House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord Mancroft

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mancroft]

I think that the Standing Orders do not require me to declare an interest given that most people in this House know I am a hereditary Peer—and I am delighted to be one. What I am not is a placeman of a Prime Minister.

That is the issue which divides the House today. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde has quite rightly said that no one is defending the hereditary peerage in the way it was defended in 1908 and 1911. That is not the attempt; rather, it is the inadvertent effect of this Bill, which is of concern to many of my noble friends and indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who referred to it earlier. By creating an appointed House without an appointments commission, we create a monster whether we want it or not. I say this with great respect to noble Lords throughout the House, however they came to be here.

The joke that is repeated in the newspapers is that this is the second-largest Chamber in the world after the Beijing second Chamber. That is probably correct, but it is pointless and irrelevant. What is much more important is that, if we were to go down the route the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is seducing us to follow, we will have done something that is unique in the world. We will have created a second Chamber that is virtually a retirement home for the Members of its first Chamber. In other words, we would create a second Chamber which is the poodle of the political establishment of the day.

At the moment, we are going through one of the most difficult periods in our political development—certainly during my time in this House. The passage of Brexit and our departure from the European Union is causing huge problems, the biggest of which is the separation between—

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords—

[Lord Mancroft]

If the noble Lord will kindly allow me to finish, I will give way to him. As I say, we are seeing the separation of the majority in both Houses of Parliament from the majority of the people. Both may mildly have changed their minds in the meantime, but that is what has happened. We have a Parliament which is completely cut off from the way the people are going. If we go down the route that the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, takes us, we will move even further in that direction. That is why I am opposed to it.

[Lord Mancroft]

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, trumps the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, I recall almost exactly the same speech being made in almost exactly the same terms by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, in Committee. It might be helpful to remind noble Lords that paragraph 8.138 of the Companion states:

“Arguments fully deployed either in Committee of the whole House or in Grand Committee should not be repeated at length on report”.


I think it will facilitate our discussion for the next 40 minutes if all noble Lords would adhere to that principle.

[Lord Mancroft]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for reminding me of that, but I am afraid that he was referring to the speech I made on last year’s Bill. I did not speak at the Committee stage of this year’s Bill.

House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord Mancroft

Friday 9th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, the noble Lord is correct in terms of the technicalities of what was in the coalition agreement of 2010. However, it was argued and voted on overwhelmingly by this House and the other place in 2013 that there were many reasons why the Boundary Commission proposals should not go ahead at that point, one of which was the failure to make progress on Lords reform. Reducing the size of the House of Commons from 650 MPs to 600 MPs was not appropriate when we did not reform the House of Lords and make government more accountable in that way.

So now we have to look again at the other measures that were proposed in the Steel Bill, including the ending of by-elections to replace hereditary Peers. Parliamentary by-elections to elect MPs have been a major feature of my political life. However, I cringe with embarrassment at the holding of by-elections in this place in which as few as three Members of your Lordships’ House, who initially inherited their positions here based perhaps upon what their ancestors did centuries ago, choose to elect someone to help formulate the laws of the land from a shortlist of as few as three other people who can be considered by virtue also of what their ancestors may have done.

All of us enjoy showing family, friends and guests around the House, particularly, I would suggest, those from overseas. Some of them come from established democracies and some of them come from places struggling to establish democratic principles. But none of them can understand the archaic way in which we are still choosing some of the people to sit in the second Chamber of our Parliament—supposedly the mother of parliaments. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, not a single woman has ever been elected in this way, as most hereditary peerages descend down the male line.

A year ago, the Guardian published a letter from me saying:

“The election by hereditary peers of the ninth Duke of Wellington (Report, 16 September) to the House of Lords by 21 votes over the Marquess of Abergavenny and the Earl of Harrowby (six votes each) is incomprehensible by any democratic standard”.

On 3 December 2010, in an earlier debate on this subject, I said that,

“the farcical process we have in this House of holding by-elections to elect hereditary Peers brings the House into disrepute. These by-elections have little more resemblance to democracy than the campaign run by Lord Blackadder when he ran the by-election campaign to elect Baldrick in the rotten borough of Dunny-on-the-Wold, where Blackadder was the only elector”.—[Official Report, 3/12/10; col. 1696.]

I was wrong, of course, to describe Edmund Blackadder at that point as a Lord; he was merely a voter in that incarnation—albeit the only voter. In that series, Baldrick was later appointed to the House of Lords by Prince George. But if they had both been appointed in real life, their descendants might now be standing as rival candidates, hatching cunning plans to win by-elections in order to get back into this place.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is amusing the House tremendously but he is talking about a work of fiction. I know that the Liberal Democrats have difficulty distinguishing the difference between fact and fiction, but if the noble Lord could stick to fact, I think that the House would find it very helpful.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, having tried to describe to visitors the current system of electing hereditary Members to this place, I know that they think that is a work of fiction.

More seriously, it is now 106 years since the Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith promised that the hereditary principle would be replaced by the popular principle in determining the composition of this House. That was agreed then by both Houses. However, having listened a few moments ago to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, I was reminded of the view that perhaps only in this House could over 100 years be considered too short a time in which to consider such a principle. But not for me and my party. And we certainly consider that the 17 years since the Weatherill amendment introduced as a temporary measure the concept of by-elections to top up the number of hereditary Peers has been too long. We on these Benches did not agree with that amendment in the first place and would have preferred to see the Parliament Act used, if necessary, and so we are not bound by any such agreement.

We recognise that some of those who are here by virtue of the hereditary principle continue to make a significant contribution to the work of this House and to government. This Bill does not threaten their position in any way. We also believe that passing the Bill will do little good in terms of limiting the size of the House if the system of prime ministerial and party leader appointments continues in the way that it has done in recent years.

We were promised a further phase of reform following that of 1999—the year I joined this House. As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, the Labour Government’s Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill 2010 promised to end the practice of holding by-elections to keep up the numbers of hereditary Peers. But that provision was, sadly, removed during the so-called wash-up period immediately prior to the 2010 general election. The ending of such wash-up periods when elections are called outside a fixed-term cycle was, in my view, a good reason for passing the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.

The history of debates in this House about the future of by-elections for hereditary Peers has not been a happy one. Let us put an end to them now by passing this Bill and bringing an end to a process which does no credit to this House, to Parliament generally or to British democracy.