House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Strathcarron Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

My Lords, having read and listened to all I can about the Bill, I am still none the wiser as to why the Government are going ahead with just this reform on its own, or how it will lead to better governance of the country—surely the only real justification for any reform. The official reason given in the manifesto is that the presence of hereditary Peers remains indefensible. But if this is really so, why are there so many Labour Peers, many of them household names, who have benefited themselves or whose children are now benefiting from this “indefensible” principle? And so it will continue: the son of Sue Gray—she is soon to be welcomed among us, apparently—finds himself an MP in a safe seat and an instant PPS, all with generous funding from the noble Lord, Lord Alli; and the current Cabinet is full of examples of rank nepotism. So the objection from the Labour side cannot be to the hereditary principle as a principle, which still leaves the question of why.

Is it to reduce the size of the House? All of us who work here know that this 805 number is largely a red herring, as nearly half that number rarely if ever attend. Library research shows that in 2023, the average daily attendance was 397, of whom 53 were hereditary Peers; without them, the daily number becomes 344, which, I suggest, is borderline for efficiency. So the real reason cannot be to reduce the size of the House by this reform alone, which still leaves the question of why.

Is it simply gerrymandering to ease the path of government business, as is the favoured explanation on this side of the House, especially as the Bill seems to have a suspiciously high priority in the legislative programme? Related to this, is this one-step-backwards, no-steps-forward approach going to lead to better governance of the country? The answer is emphatically not. When the last Government were in power, we were always in the minority and frequently defeated in Divisions, as noble Lords will well remember. A very good thing it was too: the combined forces against us then will be against us now in opposition, and it is not good governance for any party to have an easy majority in both Houses, made worse by any new life Peer being appointed by the Prime Minister, on the basis that loyalty repaid works both ways.

Of course, the Government do not want the country to be governed badly, so that still leaves the question of why. Is it that the hereditary Peers do not pull their weight? As well as the high daily average attendance, no fewer than 51 hereditary Peers are currently serving on the various House of Lords committees. Further research shows that, of the 15 most recently elected Conservative hereditaries, no fewer than nine served or are serving as Ministers, shadow Ministers or Whips—all unpaid, of course. If you include party Whips, it becomes practically a full house, so not pulling their weight cannot be the reason for being kicked out.

That still leaves the question of why. Is it to cull the House of private sector representation? The hereditary Peers stand out as being almost exclusively from the private sector—the only such cohort—and there seems to be a strong disdain for the private sector, as witnessed in the recent Budget and in the fact that nearly all the newly appointed life Peers have come from the public sector.

Those are the “why” questions, and I now turn to the “how” questions. How is this one stand-alone reform going to make the country better governed? How is it going to make this House of Lords a more efficient revising Chamber? How is it going to make this House of Lords a better, happier and more encouraging place in which to work?

If the Bill becomes law as it stands, there is at least one unintended consequence. Nearly all the elected hereditary Peers have come from the private sector and, in order to be elected here, have had to make a firm commitment to give up their current careers and income so as to devote enough time to becoming working Peers. They have all done so willingly, but now they find, through no fault of their own, that they are about to be expelled. In other words, they have kept their side of the bargain and now find that the other side has not. As the elected hereditary Peers will now have to find alternative employment back in the private sector, it would be only fair and reasonable to extend their time here until the end of this Parliament, so they have a chance to do so. That would enable the 51 hereditary Peers who are sitting on committees to complete their work on them. It would also be within the wording of the Labour Party manifesto.

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Lord Strathcarron Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 31st October 2022 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Leicester (Con)]

First, I apologise for not attending Second Reading; I could not be here. I shall speak very briefly against Amendment 16 because I think it is very dangerous to leave out “controversial or unpopular opinions”. Newton had a particularly controversial opinion, Einstein too, and Galileo’s opinion on Copernican heliocentrism, which for you and I is the earth rotating daily and revolving around the sun, was met with opposition by the Catholic Church; he was tried under the Roman Inquisition in 1615 and spent the rest of his life in house arrest. To suggest that we remove the words “controversial or unpopular opinions” is, I think, very dangerous.

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

My Lords, I speak to my Amendments 17, 18, 19 and 21. We have already debated Amendment 17 at some length. I hope that Amendments 18, 19 and 21 are uncontroversial; I merely hope to tighten up and future-proof for anything that comes in the future. I believe that they address some concerns raised in an earlier group by the noble Lords, Lord Collins of Highbury and Lord Triesman, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, and I hope they prove agreeable.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I briefly say that I think the noble Earl has three things he needs to address in this group of amendments. The first is academic freedom, which has been referred to before. My noble friend Lord Triesman has brought to the Committee an amendment that deserves consideration, because I think it helps us. The second issue has created quite a discussion—what is the interface between the terms and conditions, the values and employment of an academic and their speech? I am not going to comment on that, frankly; the noble Earl is going to have to tell us what the Government think about that. The third issue, of course, is whether the other issues raised in this group affect the practicality and appropriateness of universities’ appointment procedures. I am not sure at all that that is the case. Those are the three issues I think the noble Earl will have to address, probably the next time the Committee meets.

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Lord Strathcarron Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 28th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a publisher, often of higher education academic titles, which increasingly are digital-only and therefore easier to take down or cancel than physical books. I will come on to the relevance of that in a moment. Luckily for us all, as I am the last seven-minute speaker, a lot of the points I wanted to make have been expressed very eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, so this is a very shortened version of my speech.

Although any encouragement of free speech is welcome, there is an element here of the Government giving free speech with one hand and taking it away with the other. For example, an academic may now be able to lecture on a controversial subject—say, genetic or, heaven help us, gender politics or identity, all of which would come under legal free speech. But if that professor, one of his or her students or the institution posted that online and somebody out there who read it suffered hurt feelings, as they are bound to, and quickly organised a Twitter mob, which is not difficult to do, the Online Safety Bill would classify the content as “legal but harmful”—what a minefield those three words are—and outsource censorship of it to Silicon Valley AI bots, in exactly the same way as the CCP outsources its censorship of WeChat and Weibo, the Chinese equivalents.

In Committee, I hope we will be able to future-proof the good parts of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill from the bad parts of the Online Safety Bill.