House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Lord Shinkwin and Lord Dobbs

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, a great and very wise public servant once said that the House of Lords is a disgrace and the enemy of good government. He explained why: it is filled, he said, with people who know what they are talking about. That great servant of the state was, of course, Sir Humphrey.

Our hereditaries have not scratched and scrabbled their way into this House simply for a title. They have already got one—in some cases, several. I doubt that most of them have come here for the occasional 300 quid. By and large, like the rest of us, they have come here to do what they see as their public duty, because they have something to offer—something unique and special. In the words of Sir Humphrey, they do know what they are talking about. I hope that Sir Keir will listen to Sir Humphrey. Sir Keir wants to get his legislation through, and he must, but there is no need to rip this place apart to do so.

My noble friend Lady Mobarik’s amendment is one of many that have been put forward that could bring about a happy solution—the indisputable rights of the Labour Government in harmony with the indubitable duties of this House of Lords. Our hereditary system is coming to an end. That is not in doubt. But our individual hereditary colleagues—our noble friends the Howes, the Kinnoulls, the Strathclydes, the Stansgates and the Addingtons—are not the enemy. They have been, and they are, exceptional public servants.

A very clear mood has emerged around this House this afternoon in almost every speech. I hope that we and the Government will take that into account. There will come a day when we all will have to leave this place. May we go with grace and may we go with the gratitude of our colleagues ringing in our ears. Hereditary Peers deserve no less.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 90E in the names of my noble friend Lady Mobarik and her eclectic range of cross-party sponsors. I congratulate her on the eloquent and powerful conviction with which she moved her amendment. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, for her principled and courageous cross-party stance.

As a disabled person, I am quite used to people feeling sorry for me. Today, the people I feel sorry for are the Government, because of the unenviable quandary they find themselves in. There they are with an overwhelming majority in the other place—yet the effect of this Bill will be to undermine your Lordships’ House as the only remaining check within Parliament on their untrammelled power.

That is why I welcome this amendment: because it would help the Government out of their quandary by giving them, and indeed us all, the opportunity to consider the question of our hereditary colleagues from a different, non-discriminatory perspective, one that draws on what unites us and makes us strong as a House of disparate lived experiences, social backgrounds and beliefs, as the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, reminded us. I hope today’s debate will help us all view the question under consideration through the prism of the one theme that I feel has emerged so far and that binds us together: our common commitment to service.

I asked our excellent Library for a few statistics, and I thank it for enabling me to give the numbers a human face—something that is so absent from this clinical Bill. I would like to put the numbers in the context of our hereditary colleagues’ loyal service to your Lordships’ House and to the country. Some 48 of our 87 hereditary colleagues serve as committee members, two as committee chairs. Six of our hereditary colleagues serve as Lord Deputy Speakers: one non-affiliated, one Conservative, three Cross-Bench and one Labour. Eleven of our hereditary colleagues serve on the Opposition or Liberal Democrat Front Benches, or, in the case of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, as Convenor of the Cross Benches.

If we look at attendance, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, reminded us, we can all agree that it is a really useful and important indicator of commitment to your Lordships’ House. In the 2019-24 Parliament, life Peers attended 47% of the time; our hereditary colleagues attended 49%.

Finally, I will mention length of service and dedication to duty. The average length of service of our hereditary colleagues is 23 years, and the longest length of service is 62 years. That alone is impressive.

There is one figure the significance of which puts the whole concept of loyal dedication and service to your Lordships’ House in perspective: 2,080. That is the total years of service given to your Lordships’ House by our 88—now 87—hereditary colleagues, if we include those who were re-elected following the 1999 reforms. The tragedy of this Bill is that it implies that that counts for nothing. Instead, our cherished, dedicated hereditary colleagues are to be cast out. Look at them, my Lords: they sit among us today, continuing to serve loyally while we debate their fate and they languish—politically at least—on death row, awaiting a summary execution. Is this really how they deserve to be treated?