was ever to find favour, the role of this House would be hugely diminished.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, support Amendment 67 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Laing of Elderslie, which I have signed.

As a stalwart participant in debates about the future of your Lordships’ House, in particular on the principle of its hereditary membership, it has been a source of constant frustration to me that the House has been unable since 2015 to make even minor and sensible reforms to our composition, until now. There are several sensible amendments to this Bill that go beyond removing the hereditary basis for membership, and I support the principle of this one.

I have looked at ministerial appointments made by way of creating a new peerage since 2015. There have been 29 in this period, of which nine—or approximately one-third—have lasted as Ministers for less than a year. Only seven of the 29 new Peers created in this way have lasted as Ministers for more than two years. Therefore, 76% of them have not lasted as Ministers for two years, but all of them have been granted lifetime membership of the House. I then looked at the record of those appointed Ministers in this way after they ceased to be Ministers. Of the 29, 11 have gone on to make fewer than 10 spoken contributions and only 12 have made more than 50. Fifteen did not serve on a committee, 17 took part in fewer than 50 Divisions and only eight took part in more than 100 Divisions. It is a great source of frustration to many in the House that we have seen so many ministerial appointments which involved the granting of a life peerage, with the newly appointed Ministers lasting only a very short period of time in office and then mostly disappearing without trace from our Chamber but without choosing to resign from it.

If ministerial appointments created in that way continue at the same rate over the next decade, we will add another 30 Members to the House. That would make the cull of the hereditary Members less justified, if it were simply about numbers. One ministerial Peer would be created for every three hereditary Peers removed, and the ministerial Peers are likely to be of less value to the House in the long run.

All the evidence suggests that peerages created to enable ministerial appointments inflate our size while not invariably providing Members who are very active beyond the term of their ministerial office. We need to end the practice of a peerage for life being granted simply to enable ministerial appointments to be made from outside the membership of the House of Commons. Almost everyone agrees that the House of Lords is too large and that it is not well served by having Members who inflate our numbers without properly participating in our work.

Therefore, I hope that the Government will look favourably at ending the link between a life peerage and ministerial office. They could, at the very least, expect any new Ministers appointed in this way, at the end of their term of ministerial office, either to remain as active in the House as expected by the standards of the House of Lords Appointments Commission or to resign immediately from membership of the House. A public statement from the Prime Minister that this will be the case would be a welcome step, pending more wide-ranging reforms of the House. It would make an amendment such as this less necessary and avoid further debate.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I hold my noble friends proposing these amendments in high regard, but I am sorry to say that they display a misunderstanding of the relationship between a Lords Minister and other Members of your Lordships’ House. I do not understand how the House would work if my noble friend Lord Brady’s amendment were to be accepted. What would be the point of being in the House of Lords if we were unable to influence a Minister on a Peer-to-Peer basis?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)]

This has been a really interesting debate. I will not address the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Brady, because he has not moved it, which makes life a bit easier. However, he supported Amendment 67, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Laing, which seeks to allow individuals to be appointed as temporary Peers so that they can serve as Ministers, after which they would depart this House.

Although the Government see the reasoning behind this amendment, we do not think it is the best way of achieving our objective of a smaller, more active Chamber. Ministers are appointed to the Government because of the experience and expertise they bring to this House, and the House benefits hugely from that. Some Ministers appointed to this House who were Members of Parliament bring both an intrinsic understanding of the other place and valuable experience of particular government departments. I have said before that in my view, both Houses work most effectively when we understand each other’s day-to-day workings. That is a really important point.

Others have been appointed as Ministers in recognition of the value of their experience outside of government, in the private sector and in other areas of public service. As noble Lords have said, we are lucky enough to have a number of such experts on the Benches with us. My noble and learned friend Lord Hermer and my noble friend Lord Timpson were recently appointed to this House to serve as Ministers, as was the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, in the last Parliament.

Whatever the precise reasons for their appointment, I think noble Lords would agree that these individuals proved valuable to the House long after they ceased to be Ministers. This amendment risks depriving the House of often considerable experience.

I understand the sentiment of this amendment. New Peers, whether appointed as Ministers or not, increase the size of this House, because appointments are for life, and the House has become too big. What the House has found frustrating is that, often, when Ministers are appointed and come into this House, they leave their ministerial posts quite quickly and make no further contribution. That is not the case for the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, and certainly not for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Agnew. All three of them resigned from government on a matter of principle, but they have continued to participate.

We would not have had the benefit of the noble Lord in the debate today if he had been subject to the noble Baroness’s amendment. This is an important point to make. The noble Lord, Lord Agnew, has continued to contribute. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, has been contributing to today’s debate. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, says, but I suspect that they do not have his unique skills in persuading the Prime Minister to keep them in.

The noble Baroness’s amendment is not the way to address the problem of the size of our House. Our objective is to create a smaller, more active Chamber that represents the country it serves. As we have said throughout Committee, the Government believe that a mandatory retirement age is the most effective way to do this. It is right that we take time, as a House, to continue the dialogue on how best we can implement these manifesto commitments, and this amendment would pre-empt that dialogue.

I have heard what the noble Baroness has to say, but the evidence is here before us. It is not for the first time that I have congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, on his participation, and it would be terrible if we did not have him here in today’s debate. I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, would the Minister consider raising with the Prime Minister the suggestion that I made of a statement along the lines I indicated in my speech, which would enable a Prime Minister to make Ministers by way of creating a peerage, but for such Peers to continue in the role only if they undertook regular participation in the House in future, and, if they did not, that they should therefore resign their membership of the House?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

As the noble Lord knows, we are going to look at participation generally. That means that we have to engage in proper dialogue and consultation, so I do not accept the noble Lord’s point. I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Rennard Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, this Bill is a very modest measure from a Government that so far, in terms of constitutional reform, have much to be modest about. The Bill is a long way away from proposing an elected House, which Labour supported overwhelmingly in 2012, and from previous Labour manifestos, such as that in 2010, when it was previously in government. However, the modest nature of the Bill is not a reason to reject it today.

