House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

The problem this House has is that we have had hereditary by-elections ever since his Bill failed and now have a number of very young and active hereditary Peers who are doing a fantastic job in holding the Government to account. They are the ones we want to preserve. Therefore, his argument that we should have passed his legislation and been left with 35 hereditaries does not hold any water at all because they are the ones who are oldest and likely to go anyway. We want to preserve the younger ones who are doing such a valuable job in acting very professionally in this House and holding the Government to account.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I support this amendment and do so scarcely able to believe either the damage that we are doing to ourselves as a House through this divisive, hurtful Bill, or the attitudes underpinning it.

On my way to the House in my chair, I brace myself for sneers, smirks, laughter and even derogatory comments on account of my disability. Sticks and stones may break my bones—and they do—but words will always hurt more. They hurt because they are informed by discrimination against difference—how I look and how I sound, in my case, because of my disability. I am not saying that I experience discrimination in your Lordships’ House, at least not directly, but that I am a reluctant expert on discrimination. My life experience tells me. I know what discrimination looks like and what it feels like to be invalidated and devalued.

I see discrimination in this Bill. I support this amendment because it would go some way to mitigating it. Without this amendment, hereditary Members are effectively being told, contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, has said, that their contributions are invalid and valueless by virtue of their being the wrong type of Peer. If their contributions are valid and valuable today, why not tomorrow? Why not, as this amendment implies, for the rest of their lives, which is the basis on which the vast majority of us were appointed? This amendment provides a middle way, as we have already heard, whereby the Government can honour part of their manifesto while we acknowledge, respect and honour what are in many cases huge, selfless contributions from noble Lords who happen to be hereditary Peers.

That is not to detract from the equally important service, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, has reminded us, of non-hereditary Members of your Lordships’ House. But it is to state a fact that the contribution of hereditary Peers adds value, rather than undermines your Lordships’ House, as the Bill implies.

One of the principles of this House, which made a really big impression on me from day one of my joining it almost 10 years ago, was the sense of equality among its Members. I come from a modest background. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I was born with a broken leg and spent much of my childhood in hospital. I say this not for sympathy but to demonstrate that there is no innate reason why I should support this amendment. However, I do so in terms of privilege versus prejudice. I see prejudice at work in the Bill, to the detriment of your Lordships’ House and its crucial ability to carry out its heavy responsibility of holding the Government of the day to account.

By contrast, what unites rather than divides us is that sense of privilege. I doubt any of us can recall a single maiden speech that did not refer to the sense of privilege that all of us feel when we first speak in this Chamber. The overwhelming feeling is common to us all: hereditary and non-hereditary. Speaking for myself, it has been one of the greatest privileges of my life to serve with our amazing hereditary Peers of all parties.

This amendment would go some way to recognising the extraordinary debt that we owe to our hereditary Members and the enduring values that I think we all associate with this unique place: courtesy, decency and, crucially, mutual respect and equality. As a self-regulated House, surely we have a duty to defend those timeless values. I hope that we can come together as one House, united in those values, and give this amendment the support that it deserves, if and when the option arises.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, when I spoke to Amendment 5, I dealt with a number of issues which I thought were common to that amendment and this amendment, and I will not repeat them.

I begin by saying how much I enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord True. For years, we have listened to him with great passion denouncing the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and everything in his Bill. Tonight, with equal passion, we have heard him advocating it. It was truly a bravura performance.

I have two questions for the noble Lord and one for the Government. The first question is: could the noble Lord explain how he believes that, if we end by-elections, there will be another point at which groups in your Lordships’ House will be excluded en bloc? It is a rather chilling suggestion that this will happen. Is he suggesting that the Conservatives might do it, and who does he have in mind? I feel slightly worried as a Liberal Democrat; he has not always been my greatest supporter. Is he suggesting that the Labour Party will somehow cut a huge swathe at random through other parties? If not, just what does he have in mind? This is a legitimate process via a Bill, and it is very difficult for me to imagine the circumstances that he was putting forward. I am sorry if my understanding is lacking.

Secondly, I suggested when I spoke earlier that the logical way of dealing with Peers who are hereditary but who have an outstanding record of service is that they should return to your Lordships’ House as life Peers. I mentioned that this had happened in 1999 with people like my noble friend Lord Redesdale on my Benches, who came back as a life Peer. The noble Lord, Lord True, said that he rejected the idea of bringing people back as life Peers. That seems strange to me. If the Minister were to suggest to him, in the negotiations which everybody seems keen to have, that additional places might be brought forward for the Conservatives—