House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Selsdon and Lord Trefgarne

Friday 10th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selsdon]

Yes, I was moving an amendment but I was asking for clarification. I apologise for that. Can anyone in the House give me some clarification?

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, my noble friend raises an important point. I think that the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, goes some way to give the clarification which he requires. If he is still confused—some of us may be—let us talk about it at Third Reading.

[Lord Selsdon]

It is the simple matter that if the Long Title is wrong, it is wrong. Is it wrong or is it right?

[Lord Trefgarne]

It is right now.

[Lord Selsdon]

It is right. That is all I need to know. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Selsdon and Lord Trefgarne

Friday 21st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selsdon]

My Lords, I have been in your Lordships' House for a period of time, and I refer you to Standing Order No. 8. The problem with your Lordships is that you have very little knowledge of Standing Orders or precedents within the House. I am an elected hereditary Peer under an Act of Parliament, as are others. It has been quite convenient for people over a long period of time to drop the word “elected”, but it was an election. That was an agreement binding in honour on Privy Council terms, and should anyone in your Lordships' House wish to know the background, please just send me an e-mail or letter and I will give you a copy of all the submissions I have made over the past 10 or 20 years. We also take precedence according to the ancienty of our degree. Therefore, I can give way to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, because he is slightly more ancient than me in the date of his Letters Patent.

There was an attempt for a long period of time to ignore the fact that there was an election. I do not support the replacement of current people by the proposed system. What I suggested was that all those hereditary Peers who would like to enter the House should have their names submitted to the Appointments Commission for consideration not as a hereditary Peer but as someone who might make a good contribution in future.

I did not really approve of the election process, but I have to admit I was wrong because the quality of the people who have come into this House as a result of those elections is very high. They have a great knowledge, and they make a great contribution. They become what your Lordships will understand to be working Peers although, as I have pointed out in this House on previous occasions, there is no such thing as a working Peer. A Peer sits here not with a job, other than the 10 who are paid, but with a duty and a responsibility. Certain hereditary elements put upon you a greater feeling of duty. Of course I am here because my grandfather was Postmaster-General. It does not matter; that was the way, indirectly, when my father died, but all my family have been in public life. Those of us who have been in public life have a feeling of duty which overwhelms everything else. I do not approve of the Steel Bill. I believe that we should still wait for the government proposals, and I will support all those proposals.

If anyone goes on saying that I am not elected, I am far more legitimate than those people appointed by patronage. At the moment, we have an overwhelming number of people who do not know each other, do not know the rules and do not know what to do. We should be asking what the House of Lords as it is today should be doing in the community and what initiatives it should be taking, instead of squabbling among ourselves about the future. We have a major economic crisis, we have a whole range of problems and within this House we have an amazing collection of people who do not know each other’s abilities. As noble Lords may know, I have a background on every Peer. You could not assemble these 830 or 840 people, but we fail again to understand communication. Half of them do not have PCs, and we are in a world of electronic communication. I believe this debate should go on. I would regard the Steel Bill as a White Paper or a Steel paper. When I first met the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on the Council of Europe many years ago, he tried to persuade me to become a Liberal, partly because of my grandfather. I think the noble Lord has done a good job. He is quite a crafty worker, and this is a bit of good craftsmanship, but it is too crafty by half.

[Lord Trefgarne]

I hope I may be allowed to explain shortly but clearly why I disagree that this clause should remain in the Bill. Back in 1999, the House consisted of some 700 hereditary Peers and 560 or thereabouts life Peers plus the Bishops and the Law Lords, so the vast majority were hereditary Peers. When the Government Bill came forward, it was to remove all those hereditary Peers, each and every one, all the 700. Never in history, surely, was there a Government seeking to remove more than half of one of the Chambers of Parliament by legislation, but the hereditary Peers recognised that there was a case to be made and in the end an arrangement was reached between, as we have heard, my noble friend, now the Marquess of Salisbury, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg. The hereditary Peers did not have to be persuaded by that argument, but they were. The result was that that Bill passed.

Had that agreement not been reached, the Bill would almost certainly not have passed. Indeed, there were a good many life Peers who were not in favour of it. I believe it would not have passed although it could, no doubt, have been forced through with the Parliament Act. However, there is room for more than one respectable view about whether that was possible. The deal that was then done, the arrangements that were agreed between my noble friend and the noble and learned Lord were to the effect that 90 hereditary Peers would remain, re-elected as necessary as they passed on, and two hereditary Peers—the two great officers of state—would come ex officio, so to speak. That was the arrangement, and the arrangement was to remain in place until House of Lords reform was complete. By no stretch of the imagination does this Bill represent complete House of Lords reform. Therefore, in accordance with the undertaking then reached, this clause ought not to be included, and I hope my noble friend Lord Steel will not insist upon it.