Some Members of your Lordships’ House were here, as I was, through every stage of all the attempts to end the farcical process of holding by-elections to elect new hereditary Peers. But for the by-elections since 1999 topping up the number of hereditary Peers by 57, the modest measure before us today would therefore have involved only around 31 Peers. I am not sure that, in those circumstances, this Government would have felt it necessary to proceed with this Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who opposed the gentle measure of ending those by-elections, said today that this is a “nasty little Bill”, and suggested that Members of your Lordships’ House do not know who is a hereditary and who is a life Peer. He needs only to look at the UK Parliament website if he is in any doubt. From his Front Bench, we heard the noble Lord, Lord True, promise full-blooded opposition to this Bill, as the Conservatives fight to preserve the position of hereditary Peers, but his party’s position will be seen as blue-blooded opposition. If his party delays the Bill, the question then asked will be why they do not have other priorities that matter more to people in this country.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, appeared to consider that removing the hereditary basis for membership here is somehow a democratic outrage, while the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, accused those of us supporting the Bill of gerrymandering. However, the arguments about democratic outrage are a bit rich from those who abused their power in the last Parliament to gerrymander every possible election rule in their favour. The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, want to postpone the Bill taking effect until the end of this Parliament, which is the classic approach of Saint Augustine’s prayer:

“Lord, make me pure, but not yet”.


We need not spend much time on this Bill, but will we see numerous, barely relevant amendments and unnecessary de-groupings that ensure we spend many more days debating it? We hear often that ending the hereditary basis for membership of the House is a breach of a gentlemen’s agreement made in 1999, but as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, made clear, this agreement was based on blackmail; agreements made under duress should not be considered binding. In any event, no gentlemen’s agreement carries more weight than the legislative process, and as my noble friend Lord Newby said earlier, no Parliament can bind its successors. I wonder how some noble Lords would feel if Brexit had been blocked in 2020 simply because Parliament agreed on membership in 1972 and that could not be changed.

In the last 25 years, only Peers have been able to vote for Peers, and only from a very limited pool comprising only men who have inherited their position through their fathers. This Bill does not provide for what should really be done in relation to Lords reform, far from it, but that is not a reason to block a modest reform now. What we want to follow is more fundamental reform.

The Leader of the House explained how this Bill will make a modest contribution to moving the House in a more proportional direction in terms of voting. I hope therefore that this is a first step towards proportional representation more generally, as most of her Labour colleagues in the House of Commons voted recently in support of Sarah Olney’s Bill providing for PR, which was passed by two votes.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, we are hearing in this Chamber from some Members—often hereditary Members—who are unhappy that we are considering ending completely the principle of hereditary membership of this House. Other members, such as those on these Benches, are unhappy that we have made such little progress on reforming the House. All of us should reflect on the failure by previous Conservative Prime Ministers—I exempt the noble Baroness, Lady May, from this criticism—to stick to the one-in, two-out principle, which has caused the embarrassing expansion in the size of the House. We should also reflect on the failure to bring an end to the process of holding by-elections to replace hereditary Peers—despite the wishes of the House and the great efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott—caused by filibustering by a handful of hereditary Peers, who have now forced a more radical proposal on themselves.

Then there is the failure of the Labour Party—for purely tactical reasons, based on opposition to the form of parliamentary boundary reorganisation that was then being proposed—to agree any form of timetable Motion for the House of Lords Reform Bill 2012. That Bill received overwhelming support in the House of Commons: it passed by 462 votes to 124, with 90% of Labour MPs supporting it—including every single member of the current Cabinet who was an MP in 2012. It was based on promises made in all three main parties’ manifestos in the 2010 general election.

As my noble friend Lord Newby said, we will always point out that the aim of replacing membership based on the hereditary principle with membership based on the popular principle was included in the preamble to the Liberal Government’s 1911 House of Lords reform Act. Only in this place could 113 years be considered too short a time to agree the details.

In a recent article in the Times, Melanie Phillips said:

“Hereditary peers are essential: don’t ditch them”.


But this is not about all the people; it is about the principle of hereditary membership, which we should ditch. An arrangement for some hereditary Members to be re-appointed based on merit could again be made.

The 92 hereditary Peers are not an essential safeguard against an appointed House because hereditary peers are now effectively appointed when they are chosen by a very small number of their fellow Peers in the extraordinary process that we call hereditary by-elections. This is not, as is sometimes suggested, a superior way of becoming a Member of this House to that of being appointed by a party leader. Party leaders have at least been elected as an MP by their constituents and as a leader by their party members.

We should remember in our debate that we are the only legislature in the world to reserve seats for a particular religious group, apart from Iran. We are the only legislature in the world to reserve seats for people on a hereditary basis, apart from Lesotho. But we are probably not the only legislature in the world in which principles of patronage can sometimes have a corrupting influence on its composition. UK Prime Ministers can, in the present arrangements, dangle nominations in front of people, some of whom may suddenly change their principles and become compliant with that Prime Minister’s wishes, while others who may hold worthy but more critical views are blocked by them or by their own party leaders.

In the present arrangements, therefore, the House of Lords Appointments Commission should be able to vet suitability and propriety, without any prime ministerial veto of their decisions. The commission should be able to make nominations according to a quota determined by the number of Peers appointed by other routes. We must move on from 1911.